View Content #18927

by Nina Vyatkina, University of Kansas

This activity serves as an example of the principles discussed in Dr. Vyatkina's InterCom Topic of the Week article Corpus-Driven Instruction.

Target structure: German verb-preposition collocations

Target audience: English-speaking intermediate learners of German

Rationale: Some verbs subcategorize certain prepositions in many languages, including German and English. These verb-preposition collocations are notoriously difficult for learners because of form-meaning mapping mismatches between languages. For example, the English collocation to wait for is translated into German as warten auf and not für (a default translation of for). An additional difficulty with German is that either the verb or the preposition also assigns a specific case to the following noun phrase.

Goals:

1. The learners will become aware or reinforce their knowledge of selected German verb-preposition-case collocations.
2. The learners will use selected collocations in written sentences and in short oral partner exchanges about themselves.

Pedagogical sequence: The triple I approach: Illustration-Interaction-Induction (McCarthy & Carter, 1995). Learners will analyze corpus samples with selected collocations and, in interaction with a partner, induce what preposition and what case each verb is taking. During task monitoring and debriefing, the teacher makes sure that all learners have arrived at accurate collocation patterns.

Format: partner work, interactive

Materials: worksheet with corpus samples and directions

Reference: McCarthy, M., & Carter, R. (1995). Spoken grammar: What is it and how can we teach it? ELT Journal, 49(3), 207–218.