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Teaching phrasal verbs to beginners

Thinking that you have to wait until your students are intermediate or above to teach them phrasal verbs is complete nonsense.

Consider the following list of sentences and you will soon realize they are suitable for beginners.

	Switch off your mobile phones, please. The class is about to start.
	Very good, James. Now, go back and sit down, please.
	Pick up your pens and write down these questions in your notebooks, please.
	If there's anything you don't understand, put up your hand.

As you can see. It's just ridiculous to try to hide phrasal verbs from students. The sooner they start learning them the better. They'll get used to them, to how they work, and so on. Introducing phrasal verbs from the very beginning will ensure students approach them without fear.

It's important to make sure students understand that phrasal verbs are just like other words in the language.

You can do the following things to make sure your beginners understand and learn phrasal verbs:

	Use gestures to help explain the meaning. For example, raise you hand to explain verbs with up and lower you hand to explain verbs with down.
	You can do the same on the board using graphics. Use big arrows to explain verbs with up, down and back. For verbs with in and out, draw a circle and then a big arrow coming into or out of the circle.
	Always give examples of how to use the verbs. Don't work with simplistic translations into the students own language. Translating whole senteces is OK, though.
	There is really no need to label phrasal verbs. From the point of view of your beginners, phrasal verbs should be just like other words. Make sure they learn them in context.
	Avoid lists. Lists are abstract, boring and a waste of time. Focus on examples. Make sure they learn whole sentences they can use in the real world outside the classroom: Turn off your mp3 player. Hurry up or you'll be late.