Phrasal verbs in the workplace

B1

Phrasal verbs
at work
Discuss attitudes to work and use phrasal verbs
to talk about workplace issues.

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 Phrasal verbs in the workplace

Let’s talk about the workplace

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 Phrasal verbs in the workplace

Put the words in the box in the correct column

shared home
colleagues answering emails both
office office

coffee breaks gossiping

smart clothes wasting time

meetings working lunches

commuting take away coffees

after-work drinks having a lie in

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 Phrasal verbs in the classroom

Ask and answer

● Describe your own workplace: do you like it?

● Do you like your job? What are the best and worst
things about your job?

● If you could change anything about your job,

what would it be?

● Do you get on well with your boss? What about

your colleagues?

● If you could change career, what would you

do instead?

● Do you have a good work-life balance?

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 Phrasal verbs in the workplace

Your turn!

● Imagine your boss gives you the task of

redesigning your workplace:

○ How would it look?

○ Where would it be?
○ What activities and events would
you hold?

● Describe it to the class.

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 Phrasal verbs in the workplace

Phrasal verbs

The following particles (prepositions or adverbs) are often used after verbs:
on, off, at, up, down, in out, away, back, over, forward, by, through, along, about, round/around

look forward put away go back turn around

When we combine a verb with a particle to make a phrasal verb, the original meaning of the verb
is changed. Often, the same phrasal verb can have different meanings and can be
transitive (followed by an object) or intransitive (not followed by an object):

transitive: I looked up the word OR I looked the word up.

intransitive: We looked up (at the night sky).

Some transitive phrasal verbs are separable (the object can separate verb and particle) and some
are non-separable (the object must go after the particle).

separable look up a definition OR look a definition up

non-separable look after someone NOT look someone after

However, in separable phrasal verbs, if the object is a pronoun, it always goes in the middle:

I looked it up NOT I looked up it.

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 Phrasal verbs in the workplace

Match the items

1. to jot something down A. to have too much work

2. to run out of something B. provide support for someone or something

3. to back someone up C. to reach a point of mental exhaustion

4. to get snowed under D. to perform a task

5. to burn out E. to take notes in written form

6. to carry something out F. to no longer have enough of something

1 2 3 4 5 6

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 Phrasal verbs in the workplace

Analyse the phrasal verb in context

1. It’s a really complicated issue so I need to back up and tell you what happened
from the beginning.

2. Make sure you back all of your documents up onto the main hard drive.

3. I think my boss is great because she always backs the team up in front of the clients.

4. I’m so sorry you’ve experienced such a long wait. A computer error has completely
backed our system up.

5. He got so angry that he backed me up against a wall.

6. Alan’s account of what happened has been backed up by three of his colleagues.

literal figurative transitive intransitive separable non-separable

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 Phrasal verbs in the workplace

Research and present

Find out what these phrasal verbs mean.

Then put them in an example sentence.

Group A Group B

1. to call something off a. to get along with someone

2. to push something back b. to get through to someone

3. to bring something up c. to take on (more staff)

4. to come up with something d. to lay off (someone)

Now make a workplace dialogue using some of these phrasal verbs.

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 Phrasal verbs in the workplace

Your turn!

● Now that you’ve talked a little bit about

your ideal workplace, it’s time to look at the
bigger picture.

● Think about what your dream company

would be like. You can research companies
for inspiration!

● Think about the following aspects: company

size, location, CEO, working life, promotion
prospects, methods of communicating.

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 Phrasal verbs in the workplace

In this class, I was able to...

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 Phrasal verbs in the workplace

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