Multi-word Verbs in English Language Teaching: Insights from research and practice

Multi-word verbs are an essential topic in the English language syllabus. As a prominent feature of the language, with numerous semantic and syntactic peculiarities, they pose challenges even for advanced learners. Recent evidence-based pedagogical approaches to multi-word verbs have emerged from various fields of applied linguistics. However, it remains unclear whether these research insights are being implemented in classroom practice. This book addresses both issues. It begins with a review of research in corpus linguistics, cognitive linguistics, and instructed second language acquisition, highlighting their relevance to the teaching of multi-word verbs. It then presents a new study on current approaches to the topic in mainstream language education, analysing language teachers’ beliefs as well as content from popular textbooks. Based on these findings, the author offers a comprehensive view of the topic and practical applications for enhancing multi-word verb instruction.