Learning/Acquiring English Phrasal Verbs

Abstract

In the context of English at university level, it has been noticed that advanced learners of English misuse phrasal verbs – a verb followed by a preposition or an adverb. This situation has motivated the need to investigate this area of English grammar and see whether a specific methodology could help in the acquisition of phrasal verbs. As a background to this investigation, we will highlight the concepts basic to foreign language acquisition, in particular the concepts of acquisition –“knowing how” the language functions – and that of learning –“knowing about” the language. We will report on the results of a test involving Definitions, Matching, Multiple Choice and Cloze Procedure activities requiring the meaning of phrasal verbs and highlighting the informants’ understanding and use of phrasal verbs. This study has shown that advanced learners of English (University level), on the whole, have a certain knowledge of some phrasal verbs, usually the ones come across in teaching, but have difficulty defining even the phrasal verbs they think they know and using the phrasal verbs in the contexts where they do not expect them.