Many of the most useful multiword verbs in English are built around the head verb ‘get’. In this Grammar and Beyond post, Jennifer Brooke identifies ways to package and practice them – techniques that can be extended to other multiword verbs as well.
In last month’s article, I described many of the uses of get—a powerful word in English that can be used in a variety of ways (read the whole article here). The previous article discussed ways to teach common get-phrases to lower-level learners and get-passives for higher-level learners. Now we’ll move on to look at how to help students get comfortable (no pun intended) with using multiword get verbs. Get is an extremely productive head for multiword verbs of all types and meanings!
Multiword Verbs
A multiword verb is usually the combination of a verb plus one or more prepositions or particles. Multiword verbs are a dime a dozen in English. Even a short list, such as only those involving get, is not really short. One way to teach them in manageable increments is to choose a particularly productive set, such as those with get + off / get + on. You can use this same strategy of narrowing by category when teaching other multiword verbs, too.
Building a Lesson around ‘get’
We’ll build a lesson around extended formulaic expressions with get—such as get off one’s back or get one’s feet on the ground—most of which are highly metaphorical. They’re what are often called “idioms” in non-technical parlance. One thing to keep in mind as you teach: simply knowing a synonym or short definition won’t help your students use multiword verbs in their speaking and writing. Almost every expression in the downloadable exercises with this article comes with a noun phrase. Students need to know where to place that phrase and especially where to place any pronoun that might be used to replace the noun phrase. This involves recognizing whether the verb is separable or not. For example, it may take some practice to transform get off your bike to get off it or get your feet on the ground to get them on the ground.
Issues to Monitor
Speakers of Romance languages will likely gravitate to latinate equivalents of multiword verbs such as escape for get out. That’s not a problem unless the students reject the phrasal verb entirely in favor of the single word; a speaker sounds quite unnatural without any multiword verbs, only those latinate alternatives. Build students’ confidence by giving them lots of practice with productive tasks, and emphasize the importance of multiword verbs in everyday English vocabulary.