Part and Whole (Stein)

Activity 1

Ask the learners to read the five sentences. In small groups, ask them to discuss what the words in blue have in common. Guide the discussion towards:

They are nouns
They refer to different animals
They describe parts of animals

After the discussion, show the learners the solution in the next slide to check their answers.

Activity 2

Ask the learners draw a picture of a face, and to label it with as many parts as they can think of. Use a countdown to make the task more exciting. Ask them to share and compare their work after they finish. You could also draw a face on the board, and label as many parts as possible as a whole class.

Remind learners that all these 'part' words are examples of nouns.

Activity 3

Ask the learners to read the five sentences in the next activity. For each sentence, learners must identify what the noun forms a part of e.g. a stone is part of a cherry.

Use the 'answer' button to check their answers.

To finish, learners choose three (or more) nouns from the final list and write as many part nouns for each. To make the acivitiy more fun, this could be turned into a game in which learners compete under a time limit to write the longest list of part nouns.

This lesson is adapted (with permission) from Words and Meanings: A Systematic Guide for the Teaching of English Vocabulary, by Gabriele Stein.

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Part and whole (Stein)

Objective

To explore the way that nouns can point to parts and wholes of things.

Activity 1

Read the five sentences below: what do the words in blue have in common?

The hunter proudly showed them the antlers he had collected.
The fins are used for swimming and for keeping balance.
The udder looked very heavy.
We wanted to know how the hump had evolved.
The long trunk pushed the grass into the mouth.

Each word is a noun which refers to a part of a different animal:

antlers with male deer,
fins with a fish,
udder with a cow,
hump with a camel and
trunk with an elephant.

There are many words which denote a part of something, and the more we know the parts of an object by name, the more we understand their nature, what they are for and how they work.

Activity 2

Thing we see in everyday life can be broken down into their parts. For example, think about a peson's face.

Draw a picture of a face. Think of and label as many parts of the face as you can; then, compare with a partner.