Practical aspects of the use of Phrasal verbs in teaching English
Methods of teaching phrasal verbs
Most English language learners find phrasal verbs quite difficult. There are various reasons for this from the fact that they don’t exist in their language to the myriad of meanings that one phrasal verb can appear to have. And what makes it worse is that many phrasal verbs have a metaphorical meaning that makes them hard to decipher, hard to remember and very difficult to produce when needed. Many learners tend to avoid them altogether yet, as we all know, they are quite prevalent in the language, especially in speech. Learners know this and will feel inadequate without them. In surveys of what students feel they need to be more proficient in the language, phrasal verbs usually rank quite high. In addition, phrasal verbs can be quite overwhelming for teachers. Where does one begin to teach? Student phrasal verb dictionaries usually list five or six thousand phrasal verbs and many of them have multiple different or related meanings. So expecting to present that size of lexicon in a learnable context is an overwhelming prospect for learners and teachers. The good news is that there is more order in the apparent chaos of phrasal verbs than one might think. What learners need are shortcuts, ways of breaking up that huge mass of words into learnable bits. In other words, they need is a way to categorize phrasal verbs in groups with some sort of similarity. That similarity would be represented by a defining characteristic which would help them remember that group and its members.
Traditionally, this has usually been done by grouping together phrasal verbs formed from the same base verb, for example, phrasal verbs with “turn”. While this is a good idea, learning this way can still be frustrating for students. Not all phrasal verbs formed with the same base will display the meaning of that base. For example, turn around and turn over suggest the literal meaning of the main verb while turn up seems to have nothing to do with it. But certainly the learner could more easily process and remember those phrasal verbs which fit a general semantic pattern. Further complicating the situation is the particle which follows the basic verb. Turnover and turn around feature literal meanings of the particle as well as the verb, But in the previously mentioned example, turn up (to attend), the particle does not carry its literal meaning. There is no upward movement involved when somebody arrives at a party or class. The good news is that there are many particles that share other identifiable meanings besides the literal one and once students become aware of these other meanings, they should be better able to notice and process those phrasal verbs that carry particular particle meanings. This should lead them to start associating groups of phrasal verbs according to shared particle meaning as well as the main verb meaning.
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While there are many phrasal verbs that cannot be grouped according to verb and particle meaning, the more effective acquisition of those that do will make the task of learning the phrasal verb lexicon that much easier. To get a good idea of English phrasal verbs' semantic nuances, let us first look at their conceptual features.
In general, the main function of phrasal verbs is conceptual categorization of reality in the speaker's mind. They denote not only actions or states as "ordinary" verbs do, but also specify their spatial, temporal or other characteristics. This ability to describe actions or states more precisely, vividly and emotionally is determined by the adverbial components of phrasal verbs. By combining with these elements, verbs of broader meaning are subjected to a regular and systematic multiplication of their semantic functions. While the English verb has no consistent structural representation of aspect, adverbial particles either impart an additional assertive meaning to the base verb (e.g. the durative verb sit merges with the particle down into the terminative phrasal verb sit down) or introduce a lexical modification to its fundamental semantics. [32, p. 221]
Obviously, such semantic peculiarities of English phrasal verbs must influence the process of their translation into the Russian language, which has a highly developed system of verbal prefixes. In addition to their function that is analogous to that of English prefixes, Russian verbal prefixes resemble English adverbial particles in their semantic functions, also indicating various qualities of actions and states. Like adverbial particles in English, Russian prefixes are lexically strong. Thus, in translation from English into Russian, the meaning of the English adverbial component of the phrasal verb is mostly conveyed by using the Russian prefix that reflects the character of the described action or state most accurately. It holds true for Russian prefixes as well, the same ones rendering different shades of meaning in different uses (see examples above). That is why it seems almost impossible to create a consistent rigid system of lexical correspondences between English adverbial particles and Russian prefixes, without encountering numerous debatable problems. Strictly speaking, proper translation of English phrasal verbs to a high degree depends on the context in which they are used, which suggests the appropriate interpretation of the described action. Having stated the specific characteristics of the action denoted by a certain phrasal verb, one can seek a Russian counterpart prefix, which is the closest in rendering the same idea and meets the lexical and grammatical requirements of translation into the target language.
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This is a surprisingly challenging but useful activity which gets learners to notice phrasal verbs in context. The challenging part of it is that sometimes the verb and particle will be split and the lack of proximity of the two makes it harder to notice that the verb is actually a phrasal one. The other thing which is difficult, even for native speakers, is differentiating phrasal verbs from verbs with prepositions. However, for the objectives of this activity, in cases where it is difficult to determine which it is, it’s probably best to consider it a phrasal verb, particularly at lower levels. To implement this activity, you need a text which has some phrasal verbs. As they occur most often in informal writing, it’s a good idea to consider that when looking for a suitable text. Since they do occur most often in speaking, scripts is a great place to look, like scripts of television sitcoms where the communication is meant to emulate real-life. Once you have a text, make enough copies of it for pairs (or threes) of students. Hand the text to the students and have them read it first just for comprehension. Then, clarify what a phrasal verb is and remind them about split ones. Then ask them to go through the text and highlight the phrasal verbs. You can make it competitive to see who finds the most. When they are finished, find out who got the most and elicit their list. If you’d like, write any debatable ones on the board and ask the class to discuss whether they are phrasal verbs or not. The main aim of this activity is form-based in that it’s getting students to practice noticing phrasal verbs, but, once you have the list on the board, you have the option of dealing with meaning to whatever extent you’d like. You can simply explain them all, elicit some explanations from students or, better still, give them some definitions and they have to select the phrasal verbs from the board that match them.
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Analyzing phrasal verbs in texts. This activity is basically just a more advanced version of the previous activity as the students are required to analyze the phrasal verbs in texts according to certain criteria. In fact, it can be used as a follow-up to the previous activity, where first the students find the phrasal verbs and then they go over the text again and look at each one in context and analyze it. The criteria for analysis can be metaphoric vs. literal, two vs. three-part, transitive vs. intransitive, separable vs. inseparable or all or some of the above. You can actually use a chart for this (see below). The value of this activity is that it trains students to think about phrasal verbs when they notice them, which will not only lead to better acquisition but will also help them learn about usage - good for production later on. To set the activity up, give students a text and have them read it for comprehension first. Then ask them to locate some or all of the phrasal verbs, List them on the board so all students will be working with the same verbs. Then give students the criteria you want them to use for analyzing them (it could be just the chart). Students then work together and analyze the phrasal verbs in context according to the criteria. When they are finished, take up their answers. You can make it competitive by awarding points for each phrasal verb correctly analyzed.
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This activity has students writing questions with phrasal verbs and their classmates have to answer the question and use the same phrasal verb in the answer. It is a very simple activity but it’s very useful because it gets students to use phrasal verbs in context, in writing and speaking, and, more importantly, it gets them to notice them during exposure. To set up the activity, provide students with a list of phrasal verbs so there is at least one per student. For small classes, you can allow more than one phrasal verb per student. The phrasal verbs can be ones that you are reviewing from a previous class or ones that you’ve just clarified in that class as this activity serves as good controlled practice. Get each student to choose a phrasal verb – you can have them come up and tick one from the board. Then each student composes a sentence in question from using their phrasal verb. Stress that it must be a question that their classmates can answer, e.g., “Who do you take after, your mother or father?” You can have students working together so that they can help each other with their sentences. Monitor to check their sentences for accuracy. When all students are finished, have them mingle and ask other students their question. Remind them to listen for the phrasal verb and repeat it in their answer, e.g., “I take after my father.” If you had students choosing more than one phrasal verb, you would have had them composing more than one question to ask. This can be a great activity for higher level learners who are practicing phrasal verbs that can be separated by an object pronoun. The phrasal verb would not be separated in the question, e.g., “Have you written down these phrasal verbs?” and the answering student would have to insert the object pronoun in the correct place in their answer, e.g., “Yes, I have written them down.” For a big challenge, you could include some phrasal verbs that were inseparable in the mix. Phrasal Verb Miming This activity has students miming the two (or three) parts of a phrasal verb. Their partners have to correctly guess the verbs and particles that they mime. It can be a great activity to introduce a group of phrasal verbs that might consist of verbs that students know but the actual meaning of the phrasal verb is not known.
It’s a good way to get students to think of the literal meaning of the verbs and particles and then to see if the meaning of the phrasal verb has any relation. Provide groups of students (2 – 6) with identical sets of small cards or pieces of paper with phrasal verbs written on them in a simple context, e.g., “take off your hat.” They keep them face down and divide them up so each person in the group has roughly the same number of cards. Tell the groups they will be competing to see who can mime the most phrasal verbs but they are to mime the literal meaning of the verb and the literal meaning of the particle. They should not mime the rest of the context. You can clarify how they are to mime by giving an example, i.e., mime a phrasal verb for them to guess. For example, if it is give away, mime giving something to someone and then walk away, to demonstrate away. Tell them to focus on Teaching Phrasal Verbs 13 those that are most easily mimed as the idea is to do as many as possible. If someone is miming one and the other students can’t seem to guess it, tell them it’s okay to move on to the next one. When someone in their group actually guesses a phrasal verb, it’s placed face up in the centre. Start the activity and end it at any point before or just after one group has finished. Get each group to count how many they mimed to find a winner. If the phrasal verbs are new to the students, clarify them after the miming. Then once you have done that, or if you were just reviewing previously taught phrasal verbs, have the students discuss each phrasal verb in regards to how metaphorical it was. You can ask them put them in two piles, if you want, metaphoric and literal. Then get some feedback. This is a great activity to find out what students know or remember of phrasal verbs. Thus you could use it as a warmer to start a class on phrasal verbs or you could use it after you’ve taught some phrasal verbs to see which ones they remember and which ones they can add that are similar to ones they’ve learned.
It’s a fun activity that has students racing around the classroom while brainstorming as many phrasal verbs as they can think of. To set up this activity, you’ll need to first decide if you’re going to give students the verb and have them brainstorm particles with it or the other way around. The latter is a better idea when you want them to focus more on particle meaning. For example, if they know that “UP” can mean approach, then they could come up with “run up”. “walk up”, “drive up”, etc. You’ll need at least 6 different particles or 6 verbs, if you decide to go that way. Then write each particle (or verb) on the top of a sheet of paper. The larger the sheet of paper, the longer the brainstorm can go on and the more contributions will be possible. When in class, stick the papers on the walls around the classroom. Then give each pair of students (or group of three) a different coloured marker. Explain that they will be writing verbs that go with the particles (or the other way around) on the sheets and the team that contributes the most to the sheets will win – that’s why they have different colored markers. Stipulate that they cannot write something that someone else has written and they cannot write two in a row in their color (they can return to a paper after someone else has written something). Then stand back and start the game. After you’ve stopped the game, go over each sheet and cross off any contributions that do not form phrasal verbs. Then have each team count up its contributions to see who won. You can deal with meaning of some of them if you want. [33, p. 878]
One way to do it is to point out a sheet and give them the meaning of a phrasal verb on the sheet and see if they can guess which one that it is. You could have them working in pairs and they write down your definition and the verb they think it is. Then after 10 or so, you can stop and elicit the meanings and verbs and the pairs can check their answers. Get up to wake up get down to get depressed or sad. Give back to return something give up to surrender give out to distribute something give away to reveal a secret break down to fall apart emotionally break out to escape break in to use something until it is OK. come across to find take on to start something new take off when an airplane leaves the ground turn on to switch on a radio turn back to change direction and return turn into to transform put up to raise prices put on to gain weight go through to search for something in something. This activity is designed to get students to focus on particle meaning. You create a gapped text where the gaps represent phrasal verbs that make some sense according to their particle meaning. Then after the gap, you supply a clue about the particle meaning. The activity should help students remember the particle meanings and also phrasal verbs whose meaning is somewhat logical. After clarifying particle meaning with students, you can have them fill out these gap-fill exercises in class. You can have them working in pairs so they can discuss their ideas for each space. After they have finished, check their answers by first asking them which particle matches the meaning for each space. For students intermediate and above, you can have them create their own gap fills in the same way. Put them in pairs and when each pair is done, they can ask another pair to try to guess the words in the gap. If they write their answers on a separate sheet of paper, the students who wrote the gap-fill can have another pair attempt it afterwards. This way the students have a chance to work with all the texts. The nice thing about this activity is that the students are verifying the answers for other students.
This activity is based on the popular game show Jeopardy, where contestants choose the category and difficulty level of their questions. Its classroom application is a fun and challenging game, which can be used to focus on groups of phrasal verbs based around the same verb or based around the same particle. For example, students could choose from categories based on either the verb or its particle. It’s best to get students to work in teams of two or three as it gives them an opportunity to discuss possibilities before answering questions. [34, p. 478]
I think that a thorough study and consequent understanding of semantic correspondences in the English and Russian verbal systems can be quite a powerful tool in the translator's arsenal.
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