The language of news stories

• Gives the go-ahead to plans
• in turn of events
• interested parties
• hold talks / conference (Convene is a good alternative for hold. Thanks to Grace for her suggestion)
• top job
• attract attention
• controversial decision
• peace talks
• broke down
• outlined plans for
• taken hostage
• seize control
• lost control of
• keep a close watch on
• keep someone informed as the news developed
• a building caught fire when lightning struck
• no loss of life

Collocations about newspapers and money

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Collocations -words that go together

Dear students,

Sorry for not being able to explain collocation clearly in the lesson today. The following is what I've found on a dictionary website. Hope it's helpful.

When words are used together regularly, rules are formed about their use not for grammatical reasons, but because of the association. 'Black and white' appear in that order because of collocation; they are always in that order and to put them the other way around seems wrong. For the same reason we 'make a mistake' when we 'do a test'. The reason for using these verbs with these is that we always do; this is collocation.

(http://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/collocation.html)