Phrasal verbs:

making do with a problematic area or

coming up with practical solutions?

Falling behind, getting by, or storming ahead? Dos and Don'ts of teaching phrasal
verbs

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Hello everyone from a sunny and warm Athens Greece. I hope you're all well, and
enjoying the Macmillan Online Conference. I also hope you can all see and hear me
ok. If you can, can you just say 'yes' in the chat window, or click the 'yes' tick. …

OK – I'm presuming then that as lots of people are saying yes, everyone can hear me.

So – in this session we're thinking about phrasal verbs. I'm going to be putting up
quite a lot of information on the slides over the next 45 minutes or so but please
don't feel you have to write it all down. You don't. There'll be a handout available for
download at the end of this session with all the key information on it.

A couple of other messages before we start:

Firstly, very little of what I'm going to talk about is my own original work, so I'd like to
credit:

The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English

The Collins Cobuild Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs

The Macmillan English Dictionary

Work done by me and others for Destination and Laser

The 2nd message is that this is really just a beginners guide to phrasal verbs – there's
a lot more to say on the subject of register and formality, for example – so apologies
in advance if all of this seems obvious to you.

So – phrasal verbs.

Let me start by asking you two key questions. We're going to use the tick and cross
buttons for this. If you think the answer to the question is yes, you put a tick. If you
think the answer is no, you put a cross. OK?

or – fall behind / get by / storm ahead

So – the first question. Do your students generally find it easy to remember phrasal
verbs and use them effectively?
Second question - Do you personally find it easy to remember phrasal verbs and use
them effectively?

Right – interesting!

For me, to be honest, I think if I was a student learning English, one of the aspects of
vocabulary learing I'd struggle with most is phrasal verbs. They just seem really
confusing. And there seem to be so many permutations. So what we're going to do
in this session is look at:

* why phrasal verbs are particularly troublesome

* how we can start to understand the fundamental logic and patterns behind phrasal
verbs

* some key dos and donts in the teaching and learing of phrasal verbs

So – let's start with why phrasal verbs are particularly troublesome and we'd better
start with perhaps the most troublesome aspect of all – the definition of phrasal
verbs. Deciding what they are. And that's not a simple thing at all, and grammarians
don't always agree and dictionaries don't all agree. They can't even agree on the
terminology. Some people prefer to use the term 'multi-word verb' with 'phrasal
verb' as one of the different types of multi-word verb. Although I don't think we have
to do that in the classroom – I think it's quite ok to call them phrasal verbs in class –
we're going to do that here.

So – a multi-word verb could maybe be defined as something like this:

a main verb plus a particle* (or particles) where it's often difficult or impossible to
work out the meaning by looking at the individual words

* particle = adverb or presposition or verb

eg

Andy I I don't really get on.

One of the problems with phrasal verbs that I think our students have is that it isn't
always wasy to tell what is a phrasal verb and what isn't.

She came down the stairs. Is that a phrasal verb? No, it's not. It's the verb 'to come'
followed by the adverbial phrase 'down the stairs'. Grammarians sometimes call that
a 'free combination'

She came down with flu. That is a multi-word verb, and 'come down with' needs to
be viewed as one lexical item.

Then, as we said, within the category of multi-word verb there are several different
types.

There are:

phrasal verbs
prepositional verbs

phrasal prespositional verbs This is something with which I won't put up.

verb + noun (+ preposition)

verb + prepositional phrase

verb + verb

So – the grammar behind phrasal verbs is rather daunting, to say the least.

The ones I mainly want to look at today are phrasal verbs and phrasal prespositional
verbs, but we might touch on one or two of the other categories as well.

What's also daunting is the number of phrasal verbs. Sone estimates say there are
something in the region of 3000 common phrasal verbs, with maybe double that in
terms of meanings – some phrasal verbs have more than one meaning, of course.
These are made up of only about about 40 main particles. No wonder out students
have problems with them!

particles

aback

about

above

across

after

against

ahead

along

among

apart

around

as

aside

at

away

back
before

behind

below

beneath

between

beyond

by

down

for

forth

forward

from

in

into

of

off

on

onto

out

over

overboard

past

round

through

to

together

towards

under
up

upon

with

without

And the question we have to ask at this point then is – what are the best ways to
help our students deal with the complexities and difficulties of p verbs.

Most coursebooks have sections on phrasal verbs, and many books on the market
today present them by main verb:

Write a phrasal verb from the box in the correct form in each gap.

take for

take in

take off

take over

take up

And throughout the coursebook there are phrasal verbs with take, p verbs with get, p
verbs with set, p verbs with put, etc.

There's a fundamental problem with this approach, and I believe it actually makes
things harder for our students. Because what do they phrasal verbs have in common
in terms of meaning? Absolutely nothing! To be taken in meaning to be tricked has
got absolutely nothing to do with to take over a company. The only think those verbs
have got in common is that they start with the same 4 letters of the alphabet. TAKE.
We would never – I think, I hope – we would never go into the classroom and say
'Right kids, today we're going to learn 8 verbs beginning with H: hurry / handle /
hope / hop / hit / hate / heat. We don't teach vocabulary that way. But phrasal verbs
are vocabulary, so if we teach them this way, that's exactly what we're doing. Just
teaching an alphabetical list of unrelated verbs.

So – we have to avoid that strategy at all costs. When we're teaching – I'm not saying
we can't use it for testing purposes. And I'm also not saying that we can never focus
on main verb. We can – if there's a connection between the p verbs. For example, p
verbs with look or see or write may well have a meaning in common between them.
But p verbs starting with take or set or get etc almost certainly don't.

The question then is, of course, how should we present and teach p verbs. I would
argue there are two much more effective ways. The first is to treat phrasal verbs just
a we treat one-word lexis and teach it within the contect of a topic.

topic: travel - destination / pack / suitcase / land / take off / check in

topic: daily activites – wake up / get up / brush teeth/hair / get dressed

topic: communication: call / phone back / get through / email / etc

It doesn't matter at all the some of these lexical items are one word and some are
more than one word. [expand?]

This is the natural way for students to encounter new phrasal verbs – within a text
on a particular topic. The skill is to work out whether it is a phrasal verb or not, and
what from the context it means. Secondary aspects to this are what is the grammar
of the phrasal verb, and what is its register/formality

The 2nd effective way I would argue of presenting and teaching phrasal verbs is to
organise and arrange them by particle – by the little words. Because although the
particles can seem random, they usually aren't. There's usually a reason why we use
one particular particle and not another. And for students to understand that
fundamental logic behind phrasal verbs makes the whole thing much easier to grasp.

That's why it's possible for people to come up with new phrasal verbs all the time,
and for others to understand what they mean.

The more that students can understand the meaning of the particles – the reason
WHY it's put off a meeting not, say, put down a meeting – the easier they'll find
phrasal verbs to learn and use.

Now, I want to make this absolutely clear so there's no misunderstanding. I'm not
suggesting that we should take any and all phrasal verbs with the same particle and
lump them together.

If we have:

put up (prices)

look up (in a dictionary)

take up (a hobby)

make up (after a fight or argument)

I'm not convinced that there's a connection in terms of meaning between the phrasal
verbs. So all we're left with once again is a disparate list of unconnected verbs.

However, what if we had this…

put up (prices)

speak up

whip up (support)

brighten up

jazz up
speed up

do up (a house)

Is there some kind of connection in terms of meaning between them? Yes, there is.
Can anyone see what it is?

Right, 'up' here means 'increase'. If you put up prices, you increase them. If you
speak up, you increase the volume of your voice. If you 'do up a house' you improve
it. And improve basically means 'increase the quality of'.

Can anyone think of any more?

beef up / hurry up / buck up / dress up / fix up / wake up / warm up

and this ties in directly with what I was talking about in the last presentation I did for
the Macmillan Online Conference, where we were talking about metaphor. Because
what's happening here is that we have a few words that are fundamental concepts of
location or movement, and we use them metaphorically.

Incidentally, it's this literal or metaphorical double use that's the source of a lot of
word play jokes in English. One joke I used to tell when I was a child:

A hole has appeared in the middle of the M1. Police are looking into it.

Another one that I've heard a few comedians say:

Wherever my aunt is now, I'm sure she's looking down on me. She isn't dead, just
very condescending.

What training do you need to become a rubbish collector? None. You pick it up as
you go along.

Why can't ghosts tell lies? Because you can always see through them.

'phrasal verb jokes' into a search engine like google

some of these can be found here:

http://www.lingolex.com/itp/phrasalverbs.htm

matching task with jokes

So, we said 'up' could be used to mean 'increase'.

There are actually an enormous amount of literal/metaphorical categories.

match
increasing and improving – speak up

preparing and starting – draw up / set up

fastening and restricting – fasten up / do up

approaching – catch up (with)

disrupting and damaging / failing – mess up

completing and finishing – wind up / drink up / use up

rejecting and surrendering – give up / pay up

happening and creating – dream up / make up / come up

collecting and togetherness – sweep up / fold up / double up

revealing and discovering – dig up / look up / show up / open up

separating – split up / slice up / break up / chop up

Now, let's think about these particles. What can they mean metaphorically? One of
them has 2 meanings

about – lack of activity or purpose – lounge about / hang about / mess about / fool
about

across – finding – come across / stumble across

down – attacking and destroying – burn down / chop down / tear down / smash
down

off – separating – brick off / close off / fence off / rope off / cordon off / block off

on – starting and operating – turn on / switch on / bring on / log on / get on / catch

on

out – searching and finding – find out / pick out / work out / make out / look out /
worm out

out – complete – print out / carry out / fill out / set out / thrash out / turn out

And let's try to come up with two or three examples of phrasal verbs that have
particles with this meaning

out – supporting and helping – hand out / help out / bail out / straighten out
up – fastening and restricting – close up / sew up / turn up / belt up / brick up / tape
up / scrunch up

along – making good/bad progress – get along / come along / drag along / move
along

repeating/returning – back – bounce back / fall back on / come back to / go back

over / phone someone back / read back / play back /

REBUS (as in my metaphor talk)

to be snowed under

brighten up

don't answer back

take over the company

get up

do up a house

smash down a wall

turn on a computer

invite friends round

look after the kids

rise above adversity

stumble across a book

shy away from risk

let'sstay in tonight

don't fall behind

phrasal verb games on Macmillan Dictionary website –

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/phrasalVerbsOne/

http://www.phrasalverbdemon.com/

handout
outstanding - stand out
uplifting – lift up
outset – set out
upset – set up
outcome – come out
upbringing – bring up