SKKN teaching phrasal verbs through english songs at buon ma thuot upper secondary school

DAKLAK 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 SECONDA

DAKLAK 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

TABLE 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

TEACHING 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

competence 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

Yesterday, 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

Phrasal 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

When 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

Secondly, 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:

o 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

To 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

Look 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?

In 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

Ex: 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

In 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

sorted 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