Collocation's what you need!

If you wanna speak the best you gotta learn the rest. Collocation's what you need.

While the title it may not be grammatically correct it is a fun throwback to my childhood watching the world's finest breaking all kinds of records from the sublime to the ridiculous.  If you were a record breakers fan they have a quick walk down memory lane with the link below.

Record Breakers Theme

Ok, so back to the matter at hand. Collocations. As we all know are what you need to sound more natural when speaking any language, not just English. What is languange if it isn't just a group of words that somehow sound right together.

I must confess it was again my considerably better half that has again drawn my attention to this most interesting of topics and her material that I use in class and that you're going to have the chance to get your hands on today if you just click -----------> for the collocations powerpoint. (courtasy of the delightful Gema Galan)

I'm not going to go to great lengths to describe this lesson for you. Simply go through the powerpoint and elicit as many examples as you can for each of the examples there.

At the end of the powerpoint and refelctions I tnd to give my students this -----> handout (not my own material, borred from Elspeth Pollock) and get them to close their eyes and choose three or 4 collocations at random. I then set about allowing them to select roles, a situation and a topic in which they have to have a conversation and shoe horn in their randomly selected collocations, while making it sound as natural as possible. They're encouraged to add any others they've come accross that day.

So here's how it went the other day with a wonderful group of software engineers.

Me: "Ok, so Juanman you're in a........"
Juanma: "errrrr theatre"
Me: "Great, so Alvaro, you're talking about......."
Alvaro: "who committed the murder."
Me: "Wonderful, now Kiko you're a...."
Kiko: "A hot shot lawyer."

and so on.


Give it a shot. The class should take around an hour or so. It can easily be extended to last an hour an a half and students can thus be given plenty of time to use their newly acquired language.

Thanks for sticking with me.

H

Getting to know your students a little better.

How do you get students to pay attention in class? Well, preparation is one of the big things. If you're ready for a class and don't just go in and throw a class together ad hoc it'll generally run an awful lot smoother.
Other than that making the class relevant to the students will always spark interest. Small things like writing their names in examples and mentioning their names out of context tend to help.
That's why I devised this questionnaire. I wanted to know more about my students to enable me to tailor the classes to their needs and, perhaps more importantly, their interests.

A fully editable version is available here Questionnaire and my sample answers here my answers. I've updated this blog with a sample of one of my students answers. It restored my faith in humanity just check out Iñigo's answers

Print it off, hand it out and obviously change your answers so they're appropriate to your classes level. If you're feeling imaginative why not try in your student's mother tongue.

Now I've got my students answers I can change parts of my classes to make sure at least one person in the class is giving me their undivided attention or even getting others to give their attention to them.

If you were an animal, what animal would you be? Why?

What is the best book you’ve ever read? Tell me a something about it.

What is your biggest strength when using English? Speaking, listening etc

What area do you need/want to work on the most?

If you could have been alive in any place during any era, when and where would it have been?

What do you do to improve your English outside of the classroom?

What is your favourite English word? Why?

What do you know more about than most people?

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

In an Ideal class what would you learn?

Who would win in a fight between Spiderman and Batman? Why?

What is your superpower? What real superpower would you change it for?