CELTA Online Unit 25: Identifying Collocations

Look at the text again and:

1. Find the nouns which go with the verbs.
2. Find adjectives which go with the nouns.

Write your answers in the notepad provided. For example, in the first sentence ‘I think it’s important to
enable students to do real things…’

Answer: do things

I think it’s important to enable students to do real things in the real world with English, to read
newspaper articles, to make phone calls, to write emails, to understand the news on the radio, things
like that. That’s what people mean when they say the ‘communicative approach’.
As well as that, I think it’s important to help students with the particular problems they have and to
enable them to do the things they need to be able to do.

Your Response
read newspaper article- Verb+noun
write emails-Verb +noun
real world -Adj+noun
make phone calls -Verb =noun

Suggested Response

 read newspaper articles (Verb + Noun)

 make phone calls (Verb + Noun)
 write emails (Verb + Noun)
 real world (Adj + Noun)
 communicative approach (Adj + Noun)
 particular problems (Adj + Noun)

Commentary
Collocations in English involve two parts of speech. In the task above, the focus was on verb + noun
collocations, which are the most common type of collocation, and adjective + noun collocations. There
are others, including:

 Adverb + adjective (e.g. fiercely intelligent)

 Verb + preposition (e.g. learn about)
 Noun + noun (e.g. newspaper articles)