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Topic: Word class

These resources relate to word classes (traditionally known as 'parts of speech'). Words are grouped into different classes, such as noun and verb, on the basis of their behaviour: where they occur in relation to other words and what they do within sentences.

Prefixes in adjectives

In this lesson, students will look at some common prefixes that can be added to adjectives and see how they change meanings.

Goals

  • Identify some common prefixes in adjectives.
  • Describe the meanings contributed by common adjective prefixes.
  • Experiment with acceptable and unacceptable prefixes for particular adjectives.

Lesson Plan

The teacher explains that today, we will look at adjectives with distinctive prefixes.

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Derived nouns and composition

In this activity we will look at suffixes that can change adjectives and verbs into nouns.

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Noun phrase generator

Try this noun phrase generator in class. Your students will enjoy creating weird and funny noun phrases using the interactive whiteboard.

Goals

  • Create some new noun phrases.
  • Examine what can and can't happen in noun phrases.
  • Evaluate example noun phrases, looking at why they do or don't work.

Lesson Plan

The teacher explains that today, we will be generating noun phrases. 

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Verbs: Modal verbs

Modal auxiliary verbs (or modals for short), as the name suggests, are a kind of auxiliary verb. They have most of the attributes of auxiliary verbs. They are a closed class that is identifiable as a short list, and they convey particular types of meaning.

Here is a table which lists the most important modal verbs (also called the core modals). It shows most of them in pairs as present and past tense forms, which makes them easier to remember.

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Adverbs: Avoiding adverb overuse

Adverbs are quite a varied class of words, which work in several different ways in sentences. Think of examples like obviously, afterwards, extremely, gently. These show that adverbs can express many different kinds of meaning.

This makes adverbs a useful word class. However, many experienced writers advise us to avoid overusing adverbs, and instead find other ways of describing actions and events.

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Identify the pronouns

Click on the words that you think are pronouns to select or deselect them.

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Identify the prepositions

Find the prepositions in a range of examples

Click on the words that you think are prepositions to select or deselect them.

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Identify the adverbs

Click on the words that you think are adverbs to select or deselect them.

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Identify the verbs

Click on the words that you think are verbs to select or deselect them.

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Identify the adjectives

Click on the words that you think are adjectives to select or deselect them.

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