Home » Word classes » Noun

Topic: Noun

Nouns are a very important word class, and are often (but not always) words for people, places and things. They can be marked as plural or possessive.

Noun endings

Exploring suffixes and how they affect word class

In this activity we will look at suffixes which change verbs and adjectives into nouns. This process is a part of derivational morphology. 

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Noun identification

In this activity, students work through the criteria for identifying nouns.

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Noun identification: Activity 1

Which words do you think are nouns?

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Noun identification: Activity 2

I'll see you on Thursday.

Is Thursday a noun?

  • Does it represent a person, place, thing or idea?
  • Can it be singular or plural? Can you say one ___ and two ___s?
  • Can it be possessive? Can you add 's or ' at the end?
  • Can it follow the or a?
  • Can it be replaced with a pronoun like it, he, she, or they?

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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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Noun phrase generator: Activity

Use the interactive whiteboard to generate weird and wonderful noun phrases. 

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Nouns and only nouns

Students are asked to communicate using a bank of nouns - and nothing else.

Goals

  • Communicate with a partner using only nouns.
  • Discuss what can and can't be easily expressed using only nouns.
  • Determine which other types of words are useful for expressing complex ideas.

Lesson Plan

The teacher explains that this activity will involve you trying to express progressively more complicated concepts and actions to a partner using only these words, your own body language and imagination.

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Nouns and Vocabulary

Plan

Activity 1

Show the leaners the the list of nouns. After hearing their ideas, explain what concrete nouns are, and ask leaners if they can see or find any other examples in the classroom. Explain what abstract nouns are and ask for any other examples. 

Next, ask the learners to work in pairs and small groups. Copy down the table and decide which nouns are concrete or abstract. Check the answers as a whole class. 

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Nouns and vocabulary

Lesson

Objective

To explore the meaning of simple, everyday nouns, and how they relate to your experience of the world.

Activity 1

Look at this list of nouns: chair, fork, dog, house, person, football player

What do they all have in common?

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Part and Whole

Plan

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. 

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Part and whole

Lesson

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?

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Synonymy

Plan

Please note: there are two pages of activities for this lesson.

Activity 1

Start by explaining the meaning of the term synonym. For an example, ask learners to think of some synonyms for the word 'argument'. 

In the next slide, show the two possible examples. Ask learners if these two words have the exact same meaning or if there are any subtle differences. Try asking learners in what situations they would/would not use each word.

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Synonymy 1

Lesson

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.

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Synonymy 2

Lesson

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:

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Verb endings

In this activity we will look at suffixes which change adjectives and nouns into verbs. This process is a part of derivational morphology. 

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Word Formation: Compound Nouns

Plan

Starter

Show learners the first slide and the list of words. Have the learners discuss what they think the words have in common in pairs or small groups. In the next slide, explain that they are all compound nouns.

Compound nouns are formed with a base word, which is always a noun, and a specifying word, that can belong to several word classes.

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Word Formation: Compound Nouns

Lesson

Starter

Look at this list of words. What do they all have in common?

alarm clock, birthday, football, homework, sunflower, weekend

How are these words different to ones like car, dog or house?

These words are all nouns which are made by combining two nouns together.

These types of words called compound words or in this case compound nouns.

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Word Formation: Noun Derivation 1

Plan

Starter

Show learners the first slide and the list of two words. Have the learners discuss what they think the words have in common in pairs or small groups. In the next slide, check to see if they noticed all the same criteria: nouns, formed of base words, have an extra element added to the start and/or end. See if learners know what we call these extra elements. In the next slide, have learners take notes on the definitions of affixes, prefixes and suffixes. 

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Word Formation: Noun Derivation 2

Plan

Starter

Remind learners of the words they saw last lesson which can be modified with suffixes and which denote a job or role. Show them the three new examples: what do they notice about them? Discuss with the whole class and reveal the answers in the next slide: all these examples use a suffix to create an abstract noun. If necessary, ask the learners to give more examples and definitions of concrete and abstract nouns. 

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Word Formation: Noun Derivation 2

Lesson

Starter

Last lesson, you saw how suffixes could make nouns into people or objects that do a job. E.g.

  • Write - writer
  • Boil - boiler

Look at these three other examples. What's different about them? 

  • Arrive - arrival
  • Boy - boyhood
  • Happy - happiness

These three examples all use different suffixes to create abstract nouns.

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Words

Plan

Activity 1

Show learners the image in the first slide. Ask them to work with a partner and write down as many words as they can see. Share back with the whole class and accept any valid answers. 

Activity 2

Show learners the list of actions. Ask them to put the letters a-f in the appropriate order. Circulate and accept any reasonable answers. On the next slide, disucss possible solutions as a whole class. 

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Words

Lesson

Objective

To explore the meaning of simple, everyday words and how they relate to your experience of the world.

Activity 1

There are many kinds of words.

Do you know the words for what you see in the picture? Talk to a partner and write down as many words as you can.

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