By María de la Lama
Without
any doubt, the use of phrasal verbs when speaking can turn out to be a
challenge for our Spanish-speaking students. These idiomatic collocations,
which native talkers use so naturally in their discourse, are difficult for
foreign learners to acquire and, therefore, to deal with. It’s worth then
summarizing the reasons why our students find them so difficult and how our
methodology could help them.
Usually
we give our students lots of practice in understanding the form of phrasal
verbs since their arrangement can be confusing if we consider that there are
two-word phrasal verbs or three-word phrasal verbs. Compare: look up vs.
look up to. Also, if we match break into vs. break
in, we’ll come up with another
classification: transitive and intransitive verbs. Finally, there is another
important aspect that has to do with the form affecting meaning. If we compare pick
up (the noun) vs pick up (the verb) we’ll notice that
the stress on the preposition will make the difference on whether we are using
the noun or the verb.
Another
source of difficulty lies in deducing the meaning of phrasal verbs as in the
case of “keep up with” where the three words together are acting as a
unit of meaning.
Finally,
their use proves to be very challenging. We know that our students are
reluctant to incorporating them in their oral production in spite of the fact
that their use is a very natural trait of native speakers. Spanish-speaking
students, in particular, would tend to select a single-word verb instead of a
phrasal verb.
If
the meaning and use of phrasal verbs are as difficult as their form, then our
practice in class should go beyond intensive form practice such as determining
whether phrasal verbs are transitive or intransitive. If we bear in mind that the
meaning and use of phrasal verbs are as important as their form, then we would
be leading a more communicative practice aiming to facilitate their
acquisition.
What
do YOU think?
Do
you also find it difficult to learn (and use) them?
How
do you deal with incorporating them in your everyday speech?
BIODATA:
DE LA LAMA, MARIA, Bachelor in
Education, has a master's degree in Applied Linguistics and a Bachelor's in
Linguistics, both obtained at the University of California, Davis. She also
holds an MBA from Universidad del Pacífico. She currently serves as the
Director of the Language Center at Universidad del Pacífico.
