Topic: Vocabulary

These resources relate to the nature of words and word choice, and move towards building student vocabularies in systematic ways.

Compound word creation

An interactive activity to explore how compounds are made

In this activity, students work with an interactive smart board display to build compound words.

The Activity pages for this starter can be found in the menu entitled 'This Unit' in the upper right corner of this page. Each Activity page contains slides that can be displayed using a projector or smart board. 

Compound word creation: Activity 1

An interactive activity to explore how compounds are made

Compound word creation: Activity 2

See how many compound words you can create from a given word.

For each word, see how many compounds you can think of which include the word.

Neoclassical compounds

In this activity, students analyse neoclassical compounds, which are compounds where often the word elements were taken from the classical languages (ancient Greek and Latin) and were combined in new ways in English (the element neo- comes from the Greek for ‘new’). Neoclassical compounds involve combining forms. They are meaningful elements drawn from Greek and Latin, which can combine with other elements to form words.

Activity 1

Nouning verbs

A quick activity looking at how some words can be both nouns and verbs

This is a simple starter activity that will help your students see how some words can function as both nouns and verbs. The activity is designed to be carried out in pairs around the class. One student be the noun and the other will be the verb. Each will need the same word list (which you can download and print below) or you can just use the word list on the screen.

Word frequency in speech and writing

Comparing word frequencies is an interesting way to think about some of the differences between speech and writing. Which are the most frequent words in speech, and how do they compare with the most frequent words in writing?

Word frequency in speech and writing: Activity

Spoken English

the

I

you

and

it

a

’s*

to

of

that

Written English

the

of

Word salads (secondary)

In this resource we’ll look at what grammar is and why we need it. First of all, take a look at the word salads. They can be found in the Activity pages within the menu entitled 'This Unit' in the upper right of this page. The slides show real spoken sentences drawn from our corpus, which have been jumbled up into the wrong order. The students' task is to rearrange the words into an order that makes sense.

Word salads (secondary): Activity 1

Sentence 1

sometimes
her
I
hate

Sentence 2

water
of
can
a
I
glass
have
please

Analysing language choices in reviews

In this lesson, students examine word choice in a pair of published reviews.

Goals

  • Identify words with particular effects in a particular genre of English writing, the review.
  • Discuss the effects of word choice in real language in use.

Lesson Plan

The teacher explains that today, we will look at two published reviews and analyse the language choices that the writers made.

Analysing language choices in reviews: Activity

It’s reasonably compact, compared to most smartphones these days, with a 3.7in screen that’s slightly bigger than the iPhone’s. It looks neat enough, but when you pick it up it feels like no other phone around. The screen is slightly curved, and so are the edges of the phone. It all feels like a smooth, tactile pebble, with glossy front and matte back. It’s made from polycarbonate, that is plastic, but it’s put together like it’s one piece. Even the tiny holes on the bottom edge for the speaker are individually precision-milled.

Antonymy 1 (Stein)

Plan

Activity 1

Explain to learners that antonyms are pairs of words that mean the opposite of each other. This is very common with adjectives. Show the three examples; then ask learners to come up with three more pairs themselves. Check to make sure they are using adjectives. 

Antonymy 1 (Stein)

Lesson

Objective

To understand the meaning of antonyms and how they are formed.

Activity 1

In the lesson on synonyms, we saw how words can have similar meanings. They can also be related through opposite meanings. This is very common with adjectives: 

  • long - short
  • old - new 
  • quick - slow 

We call these pairs of words antonyms. Can you think of three other pairs of antonyms? 

Antonymy 2 (Stein)

Plan

Activity 1

Explain to learners that they will continue to look at antonyms, but this time by looking at adjectives. Make sure they understand these key terms by discussing the three example pairs. 

In the next slide, show the learners the five sentences. Each sentence has a gap which can be filled with an adjective or its antonym. Have learners copy the sentences and fill the gap with two possibilities. Reveal the answers and accept any other reasonable options.

Antonymy 2 (Stein)

Lesson

Objective

To examine how adjective antonyms are formed and used.

Activity 1

Adjectives commonly have opposite words, or antonyms. When we think of an adjective, we often immediately think of its opposite. For example: 

  • rich - poor
  • old - young
  • easy - difficult

For each of these five sentences, write down the pair of adjective antoynms that could fill the gap. 

Antonymy 3 (Stein)

Plan

Activity 1

Explain that this lesson will continue to focus on antonyms and prefixes, but this time by looking at verbs.

Check to make sure your learners know the meaning of these key terms. Use the two example sentences to help. 

Show the learners the list of six verbs. Ask them to add a prefix to each one to form its antonym. Use the next mix-and-match activity to check answers as a whole class. Bring the cards together to connect and double click to separate. 

Antonymy 3 (Stein)

Lesson

Objective

To examine verb antonyms, and how they are formed and used.

Activity 1

Antonyms are also very common with verbs.

Just like adjectives and nouns, they can be formed by adding a prefix.

1. I tied my shoes.

2. I untied my shoes.

Activity 1

Look at this list of six verbs.

What is the antonym for each one? Which prefix do we use to change it? 

Building words

Exploring the internal structure of words

Goals

  • Identify prefixes, base words, and suffixes.
  • Build words by combining prefixes, base words, and suffixes.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of word classes by identifying the word class of the newly derived words.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of derivational morphology by using newly derived words in sentences.

Lesson Plan

The Activity page appears in the menu entitled 'This Unit' in the upper right.

Building words: Activity

In this activity, explore how words are built out of a prefix, base form and a suffix

What meanings do different prefixes and suffixes have? Can any base form take any prefix or suffix? How can you manipulate language to create new forms? For example, deread is not an English word. What might it mean?

Collective Nouns (Stein)

Plan

Activity 1

Ask learners to think of some nouns and make them singular and plural. Then, ask if they can think of any nouns which you cannot make plural. Show them the examples in the next slide and see if they can guess the words. 

Activity 2

Ask the learners to look at the table of collective nouns and organise them into two categories. Use the 'hint' button to help if your learners are stuck.

Collective Nouns (Stein)

Lesson

Objective

To understand diffferent types of collective nouns.

Usually, nouns can be singular or plural, like book or books.

What other examples can you think of? 

There are some nouns which only appear in the singular. Can you think of any? 

Derived nouns and composition

In this activity we will look at suffixes that can change adjectives and verbs into nouns.

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