This lesson has a distinct vocabulary focus and gets students thinking about root words, chunks and collocations/word associations. They gain an awareness of how words can be used in many ways…. It uses the amazing video – Words.

(WARNING:  use this version, NOT the youtube version. I’ve edited the youtube version which contains an image inappropriate for teaching). Or use the gif ppt below.  Also use this quiz version in gif  or this simple version.

This lesson is one of hundreds available to EFL Classroom 2.0 members. See the whole list of video lessons and get access to all the best videos for teaching English through http://eflclassroom.com/videolessons

Lesson Delivery

1. Put on the board, the words from the worksheet: Play | Blow | Break | Split | Run | Fly | Fall | Light

Give pairs or groups one word and ask them to write down examples of what you can do with these verbs. Record their answers on the board.

2. Give the worksheet. Ask the students to go through the worksheet and underline the words associated with the key word. Check responses. You might just have students do this in pairs / groups, one for each word, as above.

3. Watch the video. Students note the correct word associations. Watch again, pausing the video and having students state the correct answer.

4. Extension.  Students play charades and the others guess what they are acting out from the worksheet… Keep track of points if you want to make this competitive.

Other “word” resources. See our main EFL Classroom vocabulary discussion, full of ideas. Also, Jon Anderson’s amazing Word Count. Also, see some other amazing RadioLab videos that work for teaching English HERE.

Resources:  Lesson worksheet  |  Video download  |  collocations.ppt  | Collocations on Gif Lingua