Home » Word classes » Determiner

Topic: Determiner

A determiner is a word like a, the or my which comes before a noun to help specify what or who it refers to, e.g. my sister.

An Introduction to Genre

Lesson Plan

Goals:

»

An Introduction to Genre

Activities

Activity 1

Writing is an activity by which we achieve different goals. There are so many different types of text, we give the different types their own names. The names we give to different texts are called genres.

What kind of written or spoken text would you find the following sentences and phrases in? Give an answer for each one.

»

Genre of Newspaper Articles

Lesson Plan

Goals:

  • Identify and analsye the discourse features of newspaper articles
  • Identify and analsye the register features of newspaper articles
  • Apply these features in writing 

Lesson Plan

Before this lesson, you may want to complete the lesson An Introduction to Genre, so that learners are familiar with the key terms discourse structure and register

»

Genre of Newspaper Articles

Activities

Warmer 

Discuss with a partner: 

  • What was the last newspaper article you read? What was it about? 
  • Why do people read newspapers and news websites?  
  • What features do we expect to see in a newspaper article? Why are they used? 

Activity 1

Read Article A. Discuss the following questions: 

»

Genre of Recipes

Lesson Plan

Goals: 

  • Compare the discourse structure and register features of two recipes
  • Identify which grammatical features can be omitted for effect 
  • Analyse why recipes follow a predictable structure and set of features

Lesson Plan

Before this lesson, you may want to complete the lesson An Introduction to Genre, so that learners are familiar with the key terms discourse structure and register

»

Genre of Recipes

Activities

Warmer 

Discuss with a partner: 

  • What's your favourite meal? 
  • What recipes can you cook? 
  • What kind of information do recipes normally include?

Activity 1 

In pairs or small groups, read recipes A and B. Take turns describing each recipe, and then discuss with your partner: 

»

Y2 Spelling: A or an?

Fill in the missing gap with 'a' or 'an'

In each of the following examples, indicate whether the space should be filled with a or an:

»

Y6 GPaS Test: A or an?

In each of the following examples, indicate whether the space should be filled with a or an:

»

Y6 GPaS Test: Article or adjective?

Work out whether the highlighted word is an article or an adjective

In each of the following examples, indicate whether the highlighted word is an article or an adjective:

»

Y6 GPaS Test: Identify the determiners

Find the determiners in a range of examples

Identify the determiners in each of the following examples. Click on the word (or words) to select or deselect them.

»

Y6 GPaS Test: Identify the possessive determiners

Find the possessive determiners in a range of examples

Identify the possessive determiners in each of the following examples. Click on the word (or words) to select or deselect them.

»

Determiners

Determiners form a class of words that occur in the left-most position inside noun phrases. They thus precede nouns, as well as any adjectives that may be present.

The most common determiners are the and a/an (these are also called the definite aticle and indefinite article).

Here are some more determiners:

»

Determiners: Advanced

The following is taken from Bas Aarts's Grammarianism blog.

In a recent blog post on terminology I mentioned the word class of determiners, and said that they are a relatively new word class.

By 'relatively new' I mean 'early twentieth century'. The National Curriculum Glossary definition, determiner, is very brief, here I'll expand on it.

»

Nouns, adjectives and determiners

This short film introduces some basic ideas of grammar that everyone should know.

In this film Professor Bas Aarts introduces three basic categories: nouns, adjectives and determiners.

»

Englicious contains many resources for English language in schools, but the vast majority of them require you to register and log in first. For more information, see What is Englicious?

Englicious (C) Survey of English Usage, UCL, 2012-21 | Supported by the AHRC and EPSRC. | Privacy | Cookies