Do and make collocations (a lesson plan)

March 25th, 2009 · 13 Comments

Preparation

The starting point for this lesson plan was to think of a good number of do or make collocations. My students’ notebooks were helpful for this task. Here is what I found:

Do 100 mph
Do a bungee jump
Make a cup of coffee
Make a face
Make a noise
Make a phone call
Do a strip tease
Make a wish
Do business
Make money
Make sure there are no monsters under the bed
Make the bed
Do the housework
Do the washing up
Do time (in prison)

The next stage was to go to an image search engine (Google image search, for example) and find pictures to represent each collocation.

(NB These images can be downloaded on the pdf file at the bottom of this posting.)

Procedure

First of all, remove the verbs from the collocations and give your students a list that looks like this:

100 mph
a bungee jump
a cup of coffee
a face
a noise
a phone call
a strip tease
a wish
business
money
sure there are no monsters under the bed
the bed
the housework
the washing up
time

Ask students if they can work out what the items have in common (i.e. that they all collocate with either do or make) and ask if they can remember which is which.

Next, give your students the following homework: Ask them to carry out two Google searches for each item - one with doing and one with making.

Get them to take a note of the results in each case (a worksheet for this is included in the pdf lesson plan).

“Doing 100 mph”   7,700 Google hits
“Making 100 mph”   637 Google hits

“Doing a bungee jump”   3,860 Google hits
“Making a bungee jump”   270 Google hits

“Do a cup of coffee”   6 Google hits
“Make a cup of coffee”   128,000 Google hits

Etc

(NB When using Google to compare the frequencies of chunks of language, it is important to use “inverted comas” as shown. This keeps the words together.)

The next day, ask students to compare their results and create graphs or pie charts of their results (see images at the top of the page). I made the charts at this useful site. I chose blue for do and grey for make because of the similarity in vowel sounds.

Finally, use the flash images in the pdf below to see if your students can remember the dominant collocations. Use the images to drill the language and reuse them to revise it at later dates. You could ask students to write all items in their notebooks: Do collocations on the left hand side of the page and make collocations on the right. These can be added to whenever new phrases come up in class.

This same format can be used to teach a whole range of confusing collocating verbs: Get and become, have and take, etc.

Here’s the lesson plan on pdf containing the worksheet and images: do-and-make-collocations.pdf

And here’s an ad that was on in the UK when I was there a few weeks ago. It’s very nauseating but contains another a good do + noun collocation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2T6YdEcp6w

Tags: Do/make · Idioms · Lesson plans · Vocabulary

13 responses so far ↓

1 Glennie // Mar 25, 2009 at 3:01 pm

Superb activity Jamie.

So complete; visually stimulating; very satisfying for students to see their results expressed ‘graphically’ . (Sorry about that false friend. :->).

And you are doing sts such a favour to introduce them to using the Internet as a language resource, esp. Google search. Most of the university students I teach haven’t a clue in this respect.
2 admin // Mar 25, 2009 at 3:33 pm

Hello Glennie.

I’m really glad you said that. As an activity, it could be criticised as not being not particularly communicative. But it has a CLILish feel in that the subject of study here isn’t maths or art - it’s language itself. For that reason, perhaps it would work best with teens.

I have to admit that I haven’t tried it out yet. I know that some of my students would roll their eyes at the thought of the homework assignment. But it’s the type of activity that I would have enjoyed when I was studying language at school. Suppose you can’t have everyone happy all of the time.

Jamie
3 Richard // Mar 25, 2009 at 3:59 pm

Cheers! I’ve been after a nice new do or make lesson recently. Did you just accidently happen to stumble across the striptease collocation results?! I’m new to this blog, but I like it, please keep up the good work.

R
4 Yeşim // Mar 25, 2009 at 4:17 pm

Great activity,

I am so happy that I had a chance to meet you in Turkey and lucky enough to watch your presentation. We will keep in touch. Million thanks for your time and your great work.

Yeşim
5 admin // Mar 25, 2009 at 4:38 pm

Thanks Richard. Nice to hear from you.
Yes - accidentally stumbled accross the striptease - a familiar excuse, I’m sure.
Thanks a lot for the encouraging words
Jamie
6 admin // Mar 25, 2009 at 4:44 pm

Thanks Yeşim
It was nice to meet you too. A great first trip to Turkey for me (although I accidentally said ‘Italy’ - do you remember?). Very embarrassing. Just nerves I think.
Hope to be back soon
Jamie
7 Cooooooooncetta // Mar 25, 2009 at 6:15 pm

Thanks, JAMIE!

It’s a good IDEA for the lesson.
8 leo // Mar 25, 2009 at 11:55 pm

Hey Jamie,
I just think it is fantastic to use google as a language tool.
I recently taught a lesson on “do x make” and I used lots of pictures as well but also had some of the following:

1-Running dictation - I wrote a text about me full of collocations with do and make but blanked the do and make collocations from the sentences and had them run around the school in order to complete the story with the correct collocations.

2- divided students in A’s and B’s and gave each of them a set of 10 sentences full of collocations with do and make. They had to read their sentences to their partner who had a “mini collocation dictionary” with do on the left and make on the right. As they listened to the sentences they had to understand their partners sentences and also pay attention to the collocation with do or make. (they loved this one)

3. last one - asked them to draw the collocations (2 per student) and then we had what I call “whose line is it anyways” kind of activity. I asked one student to start telling the class a story and the other have to show their pictures one by one and the student has to continue his/her story based on the pictures from his colleagues … lots of improvisation … lots of fun

Cheers
9 medusa // Mar 27, 2009 at 9:27 am

i myself feel so happy to have such a new friend in the same field. “iyi ki varsın, Jamie !”
10 Gavin Dudeney // Apr 5, 2009 at 7:37 pm

Jamie,

Try googlefight for quick frequency comparisons:

http://tinyurl.com/cdrhjp
11 admin // Apr 6, 2009 at 10:34 am

Hello Gavin
Used to love Googlefight but these days it just doesn’t work. The results it gives are at best inconsistent with those you get on Google and at worst totally random. Had to give up on it.
Jamie
12 Gabriela // Apr 7, 2009 at 3:18 pm

Thanks for sharing ideas !!!
13 Janet Bianchini // Aug 18, 2009 at 7:49 pm

Hi Jamie

I’d just like to say a big thank you for this wonderful make and do lesson. I showed your posting to groups of teachers this summer and they really enjoyed it. It was great for me to try out something new and fresh and I loved the pictures and the google pie chart results. Well done!