Units

Units A-Z

Units are sets of Resources on the same theme.

Phrases A phrase consists of one or more words that belong together. It takes one of the major word class elements (noun, adjective, etc.) as its Head. » Read more	Pragmatics in a political interview Goals Identify some elements of spoken dialogue in an interview setting. Analyse some features of colloquial language, specifically the kinds of words and phrases that are used. Lesson Plan The Activity page appears in the menu entitled 'This Unit' in the upper right corner of this page. It includes a video of an interview between Russell Brand and Ed Miliband, recorded just before the UK General Election in May 2015. » Read more
Phrases: coordination In this lesson, students look at phrases conjoined by coordinating conjunctions. Goals Identify different types of phrases which have been conjoined with coordinating conjunctions. Consider the effect of conjoining more than one phrase. Consider the effect of omitting coordinating conjunctions. Lesson plan Click on the interactive whiteboard icon (top right) and work through the following slides with students. » Read more	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. » Read more
Playing with person In this exercise, students make changes to pronouns in texts, and evaluate the effects of those changes. Goals Identify first, second, and third person pronouns, and practise switching from one to another. Evaluate the effects of writing using different personal pronouns. Lesson Plan The teacher explains that today, we will make changes to existing texts by changing the personal pronouns in those texts. » Read more	Prepared speech Using corpora to investigate prepared speeches One very simple approach to using corpora in English lessons is to pull apart a speech using the programme Wordle, which can be found here. Wordle creates simple but beautiful images made up of words in a text that you can input. » Read more
Politeness and directness This task is about using verbs and modal verbs in different ways. We all know that people can be direct or indirect in the ways they phrase things. We often use commands to give instructions, but sometimes these might be seen as too direct and blunt. We sometimes soften them with modal verbs, among other tools. » Read more	Preposing In this exercise you can see what happens when you move elements, particularly Direct Objects, earlier in the clause. » Read more
Pragmatics and turn-taking Goals Identify the place of turn-taking in spoken conversation. Analyse some examples of turn-taking in real spoken conversation. Lesson Plan The Activity pages appear in the menu entitled 'This Unit' in the upper right corner of this page. Each Activity page includes a video interview. If you like, you can try this lesson with any other interview or dialogue you would like to use. » Read more	Prepositions in instructional writing Prepositions are particularly important when trying to communicate instructions about time and place. The Activity page appears in the menu entitled 'This Unit' in the upper right corner of this page. The Activity page contains one slide: an example of instructional writing from our corpus. You can see that quite precise instructions are given as part of a recipe. It is reprinted below with the prepositions highlighted. Method » Read more

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