Tips for Teaching Phrasal Verbs

 

Shared by Óscar Fuente:

In the following lines I am going to explain some of the strategies that I use when teaching phrasal verbs and idioms at Secondary Education and that I recommend because they are really effective with the students, within the brief experience that I have teaching languages. The matter of phrasal verbs and idioms were covered in the second session of the course.

Learning and using idioms and phrasal verbs can be one of the most fascinating but challenging aspects when we are learning the English language. However, we, as teachers, have the obligation to simplify as much as we can the complexity of these constructions.

For this reason, when I explain this grammatical category, I try to teach phrasal verbs as single units of meaning, explaining the difference between separable and inseparable phrasal verbs. Other differentiation that I employ is to teach idioms by category ranking into “color idioms”, “time idioms”, etcetera. Moreover, I only teach phrasal verbs in advanced levels and always helping students with synonyms for the phrasal verbs we are learning in that particular moment. In every moment I try to simplify, group, or categorize these constructions in order to facilitate the comprehension to the students.

Another strategy that I use is to introduce 2-3 of phrasal verbs twice a week, in an attempt to create a routine and students can assimilate the content easily and gradually. I also build a list of phrasal verbs that start with the same word, for instance, come in, come along, and come up with. A final strategy that I employ is to explain the phrasal verbs that are mainly used in informal speech, trying to remark those phrasal verbs that are “more useful” in informal situations and everyday conversations.