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Lesson Plan: Teaching Collocations with Do and Make

Collocations with do and make

Collocations Lesson Plan

This  lesson plan introduces collocations with do and make. The aim of this lesson is to help students understand what collocations are,  do some exercises to practice collocations with do and make, and use these collocations to talk about themselves.

Introduce collocations

Ask students to complete the following sentence:

  1. I am …. a cake.
  2. I am …. an exercise.
  • Elicit possible answers: make, eat,  do…
  • Focus on the fact that a cake collocates with verbs like make and eat but not with the verb do.
  • Likewise, the noun exercise collocates with do and not with the verb make.
  • Tell students that phrases that contain words that usually go together are called collocations.
  • Tell them that they are going to do an exercise about collocations with do and make.

Collocations with do and make

Ask students to complete this table using the nouns in the box below:

the shopping, a dress, the dishes, an exercise, a cake, coffee, money, the ironing, the laundry, a reservation, a mistake

Here is the table they have to complete:

 Collocations with do  Collocations with make
DO..

 MAKE..

The table should look like this:

 Collocations with do  Collocations with make
DO…

the shopping
the dishes
an exercise
the ironing
the laundry

 MAKE…

a dress
a cake
money
a reservation
a mistake

Do or make?

Do or make?
Do or make?

Help students to understand that generally speaking::

  • we use do to describe indefinite activities and to talk about duties, jobs or (leisure) activities;
  • we use make when we are talking about constructing, creating or performing something.

Write the following examples on the board to make the point clear:

  • I always do my homework in the evenings.
  • I like spaghetti. I make spaghetti everyday.

Practicing collocations with do and make

Match the numbers with the letters

a. make

b. do

  1.  good
  2. friends
  3. a difference
  4. a favor
  5. a salad
  6. your best
  7. your hair
  8. a phone call
  9. money
  10. a complaint
  11. the right thing
  12. the washing

Choose the right words: do or make

  1. I ______ the shopping every Friday afternoon.
  2. Please, can you ______ a reservation for me?
  3. She doesn’t ______ much money.
  4. Nobody helps my mother to ______ the housework.
  5. Will you ______ me a favor? Help me carry this table.
  6. Let’s ______ the appointment for 10:00 in the morning.
  7. Try not to ______ any grammar mistakes in your writing.
  8. Oh, dear! There is so much laundry to ______ !
  9. She always ______ the the dishes late at night.
  10. I’ll ______ spaghetti for dinner. Do you like it?

Personalizing

Ask students to talk about their daily activities  using the above collocations

More about collocations with do and make

For a longer list of collocations with do and make click here


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