Fixed Coordinative Expressions in English Language Teaching

Abstract

The article considers a special subclass of phraseological units of the English language, known as binomials. The author highlights their main structural, functional, and semantic characteristics. The article reviews the issues of teaching these language units within the framework of school education, as well as the problems that arise when teaching professional communication in English at the university level. Based on the generalization of the experience of teaching English at school and university, the author explains that this type of phraseological units does not receive sufficient coverage in the education process. It is argued that students do not develop an understanding of the linguistic specificity of this type of phraseological units, which is demonstrated by the example of the so-called “paired synonyms”. The article gives several reasons, including a variety of terminology, which, in the author’s opinion, contribute to this state of affairs. The article discusses individual solutions to the issues raised. Among other things, it is pointed out that, within the framework of the English language teaching at school, it is necessary to create a separate phraseological minimum and develop a system of special exercises that would contribute to the active use of the most common language units of this type in the speech of English language learners.

Keywords

• fixed coordinative expressions
• binomials
• coordinative phraseologisms
• phraseological minimum
• paired synonyms