Rw/L1.3

Intro to using a thesaurus to find synonyms and antonyms.

Level 1 / Level 2 resource for literacy students exploring Chinese customs. This has proved to be a popular resource with my students. Includes: reading, dictionary work, comprehension and grammatical knowledge with a fun part where learners find their Chinese horoscope animal.

Root word family cards are two sets of flash cards that can be used to visualise the concept of root words to entry level and L1 students.

The entry level cards contain a number of root words and their word families, with a picture representation of each word. The level one sheet contains a higher level of vocabulary and the pictures have been removed.

Lesson Ideas

This colourful PowerPoint aims to teach learners about the structure of words in the English language. Numerous examples are given to help learners think of their own root words, suffixes and prefixes.

[img_assist|nid=5121|title=|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=68|height=100]This resource explores the differences between synonyms, antonyms and acronyms.
It includes an introductory PPT, a sorting activity with synonym cards, a Smart Notebook activity for interactive whiteboards, an antonym work sheet, and a synonym writing exercise.

I have found this a great resource for encouraging learners to explore a greater range of vocabulary, use dictionary and thesuarus skills, improve spelling and encourage descriptive and creative writing.

Challenging multiple choice quiz of vocabulary “borrowed” from other languages such as French, Greek and Italian. Words and phrases include: fait accompli, deja vu, ad hoc, bric-a-brac and many more. Makes a good warm up and could be used with small groups or individually.

Two Tarsia puzzles based around formal and informal language. Guaranteed to prompt discussion as learners solve the puzzles. I suggest that the smaller one (16 piece triangle) is roughly at L1 and the larger on (24 piece hexagon) is at L2. I have duplicated some of my word choices from Imogen Stewart’s excellent ‘Little Britain’ (Language: formal, informal or slang?) resource which was also about formal and informal language (see link below). ‘Cheers’ has ‘regards’ as its synonym because of email sign offs – which I have found to be an interesting topic for discussion.

This activity is in two parts.Firstly, learners should use the cards to match the words to their meanings. Next they should use the fill in worksheet to give an example for each one. Full instructions included.In addition to parts of speech it also includes synonym and homophone terms.

Based on a 2010 BBC News article about Firhall village in the Scottish Highlands.The exercises include comprehension exercises, anagrams based on different parts of speech, finding alternative vocabulary and a short writing task.

A comprehension exercise in response to the earthquake and consequent tsunami in Japan. To be used along with research tasks or discussion.

Introduce the lesson with a discussion about the events surrounding the earthquake and some BBC footage.

The students need to be given the information without the questions to encourage them to read fully – this is not a scanning exercise. Then, when they have finished reading they can answer the questions, either in short on the sheet or in full on separate paper – differentiate accordingly.