Topic: KS4

Relevant for UK National Curriculum Key Stage 4.

Information structuring: Activity

Sally was late. It annoyed the boss.

Sally was late and it annoyed the boss.
It annoyed the boss that Sally was late.
Sally’s lateness annoyed the boss.

Keeping a Language Log

Introduction

Most of the time, students' work in English is assessed by things that they write about things that they have read. For example, their exams may consist of writing about a Shakespeare play they have studied, or perhaps some non-fiction texts like advertisements or extracts of journalism from a newspaper or magazine.

Language and context

Sometimes great humour is born from taking language out of context. This lesson explores that fact with some examples, and asks students to think of some of their own.

Language of spam

Introduction

If you’ve got an email account, inevitably you’ll have received spam. Whether it’s adverts for vicodine or Viagra, single Russian women looking for fun (and your sort code), appeals for money from the daughters of deposed Nigerian generals, or requests to update your details from a bank that you don’t have an account with, spam is all around us.

Linguistics of lies

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

Goals

Discuss the features of lies from a linguistic perspective.
Identify pronouns, negative emotional terms, sense terms and causal phrases.
Discuss the role of context in interpretation.
Present evidence to support an argument.

Lesson Plan

Background

Linguistics of lies: Activity

Extract 1

Hi Paul

I’m not going to be able to make it in today as the boiler’s broken down and I need to wait for the repair man to come round.

I’ll do what work I can here and email you the report for Thursday’s meeting.

Mark

Extract 2

Dear Paul

Sorry about this but I can’t make it in today. I’ve got a stinking cold and I’m feeling really rough. It came on over the weekend and the kids have been feeling pretty bad too.

Main verb or auxiliary verb?

Is the highlighted verb a main verb or an auxiliary verb?

Martian grammar

This is a unit about the grammar of an invented language, ‘Martian’. It uses students’ (often subconscious) understanding of morphology to help them uncover the ‘rules’ of a made-up language. To ‘crack’ the language, they will need to break down the words into meaningful parts.

Martian grammar: Activity 1

Aliens have landed on Earth, but don’t worry: they come in peace. Or at least, we think they do, but we can’t quite understand what they’re talking about.

Their language is not familiar and even highly trained experts are struggling to work out what they are saying. Your job is to work with the Martian examples that they have translated and work out some of the rules of their language. In doing so, you might even learn something about your own language.

Martian grammar: teacher feedback

Once you have worked through the Martian grammar activities, you can look at some of the things you have discovered.

Let’s look at some elements of grammar that we have identified in the Martian grammar exercise:

Metaphor

Goals

Understand the concept of metaphor and how they are formed
Analyse the use of metaphor in a real text

Lesson Plan

Using the information and examples below, explain that metaphor is an everyday part of human communication
Use the examples of metaphor to explain how they are formed: by something abstract being understood in terms of something concrete
At this point, students could discuss any other examples of metaphor they can think of
Next, mo

Metaphor: Activity

Attached to this page are some extracts of a 2016 speech delivered by David Cameron after the UK voted to leave the European Union. For each extract, you will be asked to do two things:

1) Work out what metaphor is being used. What is being understood in terms of what?

2) Comment on why you think that metaphor is used. What purpose does it serve? What kind of meaning does it carry, in the wider context of the political situation in which the speech took place?

You will see on the handout that one example has been done for you.

Metaphor: Introduction

Metaphor is often thought of as something that is confined to literary texts, but as we shall see, this really isn't the case.

Everyday language is full of metaphor, and it is actually quite difficult to use language without it!

Let's look at an example - the metaphor of LIFE IS A JOURNEY. (In linguistics, the standard way to show metaphor is by using capital letters). In this metaphor, the abstract concept of 'life' is understood as a concrete, physical 'journey'.

This generates sentences such as:

Morphology - an introduction

In this lesson, students explore word morphology. Morphology is an area of language study concerned with how words are formed. While syntax is about the larger structures formed when words are put together, morphology is about the structure within words.

National Curriculum Introduction (Secondary)

Purpose of study

English has a pre-eminent place in education and in society. A high-quality education in English will teach pupils to speak and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others and through their reading and listening, others can communicate with them. Through reading in particular, pupils have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. Literature, especially, plays a key role in such development. Reading also enables pupils both to acquire knowledge and to build on what they already know.

National Curriculum KS4

National Curriculum KS4: Grammar and Vocabulary

Pupils should be taught to:

National Curriculum KS4: Reading

Pupils should be taught to:

National Curriculum KS4: Spoken English

Pupils should be taught to:

National Curriculum KS4: Writing

Pupils should be taught to:

Negation and conceptual effects

Goals

To understand different types of negation and the kinds of conceptual effects it has on readers.
To analyse the use of negation in a text.

Negation

Begin by explaining the concept of negation to your students. You might like to use the following definition (taken from the Englicious glossary):

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

Nonfinite clauses in literature

In this activity, students look at how nonfinite clauses might be used in their own writing and that of others to vary the structure of a text. On one level, this is about creating something that people like to read: something that is interesting, varied and engaging and designed to hook the reader or suit the style you are hoping to adopt. On another level, it’s about students showing teachers and examiners that they know about different forms and can use them in their writing.

Noun endings

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

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Topic: KS4

Introduction

Introduction

Goals

Lesson Plan

Extract 1

Extract 2

Goals

Lesson Plan

Purpose of study

Goals

Negation

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Level

Language in use

Grammar

Content type