Get Phrases: Explanation

Get Phrases

• Details

Name of Item	Get A Life!!
Activity Type	Vocabulary / Discussion
Student Level	Intermediate - Upper Intermediate
Time Allowance	15 - 20
Preparation Required	preparation to explain phrases
Other Items Needed	nothing special
Vocabulary	get a life / get real / get stuffed / get yourself together / get a move on / get out / get lost / get out of my way / get out of doing..
Grammar	sentence patterns with phrases

• Instructions

Some of these phrases can be quite aggressive so you may want to think twice about using it with some groups, but then again, it may be just the thing for waking up others. When introducing them, I always try to convey the typical feeling intended with my tone of voice / speed of delivery / facial expressions. To avoid causing possible offense, it's a good idea to make it very clear that these utterances are directed away from students, either at an imaginary person in the corner, or a magazine picture / poster of an annoying looking person.

To start off with, you could read out the phrases (as described above) and then students can work (in pairs or individually) to match them to the people they are intended to "emote at". You could repeat the process if they don't get the hang of it straight away.

Once the whole class has the same answers, ask students individually to write names of people they would like to say the phrases to. (Hopefully your name won't be on the list - like mine was once.) Then tell them to ask each other about those people and their reasons for wanting to "mouth off at them".

The final part is a series of discussion questions built around further phrases involving "get". It's probably best to elicit meanings for these expressions after the students have had a chance to read the questions, but before they actually start to speak.