Scribd
Upload
253 views

FCE Tips - Use of English Part 3 - Word Formation - tn1

This document provides instructions for a lesson on word formation, which is a key skill for the Use of English exam. The lesson involves three parts: 1) A warm-up game to practice identifying correct words based on their sound and meaning. 2) Practice with exam questions to identify what part of speech is needed. 3) An activity to learn common word suffixes and their associated parts of speech in order to deduce new words. The goal is to develop students' ability to understand and manipulate word structures.

Uploaded by

summerx3
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
253 views

FCE Tips - Use of English Part 3 - Word Formation - tn1

This document provides instructions for a lesson on word formation, which is a key skill for the Use of English exam. The lesson involves three parts: 1) A warm-up game to practice identifying correct words based on their sound and meaning. 2) Practice with exam questions to identify what part of speech is needed. 3) An activity to learn common word suffixes and their associated parts of speech in order to deduce new words. The goal is to develop students' ability to understand and manipulate word structures.

Uploaded by

summerx3
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

FCE Use of English Part 3

Word Formation

Students develop their instincts for identifying and creating different parts of
speech

Part of Exam: Use of English Part 3 - Word formation (changing parts of speech
of words)
Language/ Skill Practised: Mainly prefixes and suffixes
Materials:
• 1 copy of Worksheet 1 per two students.
• 1 advanced-level learners’ dictionary per pair of students. We recommend
the Macmillan English Dictionary.
• 1 copy of Use of English Part 3 exam task per student.
• 1 copy of parts of speech identification sheet (see Worksheet 2 for
example) per student. (optional)
• 1 more copy of Use of English Part 3 exam task per student for extension.

Time: 50 to 75 minutes (plus extension).

Preparation: There’s no particular reason to cover the parts of the Use of


English paper in the same order as they appear in the exam, and it is in fact
probably best to deal with this part sooner rather than later as it develops skills
that are very useful for exam writing. This would be a nice class to do soon after
you have introduced the phonemic chart, as students could use the phonemic
transcriptions in the dictionaries (see below).
You might want to prepare your own worksheets, especially to avoid easily
translatable examples if you have students who speak Romance languages. It
would also be nice to make sure you cover all the suffixes used in the exam
tasks.

Procedure:
Part One: Warmer- Parts of Speech ‘Call My Bluff’
• Read out one of the examples from Worksheet One and ask the students
to guess which is the correct word, e.g. ‘fright’. Ask the ones who guessed
correctly how they knew. Hopefully they will answer ‘it sounded right’, or ‘I
think I saw it somewhere once’.
• Put students into pairs and give out the copies of Worksheet 1. When they
have finished discussing together, feedback as a class. You can keep a
class tally of the groups’ scores if you wish.
• Take one of the dictionaries, and improvise another ‘Call My Bluff’
question from one of the words on the first page or two you open. Then
give out the other dictionaries and ask students to write 5 more similar
questions.
• When the first couple of groups have finished writing, stop all the groups.
Ask one of the groups to read out one of their questions. Correct their
pronunciation of the root word or write the four options up if necessary, but
be careful not give away the correct answer. Let the other groups guess
which is correct. If you wish to continue with the scoring, you can score
points for teams that guess correctly and/ or for teams that fool others into
guessing their questions wrongly.
• It’s usually best to stop the activity after 12 or so questions. In the last
round, let teams choose which of their remaining questions they think is
the most challenging.
• Variation: Rather than the teams reading their questions out, they could
just pass them onto the next team on their left to answer then take them
back to check. The reading out option is generally better (if longer) as
hearing the options read aloud allows students to develop more of a
feeling for which words ‘sound correct’.

Part Two- Exam Practice


• Tell students they have just been practising for the exam Use of
English paper.
• Give out the exam tasks (one per student).
• Tell students to read the whole text before they start, but don’t stop
those who start writing straight away.
• When they have finished, allow them to compare in pairs then check
answers as a class. For each answer ask first ‘What part of speech is
needed here’ (e.g. ‘A noun’). If there is doubt or disagreements,
discuss what kind of words go with which others (see Top Tips for
activities to practise this). Then ask what the actual word could be.
Make sure every group answers, and that if they have no idea they still
guess. Tell them practise on this is coming (see below).
• NB. In almost every exam task you do in every class there will be
someone who has missed a negative prefix because they have paid no
attention to the actual meaning of the text. These are also usually
those who have started writing straight away, so feel free to say ‘I told
you so’.

Part Three - Word Formation Guessing Skills


• Ask for a few examples of the right derivations from the ‘Call my bluff’ task
above. Ask the students which part is the affix. Ask them to make
generalisations about what part of speech a word with that suffix usually
is, e.g. a word ending in –tion is usually a noun. Ask for a couple more
examples. Leave all these on the board.
• Give out Worksheet Two and ask them to put these examples into the first
table, then to fill in the rest in pairs- using their dictionaries if necessary.
Feedback as a class.
• Now go back to the examples on the board and ask what parts of speech
those affixes are usually used with, e.g. verb + -tion. Ask them to put these
examples into the second table.
• NB. There are often exceptions to the general rules given, but giving
students a few common examples will usually convince them. More of a
problem is students finding words that look like that have affixes but in fact
do not, e.g. fish is not f + -ish!
• Check all the answers then get students to use their tables for Part C on
the worksheet.
• Extension: You might want to do another exam task, letting them use
their tables to guess any ones they are not sure of.

Worksheet 1 Answers
1 a) fright
2 a) extend
3 b) compact
4 a) forecast
5 all 3 are correct (fem’s a bit unusual)
6 none- trick question
7 a) ageism
8 b) anger
9 b) speaker
10 c) angelic

Worksheet 2 Part C Answers


Scarcity, fellowship, motherhood, donation, admission

You might also like