Teaching Collocationsby: Gábor Hoványi and Gábor Szekeres

Why is it important?

● Words do not appear in isolation.● Without instruction students tend to use

them incorrectly.● Typical mistakes: overuse, underuse.● Proper knowledge of collocations improves

fluency and accuracy.

How to teach them

● Raising awareness.● Organization in semantic groups.● Selecting tasks which concentrate on

collocations.● Variation in tasks.

Task 1: Find the intruder

example: EFFORT make do increase resist

● simple multiple-choice type task● Ideally used together with reading or writing

tasks.

Post-it Warmers

● Collocations are split into two halves and then given to students.

● Mingling activity.● Useful to revise known collocations.● Ideal to liven up a group.

Dictionary entry

● Used for introducing new vocabulary.● Students get to know target language

dictionary entries.● Students practice giving target language

explanations.

Task 4: Synonym organiser

Blueprints when to use which synonym

Giving a text with synonyms to the students“What is the difference in meaning between glance and glimpse?”

→ Giving three incomplete sentences to each

synonymous word which they have to fill out

(most frequent)

Task 5: Do/Make distinction

Repetition to listening tasks→ Rephrasing exerciseexample:

Do the dishes – clean the dishes or plates

Make a scene / ruckus – to create fuss or

drama

Task 6: Collocations Scavenger Hunt

Make a chart listing the common types of collocationsYou can also include a column on the chart for point values of each collocation → one point for each collocation found (or giving more points for more difficult collocations)example: N + N, V + N, Adj + N, Adv + Adj collocations

Task 7: Creating collocations using a Thesaurus

Supply the students with a list of collocationsTry to select one that would produce the most variationsEach pair/group should choose a different collocationGive them a thesaurus

Task 7: Creating collocations using a Thesaurus

example:Main Entry: message

Part of Speech: noun

Definition: communication, often written

Synonyms: bulletin, cannonball, communiqué, directive,

dispatch, dope, earful, epistle, information,

intelligence, intimation, letter, memo,

memorandum, missive, news, note, notice, paper,

report, tidings, wire, word

Task 8: Collocate search

Give the students a list of keywords found in the text and ask them to find the words that go with themOnce all the collocations have been found, you could ask the students to classify them according to type (e.g., Verb + Noun, Adj. + Noun, etc.)

Task 9: Reconstructing the text

All you need are one or two relatively short texts1 text → work individually to select the ten most important collocations in the text- compare lists of collocations with a partner

and if there are differences- reconstruct the text in writing with their

partner

Task 10: Listening for collocations

Take any recording that you have a tape script for (coursebooks)Divide the tape script up so that you will have a piece of the tape script for each group in the classMake a photocopy of the tape script and cut it up and give each group one section

Task 10: Listening for collocations

Underline a certain number of collocations → CheckWrite form and meaning clues for their collocations and list them in order that they appear in the tape scriptexample: the collocation was “take the subway”, the form and meaning clue might be: V + N: use an underground train