Collocations - Teacher’s notes

What are collocations?
Write the following on the board:

Merry

Happy

Christmas

Birthday

Ask students if you can switch the words merry and happy in these phrases. Demonstrate that while
you can say Happy Christmas, you can’t say Merry Birthday, even though there is little difference
between the words merry and happy.
These are examples of collocations, or ‘words that go together’. While happy collocates with both
Christmas and Birthday, merry only collocates with Christmas.

For more information on collocations, students should look at page R48 in Oxford Advanced Learner’s
Dictionary.

1 Refer students to the entries for chance, hope and word.
Point out that common collocations are highlighted in bold in the examples in these entries. The
following three exercises focus on this feature of the dictionary.
KEY:

1 ‘a small chance’

2 a slight chance/an outside chance
3 no chance; a slim chance; a fifty-fifty chance; a very good chance

2 KEY:

1 raise your hopes/get your hopes up
2 have high hopes of...
3 give up hope
4 live in hope
5 a glimmer of hope

3 Give students some time alone to look at these collocations in context. Then put them into pairs to
talk about what the phrases mean before checking answers as a class.
KEY:

1 from your own understanding, not just repeating what other people have said
2 in every possible way
3 manage to express
4 does not express it strongly enough

Adverbs

4 Allocate one word to each student in the class. Give them a minute or two to check meaning,
pronunciation, etc. of their word in the dictionary. Students should then move around the class trying to
find someone who has a word that collocates with their own. Go through answers as a class, making
sure that students have paired up correctly.
KEY:

bitterly cold

narrowly miss

flatly refuse

painfully slow

highly productive strictly confidential
immensely powerful strongly advise

Adjective + noun

In the first exercise, students are looking for a word that intensifies the noun, one that means something
similar to ‘big’ with each set of words. Again, they should look at the examples section of the noun
entries to find suitable adjectives. They could work in pairs to complete the exercise, so that they don’t
all have to look up all the words. The second exercise, using some of these pairs, can be done
individually

5 KEY:

heavy rain/traffic/heart/defeat/smoker
strong wind/smell/views/language/probability
high cost/heel/summer/hopes/society
sharp frost/drop/wit/relief/contrast
broad accent/grin/hint/spread/generalization

6 KEY:

1 Heavy traffic

4 sharp frost

2 strong language

5 broad... accent

3 high hopes

Verb + noun

7 At class feedback, write five columns on the board with the headings do, make, have, give and take.
As you go through the answers, write the nouns under the correct heading. Point out to students that
this a good way of recording vocabulary information.
KEY:

1 do

5 made

8 take

2 have

6 gave

9 giving

3 give

7 make

10 do

4 make (British English), take

8 Students can try this alone without their dictionary to begin with.
KEY:

1 hung his head

5 correct

2 correct

6 shrugging her shoulders

3 correct

7 sprained my ankle

4 wipe your feet

8 correct

Phrases

9 You could do this exercise in a similar way to the adverb + adjective exercise 4. You should also
focus students on the pronunciation of and in each phrase, i.e. /ən/, and get students to say the
phrases in a natural way. The second exercise will ensure that students understand the meaning of the
phrases. Get students to check their answers in pairs before going through the answers as a class.
KEY:

aims and objectives

push and shove

bribery and corruption

really and truly

bright and cheerful

rules and regulations

hustle and bustle

scrimp and save

long and hard

OALD RESOURCE BOOK - TEACHING NOTES

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