STEP BY STEP: WORD PAIRS (GUEST POST)

“Mr Walker will explain the nuts and bolts”

“Nuts and bolts! I thought we were talking about marketing French fries!”

In this guest post, Daria Vaskova – our fellow English language teacher and teacher trainer – shares with us a few fascinating activities for practising a small but important part of the English language – irreversible binomials or word pairs.

Level: B2+

Materials (click to download):  Binomials-worksheet; Binomials-keyTN

Step 1. Every student gets a worksheet. First they try to decode binomials individually, then in pairs, then as a whole class. After that students check themselves against the key (at the bottom of the worksheet).

Step 2. The class is divided into two teams. Teams look at the quiz on the opposite side of the worksheet and work through it (you can set a 10-12 minute time-limit for this part).

Step 3. Teams exchange worksheets. The teacher checks orally with the whole class by going through the quiz and awarding points.

Step 4. Students work in pairs. They turn the worksheet back to pictures and take turns to test each other by saying a binomial and asking about its meaning.

Step 5. Students work individually and complete the dialogues with word pairs. They compare them in pairs. Whole-class feedback. Students then test each other taking turns: one reads the ‘A’ line, the other tries to respond with the “B” line without looking at the dialogues.

Step 6. Students work in pairs: they think of an experience in their life that illustrates one of the binomials. They take turns to tell the story: student A tells their story without using the binomial and student B responds to it in a natural way using the binomial they think Student A is describing where possible.

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Thank you, Daria!

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