A Taste of a New Book “The Company Words Keep”

Paul Davis, UK, and Hanna Kryszewska, Poland

Paul Davis is a teacher, trainer and author. He has co-written: Dictation, CUP, The Confidence Book, Longman, and More Grammar Games, CUP, and Ways of Doing, CUP. He has worked in many kinds of ELT teaching and training in many countries. He is a regular Pilgrims trainer. His present ELT interests include Silent Way, Linguistic Psychodrama and Corpus Linguistics.

Hanna Kryszewska is a teacher, teacher trainer, trainer of trainers. She is a senior lecturer at the University of Gdańsk, and EU Teacher Training College. She is co-author of resource books: Learner Based Teaching, OUP, Towards Teaching, Heinemann, The Standby Book, CUP, Language Activities for Teenagers, CUP and a course book series for secondary schools: ForMat, Macmillan. She is also co-author of a video based teacher training course: Observing English Lessons. Hania is a Pilgrims trainer and editor of HLT Magazine.
E-mail: hania.kryszewska@pilgrims.co.uk

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About the book
Sample exercises

About the book

The Company Words Keep examines how we store language in ready-made chunks that we retrieve and use, rather than elaborately constructing ‘grammar’ each time we speak. The authors provide a wealth of activities which apply their methodology to both the coursebook and to authentic contexts, taking advantage of corpus linguistics. Teachers are also offered suggestions and activities for further development in this exciting field.

The Company Words Keep proposes that:

• teachers need to develop a methodology that implements a more lexical approach
• learners at all levels need to be trained in collecting and expressing themselves in chunks
• teachers need to raise learners’ awareness of chunks, encouraging them to focus on word partnerships

Published by: Delta Publishing in the Delta Teacher Development series

ISBN 9781905085200
Price £ 18.85

Publication date: spring 2012

Sample exercises

Pass the chunk

This activity demonstrates how a particular word can come in different places within a chunk. With the word home, learners are likely to know at home, home alone, home sweet home, etc.

Level Intermediate and above
Duration 15 mins

Procedure

Ask the learners to form a circle:

• The first learner says a chunk – it may come from the coursebook they are using, eg my mother’s cat.
• The next learner chooses any word from that chunk and says another chunk that contains the word, eg my best friend, or cats and dogs or my mother’s best friend.
• The next learner continues – round the circle.

If you want to make it into a knock-out competition, a learner who cannot think of a chunk, or says a chunk containing a mistake, is 'out'.

Here is an example of a class response:

at home
home alone
home sweet home
short and sweet
sweet sixteen
sweet and sour

You can write the chunks on the board for later reference (or correction).

Possibilities

This can also be a writing activity – the learners are given more time to think, they produce a record of their work and you have a springboard for remedial work.

• The learners sit in a circle of up to ten, each with a blank sheet of paper.
• They write a chunk at the top of their piece of paper and pass the paper to the person on their left, who writes another chunk containing one word from the previous one.
• Continue until everybody gets their original sheet back.
• Display the lists and discuss for correctness.

Draw a chunk

Learners revise and pool chunks centred around a topic area/subject from a unit in their coursebook. This fun activity employs a visual element, which is very important for some learners,.

Level Intermediate and above
Duration 15-30 mins

Preparation

Prepare a list of chunks you want to revise. Write them on individual slips of paper.

Procedure

Choose one chunk to illustrate the activity with. For example: run a successful business.

Draw on the board one element of the chunk, eg run.

When they have guessed run ask the learners to pool the chunks that come to their minds with the word run.

Draw business and success(ful).

Keep drawing until the class guess the chunk.

A learner now takes your place.

Give them a new chunk to draw, and the whole class do the guessing.

Possibilities

You can ask the learners to look through the coursebook units you want to revise and note down five to eight chunks relating to a subject. They get into pairs or groups, one learner draws the whole chunk, and the others guess what the chunk is. They take it in turns – drawing and guessing.

Please check the Methodology for Teaching Spoken Grammar and English course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Methodology and Language for Secondary Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Teaching Advanced Students course at Pilgrims website.