ESL Worksheet: Environment Collocations

Level: ESL Intermediate

Objective: practice collocations related to environment

Procedure:

Brainstorm environment-related words and introduce the idea of collocations:

Ask your students to make a list of 5 words related to environment, such as habitat, pollution, emissions, ecosystems, etc. Write the word ‘pollution’  (or any other example) in the middle of the board and ask the students what types of pollution they know about. Arrange the words you elicit to the left of the word ‘pollution’:

air/water/noise/soil/radioactive pollution

Ask an additional question so that other phrases can be created with the word ‘pollution’. For example:

How should people/government treat pollution?

prevent, reduce, limit, cut, fight, control, limit, reduce, stabilize, tackle  pollution

Tell the students that these words collocate, or sound ‘good’ together, and are better remembered in phrases as they are often used in each other’s company.

Pair work:

Hand out the worksheet. Students find the word that goes well with the words listed (1-11). Monitor and take the exercise up in the open class.

Group work:

Students choose another environment related word and come up with ‘company’ words that can be put before or after the assigned word. Monitor and read out loud the combinations students wrote.