Who Should Choose Lesson Content? Collocations and Real-World English – S05E22

Who should decide what happens in an English lesson: the teacher, the students or both?In this episode of How to English TEFL Podcast, we explore syllabus design and learner involvement. Em wonders whether teachers should accept “whatever you want” as an answer, while Gav explains how asking every learner for three topics can help teachers create a more relevant course.We also revisit common English collocations, including spick and span, hustle and bustle, black and blue, kith and kin, ups and downs, blood and guts, and odds and ends.Can you end an English sentence with a preposition? We clear up the confusion surrounding so-called dangling prepositions and explain why natural questions such as “What’s it for?” and “Who’s it about?” are perfectly acceptable.Gav then shares a playful present perfect continuous activity in which learners explain unusual outcomes. Why is your phone in the freezer? Why are your students wearing sunglasses indoors? The activity encourages spontaneous answers and can be adapted as a matching or memory game for lower-level learners.Em also reflects on the frustrating gap between teaching something and seeing learners apply it in real life. After spending 90 minutes teaching email conventions, she receives an email containing one of the mistakes she had carefully covered. We discuss concept checking, correcting authentic emails and why changing established language habits takes time.Finally, Em tests Gav on animal names that can also be verbs. Can you fish for compliments, duck an object, wolf down a meal, badger someone or squirrel something away? We finish by discovering how “rabbit” came to mean “talk” through Cockney rhyming slang.Gav and Em draw on more than 40 years of combined English-teaching experience, sharing practical ideas alongside the honest successes, frustrations and unusual moments that arise in real lessons.If you find the show useful, you can send us a thanks at https://ko-fi.com/howtoenglishpodVisit https://howtoenglishpod.com for practical teaching ideas and resources ready to use.Listen to the transcription with audio:https://share.descript.com/view/h0xao94vmg0ResourceHow We Made Rabbit by Chas & Dave:https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/feb/12/chas-and-dave-how-we-made-rabbit-camilla-parker-bowlesChapters00:00 Introduction02:06 Meanings of common English collocations08:46 Can a sentence end with a preposition?11:05 Who should choose the syllabus and lesson content?17:57 Present perfect continuous activity with unusual outcomes23:37 Why learners struggle to apply classroom learning29:18 Quiz of the Week: animal names used as verbs36:40 Why does “rabbit” mean “talk”?37:46 Final thoughts and outro