Simple but effective activities for recycling lexis
Photo by Ian Britton via FreeFoto.com [CC BY-NC-ND 3.0] |
Unfortunately, coursebooks do not provide enough repeated encounters with lexical items. While learners may be exposed to the same lexis within a particular unit, few coursebooks ensure that the same lexis is recycled across the textbook, i.e. over a series of units. It is therefore our responsibility as teachers to ensure lexical items our students encounter are recycled in subsequent lessons and regularly revised.
Lexis vs vocabulary
The word “lexis” is used here in contrast to the word “vocabulary” to emphasise the fact that we talk about collocations and lexical chunks as opposed to individual words. There are many ways to revise individual words: students can be given cards with words and cards with definitions and asked to match them or fill the gaps with the missing words. However teaching collocations and chunks require slightly different techniques.
Some simple suggestions given below will help you with recycling and revising lexis studied in class. Most of the activities presented here do not require much prep time and can themselves be reused and recycled in subsequent lessons (albeit with minor modifications) to save your time.
Collocation pairs
This is an easy-to-prepare and engaging activity which provides decontextualised practice of the collocations students have come across. It can be used as a post-reading activity or as a revision activity to consolidate the language covered in previous lessons.
You can type it up on Word or simply write with markers or felt-tip pens on cut up pieces of paper.
Activity 1 – Find your pair
Click here for WORKSHEET - needs cutting up
Click here for DRAG&DROP EXERCISE (download to your computer, then open in your browser)
sharp…
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…eye
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quick…
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…mind
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famous…
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…painting
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deadly…
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…weapon
|
scientific…
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…discovery
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visual…
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…image
|
designer…
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…boutique
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expensive…
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…restaurant
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tourist…
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…attraction
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industrial…
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…city
|
international…
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…journal
|
highest…
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…award
|
NB: I normally use multiple dots to indicate whether the word is first in the pair or second especially if you include noun + noun combinations (like designer boutique where designer act as an adjective) or if you include –ing words which can be either adjectives or nouns e.g. (sleeping bag or poor sleeping)
All the collocations above were taken from two texts in Unit 1 of Mind Matters, published by ECB. As a follow up, you can ask students to sort these collocations into two groups. The first five collocations are from the text about Leonardo da Vinci and the last six appear in the text about the Gugenheim Museum in Bilbao . Ask your students to recall why they were used and what they refer to. Students can look back at the texts to see if they were correct. “Visual image” was added as a distractor but can be easily related to either article.
Activity 2 – Collocation swap
For this activity you will need the same number of collocations as students in the class which means it can be used to consolidate lexis from several topics covered in class. Verb + noun collocations below appear in another unit in the same textbook.
raise…
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…money
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make…
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…a difference
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solve…
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…a problem
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pay off…
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…your debts
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join…
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…an organization
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have…
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…access (to)
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finance…
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…a new project
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clean up…
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…the town
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get…
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…involved
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go…
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...shopping
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donate…
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...money to charity
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achieve…
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…a goal
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Give each student one first part and one second part. Ask them to look at their cards and see if they match. If they do, retrieve the ones that match and redistribute as necessary. Ask your students to stand up and find the nouns (second half) for the adjectives or verbs (first half) they have and give the nouns to other students that need them to complete their collocations. Once they have found the second half and got rid of the first they can sit down. Early finishers can be asked to write a sentence. The activity continues until everyone has found their matches and sat down with them.
Activity 3 – Matching & Sorting
You will need all the previous lists (20 – 25 collocations). Make a few sets and cut them up. Give each group of 5-6 students an envelope with the collocation cards. However this time after matching them they have to sort them according to different criteria:
· Gramatically: adjective + noun / verb + noun collocations
· Thematically: categorise them according to topics
· Collocations with positive vs negative connotation
· Any other another categorizing principle learners can come up with
· Any other another categorizing principle learners can come up with
Activity 4 – Recall the collocation
In a subsequent lesson remove the parts of collocations and ask students to recall what the other half is. For example:
solve…
|
a problem
|
pay off…
|
your debts
|
donate…
|
money to charity
|
achieve…
|
a goal
|
deadly…
|
weapon
|
designer…
|
boutique
|
clean up…
|
the town
|
join…
|
an organisation
|
have…
|
…access (to)
|
go…
|
...shopping
|
raise…
|
…money
|
make…
|
…a difference
|
As you can see, either part can be removed. But bear in mind that delexical verbs such as make, do, get etc have a large number of possible collocates. Therefore stronger collocations (e.g. achieve a goal, solve a problem or deadly weapon) would work better for this activity.
Interested in more ideas for recycling lexis? Follow this link to read about Cycle 2.
The article first appeared in the ETAI Forum
Hi Leo, a great blog post and a useful idea that I'll certainly be using - thanks again for your contribution to the show and tell session at the IATEFL LTSIG PCE!
ReplyDeleteHi Graham
ReplyDeleteI am glad you liked the idea. I've just posted another Cycle of Recycling activities (Cycle 2) which is roughly what I presented during my impromptu show and tell session in Brighton.
Hope to see you next year.
L
Hi Leo, thanks for the workshop in Thessaloniki, it added a lot to previous knowledge. Big favour: could you please fix the above links, as they do not seem to be working? Thanks again :)
ReplyDeleteHi Pangiotis,
DeleteGlad you enjoyed the workshop. Thanks for this nudge - this was long overdue. I've updated all the links in this and the next cycle (Cycle 2). Do let me know if you find other dead links. Thanks.
L