Introduction

Using Collocations for Natural English - Elizabeth Walter, Kate Woodford 2010


Introduction

Using Collocations is a self-study book for intermediate to upper-intermediate students. Each unit presents between sixteen and twenty-four collocations and practices them in a wide variety of contexts, from tweets to e-mails, postcards to letters, adverts to newspaper articles.

Throughout the book, there is an emphasis on learning to use collocations appropriately, so they are always presented in typical contexts, and information on formality or informality is included.

As well as using a range of text types, examples of conversational English are included. Some texts are recorded so that students are able to notice particular features of stress and intonation.

Why learn collocations?

Collocations are the key to fluent, elegant English. Learning words on their own may enable us to communicate, but unless we learn the other words that go with them in a natural, typical way, our English will always be clumsy. The collocations in this book will help students improve the way they use the words they already know.

The structure of the book

This book is made up of twenty-four units, each consisting of two double-page sections. Every four units, there is a two-page review. The first four units serve as a useful introduction to collocations, but otherwise it is not necessary to work through the units in any particular sequence.

✵ Units 1-4 explain what collocations are and show the most common ways of forming them.

✵ Units 5-8 take very common concepts (e.g. good and bad, success) and present more interesting ways of expressing these ideas using collocations.

✵ Units 9-13 cover aspects of collocation such as register (how formal or informal words are) and metaphor.

✵ Units 14-20 show collocations presented in topic groups (e.g. relationships, work).

✵ Units 21-24 cover functional English, such as how to use collocations for emphasis, and collocations connected with expressing your feelings.

How the units work

The units are divided into two sections, each of which presents between eight and twelve collocations. In each section, the first exercise introduces the collocations in a simple way, to ensure that their meanings are clear.

In the exercises that follow, the collocations are used in a variety of contexts, so that by the end of the section, students will not only understand them, but be able to use them with confidence.

There are many different types of exercise, ensuring there is an opportunity for thorough and varied practice. They might involve using collocations to answer questions on a text, rewriting texts in a better style, doing crosswords, gaps-fills, matching sentence halves or writing sentences with opposite meanings.

Answers are given in the key at the back of the book, and any exercises with the symbol are also supplied as recordings.Image

Review sections

After every four units, there is a two-page review section. In each of these, there are sixty simple questions using collocations from the previous units. Students can test themselves and use the answer key to check their progress.

Index

An index is included at the back of the book, listing the first instance of all the collocations in alphabetical order.

To the student

As you use this book, you will probably become more sensitive to collocations. Try to make collocations part of your learning strategy at all times. Once you start noticing them, you will find they are everywhere in all kinds of formal and informal contexts: on TV in the news, and in all forms of advertising, for example.

All good monolingual (English only) learners' dictionaries contain useful information about collocations, often shown in bold type in example sentences. If you look up a new word in your dictionary, remember to check whether it has any typical collocations that you should learn with it.

When you come across new words in writing or speech, try to notice what other words are used with them. If the word is a noun, for example, has the writer or speaker used an interesting verb or adjective with it? If so, make a note of that too.

Make use the index. You can refer to it to check the context for a collocation you have come across, or to help you test yourself or revise what you have learned.

To the teacher

This book is primarily intended for self-study, but the exercises can be used in class or for homework too. They can be used to supplement work in a course book. The contents map and index will help you to plan activities related to whatever other material you are using.

Each section contains a Classroom extra activity which is a suggestion for a more communicative use of the material in the classroom. For instance, some of these activities encourage students to use the collocations they have learned in speech or writing of their own, while others involve class discussion of a text they have worked on.