The Acquisition of Phrasal Verbs in L2 English: A Literature Review

This paper introduces the linguistic element called the phrasal verb, which consists of a verb followed by a particle, such as to “eat out.” The challenges facing L2 students attempting to master phrasal verbs are considered, followed by a proposed approach to teaching semantic as well as syntactic understanding of these structures. We conclude with a review of literature which proposes innovative teaching techniques. We conclude that there is promise that some of these techniques can assist students to master phrasal verbs, and that more research is necessary to determine the most effective approaches