15 Essential Phrasal Verbs for Upper Intermediate Level

As a teacher I dread the student request ‘we want to study phrasal verbs’ for the following reasons:

1. The difficulty of deciding which phrasal verbs the students want to study and for what reason.
2. The challenge of incorporating a body of phrasal verbs, all with different meanings and uses, into a communicative and coherent class plan.

For that reason I prefer to treat phrasal verbs as ‘opportunity’ teaching.  This means finding (or ‘coming across’, if you prefer) phrasal verbs in context and drawing students’ attention to them, or introducing them at opportune moments.  Even then, there can be complications when relatively obscure, literary or archaic examples (‘butter up’, or ‘chime in’ anyone?) ‘crop up’ in reading texts and it becomes necessary to explain that these are very unlikely to become a useful part of a learner’s active vocabulary, even at extremely high levels.

But then I think about the teacher’s role as a guide to the learner in showing the way to the really useful language that will help them become an effective and sophisticated user of English.  This is perhaps especially relevant in the arcane field of phrasal verbs where learners are often found to be out of their comfort zones.  For this reason I set myself the challenge of identifying the 15 essential phrasal verbs at upper intermediate level – assuming that basics such as ‘get up’ and ‘put on’ are already in place.

The result is the list below.  So, if you are an English learner at an intermediate level you really should know these phrasal verbs and then be able to use them in context.  If not, then here’s your chance to fill in the gaps in your knowledge!

If you, as a learner or a teacher, would replace any of my suggestions on this ‘definitive’ list, or would like to say anything else on the matter, please leave a comment in the box below!