Collocations for Global Connections and Intercultural Understanding
CONNECT • UNDERSTAND • RESPECT • COLLABORATE
Start the lesson
Global connections create opportunities to exchange ideas and cooperate, while lasting understanding depends on respecting cultural identity, local customs and the needs of different communities.
A connected world works best when people exchange ideas, respect differences and cooperate without losing sight of local traditions and identities.
Explore the readingLexiLink · Globalisation and Cultural Diversity B2–C1 80 minutes
Complete the tasks, investigate globalisation-related collocations in SkELL, and use them to explain how cultural identity, local customs and international connections shape communities.
Teacher-facing timing plan for an 80-minute lesson. The sequence moves from reading and lexical noticing to corpus verification and contextual production.
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to use B2+–C1 collocations for globalisation and cultural diversity, distinguish close synonyms by meaning, test language hypotheses with SkELL, and explain how communities can preserve traditions while engaging in international cooperation.
Study each expression, its meaning and the synonyms that may fit a similar context. Compare the alternatives carefully: words may be close in meaning without being interchangeable in every sentence.
Read the text carefully or listen to it. Target collocations are shown in bold. The case study and its figures are fictional and created for learning purposes.
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A. On 12 March 2024, the fictional city of Northbridge opened a six-month “Shared Streets” programme to help residents understand how global connections affect local life. Project coordinator Maya Rahman said the aim was not to make every neighbourhood alike, but to help people bridge differences while protecting cultural heritage. The programme began after a survey of 420 residents found that 38% had taken part in an international cultural event during the previous year.
B. Northbridge is home to communities whose families arrived from 27 countries. Many residents exchange ideas at food markets, libraries and language cafés. Yet organisers found that a language barrier sometimes prevented newcomers from accessing local services. From April, the council added translated information sheets and volunteer interpreters at three community centres. By June, attendance at the weekly advice sessions had risen from 46 to 71 visits, although the report cautioned that seasonal changes might also have affected participation.
C. Local businesses also depend on global supply chains. On 8 May, the Northbridge Traders’ Association held a workshop on cross-border trade and economic integration. Small business owner Daniel Okafor explained that a delayed shipment of coffee equipment had affected six cafés. He argued that international links could create opportunities, but that businesses needed alternative suppliers and the ability to adapt to change. Participants agreed that cooperation worked best when partners understood each other’s expectations.
D. The programme’s cultural festival took place on 22 June 2024. Organisers invited residents to present music, crafts and stories connected with their backgrounds. Rather than treating culture as something fixed, the event showed how communities can preserve traditions while developing new ones. Historian Dr Leila Chen noted that cultural identity can include several influences at once. She also urged visitors to challenge stereotypes by asking people about their experiences instead of assuming that one person speaks for an entire community.
E. In a report published on 30 September 2024, the council said that 312 people had attended at least one programme activity and 84 volunteers had contributed time. The report described the project as a step towards stronger social cohesion and more international cooperation between local organisations. It recommended continuing translated support and creating more opportunities to promote inclusion. The council did not claim that the programme had caused every positive change; it called for a longer evaluation to discover which activities had the greatest effect and whether the benefits were mutually beneficial for different groups.
Decide whether each statement agrees with the passage. Choose TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN.
Match each statement to paragraph A–E. Use each paragraph once.
Choose the best answer according to the passage.
Complete each expression using its meaning and the context; choose the word that makes a natural collocation.
Choose the missing word in each collocation. Read the whole expression, not just the blank.
Use sentence meaning and grammar to select a collocation that fits the context.
Choose the collocation that best fits the situation about global connections, cultural identity or cooperation. Use the contextual meaning to decide; do not classify parts of speech.
Choose the expression that fits the situation and the meaning of the sentence.
Open SkELL. Search heritage, barrier, cohesion and cooperation in Word Sketch. Compare authentic examples and meanings. Record two collocations, write an original sentence for each, add two related expressions and note how corpus evidence confirmed or changed your first hypothesis.
Teacher scoring: up to 10 points for accurate and varied collocations, original contextual sentences, relevant related words and evidence-based revision of a language hypothesis.
The structured fields are included in the lesson submission and appear as individual records in the teacher's spreadsheet.
Three options in each question express similar meanings. Choose the one collocation that does NOT belong to the synonym group. All options are natural expressions; the odd one out is different in meaning.
Choose the collocation that matches the meaning described. All options are natural English expressions; use meaning rather than parts of speech.
These tests become progressively harder: recognise collocations, choose expressions in context, compare close meanings, and evaluate realistic situations involving globalisation and cultural diversity. The practice score is reported separately from the 115-point lesson total.
Write at least 100 words about how globalisation is changing a community. Use at least eight target collocations to discuss cultural identity, local customs, international trade, language barriers or cooperation, and support your ideas with specific examples. The 100-word target is recommended for full writing credit, but unfinished work can still be submitted.
Please compose your paragraph here rather than pasting a prepared text. Normal paste, cut/copy shortcuts and drag-and-drop are blocked in this writing field. This browser restriction supports the task rules but is not a complete plagiarism-detection system.
0 words — 100-word minimum to submit; no maximum
Write at least 100 words about how globalisation is changing a community. Use at least eight target collocations to discuss cultural identity, local customs, international trade, language barriers or cooperation, and support your ideas with specific examples. The 100-word target is recommended for full writing credit, but unfinished work can still be submitted.
Your name and group from the student profile above, your SkELL collocations and original sentences, related words, corpus notes, writing paragraph and available exercise scores will be collected in the teacher's spreadsheet.
Auto-scored sections: reading MCQ, True/False, paragraph matching, Matching, Sentence Completion, Odd One Out, Find the Collocate, Multiple Choice, Lexical Cloze and Collocation Repair (100 points total). SkELL cluster (10) and productive writing (5) are teacher-scored. Maximum lesson total: 115 points. The 24-point Progressive Lexical Test is submitted as a separate practice result and is not added to the lesson total.
Vocabulary bank informed by the Lesson 25 topic, “Globalisation and Cultural Diversity,” in the supplied LexiLink lesson collection. Definitions, reading and interactive exercises were adapted or written for LexiLink.
LexiLink · Connect words. Build fluency. Lesson submissions are sent to the configured Google Apps Script collector. The teacher must verify the saved row in Google Sheets because the browser cannot read confirmation in no-cors mode.