Topic: Y6

Activity 1

Explain that the word polysemy refers to the idea that words can have more than one meaning.

Ask the learners to think of more than one meaning for the words football and mouse and discuss with a partner or small group. Show the next slide to reveal some possible answers.

As an extension, see if learners can come up with any other words with multiple meanings. 

Objective

To understand how polysemy applies to different word classes.

Activity 1

Some words may have only one meaning, but most tend to have more.

Let's take for example the words football and mouse.

How many meanings can you think of for each? 

football can mean:

Activity 5

Just like with nouns, there are also many synonyms which are adjectives. These have the same, or very similar, meanings to each other, and are used in different contexts.

What does the term adjective mean? What examples can you think of? Can you think of any synonyms?

Find the synonymous adjective in these two sentences:

Activity 1

A synonym is a words that has the same, or a very similar, meaning to another. 

Take for example the word argument.

How many words can you think of that have the same or a very similar meaning? 

For the word argument, some synonyms are quarrel or row.

The words quarrel and row have the same general meaning.

Objective

To examine verb antonyms, and how they are formed and used.

Activity 1

Antonyms are also very common with verbs.

Just like adjectives and nouns, they can be formed by adding a prefix.

1. I tied my shoes.

2. I untied my shoes.

Activity 1

Look at this list of six verbs.

What is the antonym for each one? Which prefix do we use to change it? 

Objective

To examine how adjective antonyms are formed and used.

Activity 1

Adjectives commonly have opposite words, or antonyms. When we think of an adjective, we often immediately think of its opposite. For example: 

• rich - poor
• old - young
• easy - difficult

For each of these five sentences, write down the pair of adjective antoynms that could fill the gap. 

Objective

To understand the meaning of antonyms and how they are formed.

Activity 1

In the lesson on synonyms, we saw how words can have similar meanings. They can also be related through opposite meanings. This is very common with adjectives: 

• long - short
• old - new 
• quick - slow 

We call these pairs of words antonyms. Can you think of three other pairs of antonyms? 

Activity 1

Look at these three nouns.

What is the relationship between them? Can they be arranged into a logical order? 

• dog
• poodle
• animal

We can label nouns as general or specific. The specific noun is included in the general noun.

Activity 1

What does the term metaphor mean?

Can you think of an example? 

A metaphor is when a word or phrase is used to suggest a resemblance to a another thing or action. 

A metaphor uses language in a figurative - not literal - sense. 

When we call someone a sly fox we are implying that their behaviour is similar to a fox i.e. sneaky or crafty. 

What other animal metaphors can you think of?