Topic: Secondary

Relevant for Secondary School teachers and students.

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.

Writing an advertisement with adjectives: Activity

Fairydolls Toy Peapod Family

Approximate heights 16cm, 12cm and 8cm.

These little figures have a dense staple polyester filling. All felt used here is a good-quality wool blend. Heads are natural beechwood beads.

Suitable for gentle play or lovely Christmas stocking fillers.

All natural materials. Original hand-crafted items.

Playing with person: Activity

I’m sitting here looking out of the window. Nothing’s happening; it never does. I sit here every day for hours on end, just looking. Looking for what? I don’t know. They never told me what I should be looking for. And I’ve never found out.

I once thought I’d found something, but I couldn’t be sure. It might just have been a trick of the light. How was I to tell?

Verbs in fiction: Activity

Verbs in fiction

Exploring verb choices in different literary texts

In this lesson, students identify verbs in fictional extracts and discuss the reasons why authors may have chosen particular verbs in their writing.

Building verb phrases: Activity

In this activity, use the interactive whiteboard to build verb phrases. Can you use all the words and make every verb phrase grammatical?

Encourage your students to explore the meaning of the verb phrases they construct: how does the use of modal verbs affect the meaning of the main verb, for example? What about the tense?

Drag words next to each other and they will 'snap' together. Double-click to 'unsnap'.

Noun phrase generator: Activity

Use the interactive whiteboard to generate weird and wonderful noun phrases. 

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