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Topic: Word structure

These resources cover the internal structure of words, including how words can be built up from smaller meaningful parts, and ways in which words can change their form in order to mark grammatical distinctions.

Spelling - Syllables, consonants, vowels

Goals

  • To increase student awareness of the sound sequences in one syllable words.
  • To highlight that there is not a one-to-one correspondence between sounds and letters.
  • To practise dividing words into syllables.

Lesson plan

In this lesson, students will work through three activities. The first two involve categorising words according to syllable structure and number of syllables, while the third activity is a class competition requiring students to draw on their vocabulary knowledge.

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Spelling - Syllables, consonants, vowels: Activity 1

Vowel and consonant sequences

Here are five patterns of vowel (V) and consonant (C) sound sequences in words with one syllable.

  • CV: go, though
  • VC: up, inn
  • CVC: ban, mine
  • CCV: slow, true
  • CVCC: mint, mined

Instructions:

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Subject-Verb Agreement

In this lesson, students select the correct verb to compose an acceptable sentence.

Goals

  • Practise composing sentences with appropriate Subject-Verb agreement.
  • Identify acceptable patterns in Standard English.

Lesson Plan

The teacher explains that today, we will select the correct verb on the smart board, to construct acceptable sentences.

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Subject-Verb Agreement: 'Be' verbs

Telephones
are
is
am
really weird.

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Synonymy

Plan

Please note: there are two pages of activities for this lesson.

Activity 1

Start by explaining the meaning of the term synonym. For an example, ask learners to think of some synonyms for the word 'argument'. 

In the next slide, show the two possible examples. Ask learners if these two words have the exact same meaning or if there are any subtle differences. Try asking learners in what situations they would/would not use each word.

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Synonymy 1

Lesson

Activity 1

A synonym is a words that has the same, or a very similar, meaning to another. 

Take for example the word argument.

How many words can you think of that have the same or a very similar meaning? 

For the word argument, some synonyms are quarrel or row.

The words quarrel and row have the same general meaning.

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Synonymy 2

Lesson

Activity 5

Just like with nouns, there are also many synonyms which are adjectives. These have the same, or very similar, meanings to each other, and are used in different contexts.

What does the term adjective mean? What examples can you think of? Can you think of any synonyms?

Find the synonymous adjective in these two sentences:

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Texting language

In this lesson, students explore the features of texting language, from a linguistic perspective.

Goals

  • Discuss texting language from a linguistic perspective.
  • Define some key linguistic terms relevant to texting language.

Lesson Plan

Part 1

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Texting language: Activity

Text 1 Text 2

Hey Gems,how ru?How was last nite?Hope u had a gd time..;)I herd the party was rele bad…ppl had an awful time!I guess I shud b glad I didn’t go afta all…tbXx

Free Msg; Our records indicate you may be entitled to £3750 for the accident you had. To apply free reply CLAIM to this message. To opt out text STOP

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Verb endings

In this activity we will look at suffixes which change adjectives and nouns into verbs. This process is a part of derivational morphology. 

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Word Formation: Adjective Derivation 1

Plan

Starter

Show learners the first slide and the three sentences. Ask them to identify the adjectives and to think of an affix they could attach to each one to change the meaning. Show some possible solutions in the next slide and explain how, just like with nouns, we can use affixes to alter the meaning of adjectives. 

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Word Formation: Adjective Derivation 1

Lesson

Starter

Read these three sentences. Identify the adjective in each. Discuss if you can add an affixes to change the meaning of the adjective in each sentence. 

  1. This is the only weekly magazine.
  2. She had a cold and a red nose.
  3. My kids always get too active after having sweets.

Here are some ways you could have changed the adjectives with affixes. 

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Word Formation: Adjective Derivation 2

Plan

Starter

Show learners the first slide and the four sentences. Ask them to transform the base word in brackets into an adjective by using an affix. Ask them to attempt this individually, then in pairs and finally to share with the whole class. Discuss to see if they noticed any patterns. Show the solutions in the next slide. All these examples use suffixes to change a noun into an adjective that shares the same qualities. Also, note that sometimes spelling changes are required. 

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Word Formation: Adjective Derivation 2

Lesson

Starter

Read these four sentences. Each one has a base word in brackets you need to transfrom into an adjective by adding an affix.

What do the examples have in common? Where do they differ?

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Word Formation: Compound Adjectives

Plan

Starter

Show learners the first slide. Discuss in what ways words such as blackbird are different from ones such as grass-green i.e. the first is a compound noun and the second is a compound adjective. Make sure learners pay attention to the base word. 

The second slide explains the difference in forming these types of adjective are formed. See if learners can think of any other examples. 

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Word Formation: Compound Adjectives

Lesson

Starter

Last lesson we saw how adjectives can be combined with nouns to make compound nouns, such as blackbird or red card.

Are these next two examples the same or something different?

  • grass-green 
  • lifelong

These words are both examples of compound adjectives.

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Word Formation: Compound Nouns

Plan

Starter

Show learners the first slide and the list of words. Have the learners discuss what they think the words have in common in pairs or small groups. In the next slide, explain that they are all compound nouns.

Compound nouns are formed with a base word, which is always a noun, and a specifying word, that can belong to several word classes.

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Word Formation: Compound Nouns

Lesson

Starter

Look at this list of words. What do they all have in common?

alarm clock, birthday, football, homework, sunflower, weekend

How are these words different to ones like car, dog or house?

These words are all nouns which are made by combining two nouns together.

These types of words called compound words or in this case compound nouns.

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Word Formation: Noun Derivation 1

Plan

Starter

Show learners the first slide and the list of two words. Have the learners discuss what they think the words have in common in pairs or small groups. In the next slide, check to see if they noticed all the same criteria: they are nouns, formed of base words, with an extra element added to the start and/or end. See if learners know what we call these extra elements. In the next slide, have learners take notes on the definitions of affixes, prefixes and suffixes. 

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