Swotting up on phrasal verbs

As promised, today's post will look at some resources for working on the area of phrasal verbs.

On Caroline Brown's site, students first read definitions and example sentences containing different verbs.

After this, they are given three tasks to do - to join together the first and second halves of sentences, then, they have to complete these same sentences and finally, choose the correct particle to complete different sentences with the verbs.

to ask to back  to be to blow to break 1  to come to cut to do to fall 1  to fall 2  to get 1 to get 2 to give to go 1 to go 2 to go 3 to hold to keep to let to look 1

to look 2 to make to pull 1 to pull 2 to push to put 1 to put 2 to put 3 to put 4 to run 1 to run 2 to send to set 1 to set 2   to sit to stand 1 to stand 2 to stay to stick to stop

to take to take 2   to take 3  to take 4  to talk  to think to throw  to turn 1  to turn 2 to turn 3  to walk  to work  to write

http://www.carolinebrownenglishlessons.com/

The exercises are bit mechancial, maybe, but I think it would be good as a suggestion for students to work on at home, precisely because it does always follow the same format.


You can also find interactive exercises on phrasal verbs on the English Club website.


Without a doubt, the webpage that stands out from the rest is the Phrasal Verb Demon.  

Complete Guide to Phrasal Verbs

Focusing entirely on phrasal verbs, it has various sections.


Listening | Dictionary | Corpus | Particles | Quizzes | Games | Top 100 | Grammar | Verb List | Teachers


I particularly like the Corpus section.  Here, you can type in a phrasal verb and it will tell you which topics it is used with and which words it collocates it with.


With the Listening section, you can choose an audio clip and listen to it.  While you listen, you can either read the transcript or hide it.  The phrasal verbs are highlighted in the transcript and below it you can read a definition and another example sentence containing each of the featured verbs as well as the meaning contained in the particle of the verb.


Apart from the Phrasal Verb Demon website, I was surprised that although I found sites and blogs which look at phrasal verbs based around maybe two or three topics, I did not manage to find a site which examined and practised a range of subject categories for phrasal verbs.


I'll post links to a couple of the sites where some topics (but not many) are dealt with:


http://www.ihbristol.com/learn-online/exercise-general/advanced/vocabulary


Activities for ESL students


However, this really is an area that needs some attention.  


If I'm wrong, and there is a site that deals with phrasal verbs on a wider range of topics, please let us know!


For some great suggestions on how to teach phrasal verbs, check out the articles by Lindsay Clandfield on Onestopenglish.


On Youtube, lots of teachers have tried to tackle the area of phrasal verbs.  Some of them more successfully than others!
I thought that these might be worth a mention:
Phrasal verbs (introduction)

Englishwithjo  (on the themes of family, speaking, pets and animals, hobbies, food and eating, movies 
I would suggest that we could do with a few more of these videos, illustrating the meaning of phrasal verbs:
Parasaber.com youtube video




And last, but not least, check out the great resources and suggestions by Janet Bianchini here:
http://teacherbootcamp.edublogs.org/2010/04/04/my-favourite-sites-for-teaching-phrasal-verbs-by-janet-bianchini/