Teaching Collocations

Well, I bought "English Collocations in Use"-Michael McCarthy & Felicity O'Dell (Cambridge University Pess) and I found the argument at the beginning of the book quite interesting.
The authors, answering the question "Why learn collocations?" provide us with the perfect answer for our students when asking the same:" They will help you to speak and write English in a more natural way".
What is this "natural way"? It makes the difference between using vocabulary in certain structural patterns and using vocabulary in a way that makes sense to any native English speaker.
For example, a common mistake my students make(when they want to say >looking at something quickly without looking at the details>)is the use of "He threw his eyes over the window"-which usually makes me see the poor guy plucking his eyes and throwing them over... when the correct way of saying this is "He cast/run his/an eye over..."
This particular mistake is caused mainly because my students translate word for word. And the examples are many...
But, if we keep explaining this to them and give them such examples, they will eventually understand the meaning of "natural English" and will try to look for collocations in the dictionaries (and they will give up the habit of picking up the first entry).
I recommend you to try this book because it has tips for using the dictionary, types of collocations, register information and collocation exercises grouped on topics.

"There is nothing as practical as good theory" by Morgan Lewis

I would say that  one of the most important reflections we have  made in this summer course was the one related to the practise of teaching in our classes .

We were recommended  to read the 1st chapter of a book called "There is nothing as practical as a good theory" by Morgan Lewis.You may remember this book.Morgan Lewis draws his attention to the importance of teaching  collacations when learning   the English language.

The whole chapter is very interesting to read and comment on, so I would like to suggest you all to  revise the article and start a debate or something like it ,  so we could share our opinions about this teaching  turn of the screw.

 I´m sure many of these questions were also  in our teachers minds before we saw them on this chapter.Nevetheless, it is good to see them printed and made by a native English teacher.In any case, this way  we can see that non-native English teachers and native ones have quite the  same questions and worries.We are both teachers anyhow.

There are many different inquiries  along the chapter. However, these are just the introductory questions he made as an example:

• -Why is it that what my students learn doesn´t more closely resemble what I teach?
  
• -Should I spend so much time trying to achieve accurate grammar from my students?
  
• -Should my lesson plan rule the proceedings?
  
• -What is the most efficient way of improving students´performance, given they don´t have a lot of time to learn the language?(and I would add they don´t feel like spending much time studying the English language)
  
• -What can you really do for those  ´intermediate plateau´students who need a breakthrough and a feeling of progression?
  
• -What can you do for advanced students after they have met the third conditional?And what is ´advanced´English anyway?
  

-The task is :

• What percentage of the time in your training was spent at looking at teaching and what percentage was devoted to learning?
  
• After a lesson now, do you tend to think mostly about what you did, or about the learners?

On the other hand, I would like  to have a look to   the  two broad conclusions he came to:

1.THERE WAS NO GUARANTEE THAT LEARNERS LEARN WHAT TEACHERS TEACH.

2.THE GRAMMAR /VOCABULARY DICHOTOMY WAS SPURIOUS, AND THE CENTRAL ROLE OF GRAMMAR , AT LEAST AS DEFINED WITHIN MY TRAINING, PROBABLY NEEDED TO BE RE-EVALUATED.

• Would you read the chapter again?
• Have you ever made these kind of questions before?
• Do you find the matter so interesting to deal with it?
• Would you be interested in discussing about this subject?
• Do you think your teaching should be  re-evaluated according to his ideas?How ?
  
• What do you think about teaching collocations?
  

I would love you to have a look and try to think about this text. I´m very interested in it and your ideas may help me.Thank you for  all your suggestions, ideas,etc.