SKKN TEACHING PHRASAL VERBS THROUGH ENGLISH SONGS AT BUÔN MA THUỘT UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOLSKKN TEACHING PHRASAL VERBS THROUGH ENGLISH SONGS AT BUÔN MA THUỘT UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOLSKKN TEACHING PHRASAL VERBS THROUGH ENGLISH SONGS AT BUÔN MA THUỘT UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOLSKKN TEACHING PHRASAL VERBS THROUGH ENGLISH SONGS AT BUÔN MA THUỘT UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOLSKKN TEACHING PHRASAL VERBS THROUGH ENGLISH SONGS AT BUÔN MA THUỘT UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOLSKKN TEACHING PHRASAL VERBS THROUGH ENGLISH SONGS AT BUÔN MA THUỘT UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOLSKKN TEACHING PHRASAL VERBS THROUGH ENGLISH SONGS AT BUÔN MA THUỘT UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOLSKKN TEACHING PHRASAL VERBS THROUGH ENGLISH SONGS AT BUÔN MA THUỘT UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOLSKKN TEACHING PHRASAL VERBS THROUGH ENGLISH SONGS AT BUÔN MA THUỘT UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOLSKKN TEACHING PHRASAL VERBS THROUGH ENGLISH SONGS AT BUÔN MA THUỘT UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOLSKKN TEACHING PHRASAL VERBS THROUGH ENGLISH SONGS AT BUÔN MA THUỘT UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL
Trang 1DAKLAK DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
BUON MA THUOT HIGH SCHOOL
-o0o -
TEACHING INITIATIVE
Title: TEACHING PHRASAL VERBS THROUGH ENGLISH
SONGS AT BUON MA THUOT UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL
Institution: Buon Ma Thuot High School Teacher : Huynh Anh Hong
Subject : English
BUON MA THUOT, 2015
Trang 2TABLE OF CONTENTS
I RATIONALE ……… …….1
II CONTENTS OF THE TEACHING INITIATIVE ……… …….3
1 Theoretical Background ……… …… 3
2 Research Method and Data Collection ……… …… 5
3 Realities……… ……… …… 6
4 Procedures and Findings ……… ……… 7
a Procedures ……… …… 7
b Findings ……… 12
5 Solutions……… ………13
a Commonly used phrasal verbs ……… … 13
b Kinds of Exercises 20
Gap-filling ……….……….20
Multiple Choice ……… … 22
Sentence Completion ……….………22
Synonyms ……….…… 23
Matching ……….… 24
Sentence Transformation ……… ……… 25
III CONCLUSION ……… 25
APPENDIX ………27
REFERENCE BOOKS ……… 28
Trang 3TEACHING PHRASAL VERBS THROUGH ENGLISH SONGS AT BUON MA
THUOT UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL
is regarded as an extremely important means of communication to make all the people throughout the world get closer and understand one another regardless of geographical distances, politics, religions and races It plays an indispensable part
in almost every aspect of the society: politics, commerce, diplomacy, tourism, economy, culture and education What’s more, the year 2015 is the first year when the general certificate of secondary education examination and the university entrance examination are combined and mixed into the national general certificate
of secondary education examination (GCSE Examination) English is picked out
as one of the three compulsory subjects for the provinces which meet the requirements of learning and teaching English in a good condition It is these changes that have made a wide range of notable challenges to high schools, especially teaching staff in equipping the learners with the language skills in order
to meet the higher and higher demands of the society Hence, the teachers of foreign languages in general and the teachers of English in particular can’t cease improving their qualifications, innovating the methods of teaching and applying more modern teaching method of foreign languages in the communicative
Trang 4competence of students In order to meet the tendency and needs of the society, the teachers of English are required to come up with creative and impressive teaching methods Since then, the students can understand the lessons deeply and apply them into their real-life conversations naturally
The Ministry of Education and Training has had many sets of textbooks composed
in the communicative approach so that the learners can improve and develop their language skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing Of the four language skills, each skill is of a specific and equivalent importance The four skills have a close and reciprocal relationship and they help learners master their target language Thus, if the learner is not good at any skill, he/she will have to cope with some obstacles in the process of using the language After many years
of teaching English, I realize that the students find it very difficult to remember English phrasal verbs They often ask me to show some ways to remember the phrasal verbs in different contexts More interestingly, the phrasal verbs often have quite distinct meanings when they are combined with different prepositions
e,g: look up, look after, look for, look into, look at
Such difficult questions raised by the students make me think of the topic:
“Teaching phrasal verbs through English songs at Buon Ma Thuot upper secondary
school” One of the most striking trends of the students nowadays, especially students at
Buon Ma Thuot high school is that they are absorbed in listening to music very much Let me illustrate an example extracted from a song to help students understand the meanings of the phrasal verbs
“Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they’re here to stay
Oh I believe in yesterday
Suddenly, I’m not half the man I used to be
There’s a shadow hanging over me
……
Why she had to go I don’t know, she wouldn’t say
I said something wrong now I long for yesterday
Trang 5Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh I believe in yesterday
……
(extracted from the song YESTERDAY by the Beatles)
Thanks to music, they can remember the meanings of the phrasal verbs included in the lyrics From the reality, it is very hard for students to remember and apply the phrasal verbs into real-life conversations; therefore, I decided to write this teaching initiative with the purpose of not only stimulating the students’ learning English but also improving their vocabulary Additionally, students can use these phrasal verbs flexibly
in different contexts and situations and , more importantly, they can do written tests well
II CONTENTS OF THE TEACHING INITIATIVE
1 Theoretical Background
There exist a variety of definitions of phrasal verbs which are given in
different sources as follows:
A phrasal verb is the combination of a standard verb such as make or put
with one or two particles In some cases the particle is an adverb such as away,
together; in others it is a preposition such as through, in Here are a few
examples of the many hundreds of English phrasal verbs: pass away, pull
together, fall through, make do with, put down to
A phrasal verb is a phrase (as take off or look down on) that combines a
verb with a preposition or adverb or both and that functions as a verb whose
meaning is different from the combined meanings of the individual words
A phrasal verb is a verb followed by a preposition or an adverb; the
combination creates a meaning different from the original verb alone
Example :
To get = to obtain I need to get a new battery for my camera
To get together = to meet Why don’t we all get together for lunch one day?
Phrasal verbs are part of a large group of verbs called “multi-part” or word” verbs The preposition or adverb that follows the verb is sometimes called a
"multi-particle
Trang 6Phrasal verbs and other multi-word verbs are an important part of the English language
However, they are mainly used in spoken English and informal texts They should
be avoided in academic writing where it is preferable to use a formal verb such as
“to postpone” rather than “to put off”
Since the Ministry of Education and Training brought out the English textbook sets written in the communicative approach, many English teachers have made several investigations and some teaching initiatives into the difficulties and solutions in teaching and learning this subject so that students can understand the lessons better and improve their abilities Meanwhile, they hope that their creative methods of teaching can motivate and arouse learners’ enthusiasm and passion for English in particular as well as for foreign languages in general Besides the changes from traditional methods of teaching into learner-centered methods of teaching, the experienced teachers are required to find out the difficulties of the learners so that the learners will feel more absorbed in the subject and overcome their difficulties in the process of study
After nearly fifteen years of teaching English, I have partly known the interests and psychology of high school students It seems to me that what makes them really excited can help them remember for so long A survey has been conducted to get to know what they often do in their free time Most of the students reply that they like listening to music when they have spare time and they add that music helps relieve their stress and take it easy after hard days of study Being fully aware of the role music can play in entering the mind of the students, I make full use of the most effective way to aid the memory of the students by accompanying some phrasal verbs with the song
It can be denied that phrasal verbs are really a big obstacle for high school students Students often have difficulty in making up their mind which answer is the best one when they do multiple-choice tests Therefore, I have come up with a new idea as to how to help students remember the meanings of phrasal verbs easily and deeply I have chosen the English songs which contain phrasal verbs
Trang 7When I play the songs, I put a stop to the sentences with the phrasal verbs and then ask them to guess their meanings in the contexts Moreover, in the curriculum
of the twelfth grade textbooks, phrasal verbs are in Language Focus of Units 14
and 15
E.g: Remember to ……… your shoes when you are in a Japanese house
A take out B take after
C take off D take over
It proves that phrasal verbs play an extremely important part in English language Once students know how to use them effectively and flexibly, their writing style can move to a higher level of writing
In recent years, it is obvious that most of the written tests contain a variety of phrasal verbs in various exercise forms This has made the learners, especially those who are going to take part in the important exams fall into trouble
Up to now many English teachers have written a big circle of research papers which are mainly related to the language practice skills In few research papers is the method of teaching phrasal verbs via English songs employed This initiative is expected to create a more interesting and more impressive learning atmosphere It is this teaching method that gives students a great pleasure and helps them memorize as many phrasal verbs as possible
2 Research Method and Data Collection
Two research methods applied to conduct this study are quantitative and qualitative
The objects for this research are the twelfth graders at Buon Ma Thuot high
school because phrasal verbs are included in Language Focus of Units 14 and 15
and their needs are getting greater and greater when they have to take the national GCSE examination
Let me illustrate the steps of this research paper
Firstly, I have read hundreds of English songs, categorized and picked up the songs containing phrasal verbs
Trang 8Secondly, I have had these English songs recorded in the high quality disk and played the tape recorder for the students
Finally, the sentences with phrasal verbs are picked out and analysed the meanings of the phrasal verbs in pragmatic contexts In addition, some kinds of exercises and tests are suitably designed in order to check whether they understand and remember the meanings of these phrasal verbs or not
Different sorts of questions including information and yes/no questions related to the contents of the topic have been delivered to more than 100 twelfth graders so
as to find out how effective this teaching method is Since then, more efforts need
to be made to improve it
3 Realities
Based on several sources of information such as test results and feedback from students, it is a fact that students often cope with too much difficulty in doing the tests with phrasal verbs They say that phrasal verbs are confusing and they can’t distinguish their meanings
What are phrasal verbs? Why are phrasal verbs one of the most difficult aspects for the learners of the English language?
It is the thought-provoking questions that make English teachers think a lot to find out more creative and more effective teaching methods Phrasal verbs are difficult for learners of the English language for the following reasons:
The first reason is that in many cases the meaning of the phrasal verb can’t be deduced from their elements It means that is used idiomatically; therefore, learners have difficulty in understanding the sentence Let me show an example
Ex: The teacher ticked off the student for being late, in which the phrasal verb to tick off means to reprimand or to express disapproval
The second reason is that many phrasal verbs are polysemous; i.e., they have
more than one meaning The phrasal verb to put down has the literal meaning of
putting something down on the table or floor But it also has the idiomatic meanings:
Trang 9o to make someone feel small, to criticize and humiliate them
o to kill as in the sentence I had to have my cat put down
o to stop, quash, put an end to as in the sentence The police put down the riots with unnecessary brutality
In order to meet the requirements of the current English teaching and learning, teachers of English have to find out the most effective teaching methods
to apply them into the lessons and lectures flexibly and creatively so that their students can understand the contents of the lessons profoundly As the communicative goal is presently an integral part of teaching and learning foreign languages at school, it is very necessary for the students in general and for the twelfth graders in particular to master both grammatical points and language competence in different contexts and situations
From the realities and the difficulties of the students in general and the twelfth students in particular when they are on the point of facing plenty of important exams in their life, something should be done to help them overcome these difficulties A survey has been conducted to collect more reliable and veridical information from the students After a list of questions has been distributed to more than 100 twelfth students, the results are sorted and analysed
to get to know the reasons why they have chosen wrong answers when doing multiple choice tests containing phrasal verbs
4 Procedures and Findings
a Procedures
More than one hundred English songs which contain phrasal verbs are selected and then analyzed to give suitable meanings for each phrasal verb according to pragmatic contexts and situations I would really like to illustrate
how to teach phrasal verbs through the five English songs: Yesterday Once More,
Last Thing On My Mind, If We Hold On Together, We Are The World and Papa
Trang 10To begin with, the song Yesterday Once More written by the Carpenters is
played twice and the teacher asks his/her students to identify which phrasal verbs are used in this song
When I was young, I’d listen to the radio
Waiting for my favourite songs
When they played I’d sing along, it made me smile
Those were such happy times and not so long ago
How I wondered where they’d gone
But they’re back again just like a long lost friend
All the songs, I love well
…………
Looking back on how it was in years gone by
And the times that I had
Make today seem rather sad, so much has changed
It was the songs of love that I would sing to them
From the song, we can see some phrasal verbs such as listen to, wait for, look
back on, go by, melt away, come back to The teacher provides students with the
meanings and the usage of these phrasal verbs In addition, the teacher also asks the students to make sentences with these phrasal verbs
Listen to sth/sb = try to hear sth/ sb; pay attention
Ex: You are not listening to what I am saying!
Wait for sth/sb = stay where one is, delay acting, etc for a specified time or until
sb or sth comes or until sth happens
Ex: We are waiting for the rain to stop
Trang 11Look back on sth = think about (sth in) one’s past: look back on one’s childhood, past, life
Ex: When I look back on those days, I realize that I was desperately
unhappy
Go by (of time) = pass, elapse
Ex: As time goes by, my memory seems to get worse
In Last Thing On My Mind by Steps, there exist some phrasal verbs such as go
away, look into, work out, plan for
……
I thought we had it made, I thought you’d never go away
……
When I looked into your eyes
There was something you weren’t telling me
But in my confusion, I just couldn’t see
If there was any doubt, I thought we would work it out
……
Of all the things I was ever planning for
This was the last thing on my mind
In this song, the phrasal verbs can be explained as follows:
Go away = leave a place
Ex: We are going away for a few days
Look into = turn one’s eyes in a particular direction in this situation
However, “look into” also means “investigate, examine”
Ex: His disappearance is being looked into by the police
Work out = find the answer to sth; solve sth
Ex: Can you work out what these squiggles mean?
Plan for sth = make preparations: plan for the future, one’s retirement, etc
Ex: Has your father planned for his retirement?
Trang 12In If We Hold On Together, the phrasal verbs like throw away, hold on, roll by,
seek out, wash away, dream about are mentioned respectively Let me show their
order in the lyrics
Don’t lose your way, with each passing day
You’ve come so far, don’t throw it away
Live believing, dreams are for weaving
……
If we hold on together
I know our dreams will never die
Dreams see us through to forever
Where clouds roll by for you and I
Souls and the wind must learn how to bend
Seek out a star, hold on to the end
Valley, mountain, there’s a fountain
Washes our tears all away
……
When we are out there in the dark
We’ll dream about the sun
In the dark we’ll feel the light
From this song, the phrasal verbs contain the following meanings:
Throw away = discard sth as useless or unwanted
Ex: That’s rubbish – you can throw it away
hold on (to sb/sth) = keep grasping or gripping sb/ sth; not let go of sb/ sth
Ex: When the horse jumped over the fence, I held on as hard as I could
Roll by = make (sth) or be made into the shape of a ball or cylinder
Seek sb/sth out = look for and find sth/sb
Ex: She sought out and acquired all his early paintings
Wash sb/sth away (of water) = remove or carry sb/sth away to another place
Ex: The cliffs are being gradually washed away by the sea
Dream about sth = experience sth in a dream
Trang 13Ex: I dreamt about flying last night
The next song I would like to describe is considered one of the meaningful and
well-known songs all over the globe That is the song We Are The World in which there are some phrasal verbs such as come together, go on
There comes time when we heed a certain call
when the world must come together as one
There are people dying, oh and it’s time to lend
a hand to life the greatest gift of all
We can’t go on pretending day by day that someone,
Somewhere will soon make a change
………
As we can see from this song, the phrasal verbs come together and go on imply
the following meanings:
Come together (as one) = unite
Go on = continue
Ex: The party went on until dawn
The last song which is used to teach phrasal verbs is Papa by Paul Anka There
are some phrasal verbs appearing in this song
……
After all the prays were said
Growing up with him was easy
Time just flew on by, the years began to fly
He aged and so did I
……
I could tell that mama wasn’t well
Papa knew and deep down so did she, so did she
When she died, papa broke down and cried
……
Your children live through you
Trang 14In this song, the phrasal verbs can be understood as follows:
Grow up = reach the stage of full development; become adult or mature
Ex: She is growing up fast
Fly on by = pass, go by
Break down = lose control of one’s feeling
Ex: Tom breaks down whenever he thinks of the tragedy
Or He broke down and swept when he heard the news
Live through = experience a difficult situation or event
Ex: It was hard to describe the nightmare she had lived through
By applying this teaching method into the lecture, it seems to me that the students will memorize more and more phrasal verbs Additionally, this method gives them a pleasure in studying English
b Findings
After teaching phrasal verbs through English songs are taken into considerations, I have conducted a survey to check how effective this method is Meanwhile, I have made a comparison between the traditional method and the new one
Based on the results of the survey for over 100 twelfth students at Buon Ma Thuot High School, via many written texts such as fifteen-minute tests and one-period tests in three classes and some interviews on the English teachers of the school, the findings are collected as follows:
The majority of the students (72%) state that they can do their test better The number of phrasal verbs that they have in their mind is bigger and bigger Furthermore, I come to realize that they become interested in learning phrasal verbs by listening to the English songs They say that the more songs with phrasal verbs they listen to, the more phrasal verbs they can remember
However, the small percentage of students (28%) state that they are still confused with so many phrasal verbs They can’t distinguish and know how to use them easily Therefore, I come up with a new idea that this teaching method is still applied to stimulate their learning of English and a list of phrasal verbs should be
Trang 15sorted alphabetically More importantly, the students will practice a variety of
exercises in different forms with the motto “Practice makes perfect”
Secondly, the teachers of English should give clear explanations for each phrasal verb in different contexts so that the students can apply them into language practice In addition, the teacher should provide the students with different kinds
of exercises in order that they can avoid making mistakes and use phrasal verbs flexibly and correctly What’s more, I enclose a glossary of phrasal verbs and example sentences to help students look them up if necessary
a Commonly used phrasal verbs
ask someone out invite on a date Brian asked Judy out to dinner and a movie
ask around ask many people the same
question
I asked around but nobody has seen my wallet
add up to something equal Your purchases add up to $200
back something up reverse You'll have to back up your car so that I can get out
back someone up support My wife backed me up over my decision to quit my
job
blow up explode The racing car blew up after it crashed into the fence
blow something up add air We have to blow 50 balloons up for the party
break down stop functioning (vehicle,
machine)
Our car broke down at the side of the highway in the
snowstorm
break down get upset The woman broke down when the police told her that
her son had died
break something down divide into smaller parts Our teacher broke the final project down into three
separate parts
break in force entry to a building Somebody broke in last night and stole our stereo
break into something enter forcibly The firemen had to break into the room to rescue the
children
break something in wear something a few times so
that it doesn't look/feel new
I need to break these shoes in before we run next week