Words

Objective

To explore the meaning of simple, everyday words and how they relate to your experience of the world.

There are many kinds of words. Let us see whether you know the words for what you see in the pictures below? Talk to a partner and write down as many words as you can, for things that you see.

Can you describe what you do in the morning before you go to school? Here is a list of what you might do, but the order in which you do things has been mixed up:

  1. I have breakfast.
  2. I get dressed.
  3. I put on my shoes.
  4. I get up.
  5. I clean my teeth.
  6. I go to the bathroom.
  7. I wash.
  8. I comb my hair.

Can you write down the sentences in the order in which you would do them? If you think that there are things that are not listed, write them down as well.

Here are pictures of some colours which things can have:

 

Write the name of all the colours you can see.

You have now used words to describe what things look like, to tell us what you do in the morning and to give a name to some objects. Words which tell us what something looks like, how it is, are called adjectives. Words which refer to actions, to what is being done are called verbs, and words which provide a name for a thing or object, for a person or an animal are called nouns.

  • Can you think of three more examples of nouns, verbs and adjectives?

This lesson is adapted (with permission) from Words and Meanings: A Systematic Guide for the Teaching of English Vocabulary, by Gabriele Stein.

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