Language structure

English

Secondary

Secondary English teachers plan activities using newspapers

Two secondary English teachers plan and deliver lessons on decoding language through studying newspapers, and explain why their lesson plans would appeal to male-dominated classes. Leon Hady's class of Year 8 boys at Westminster City School are decoding film reviews. He starts the lesson by teaching them a new word - in this case enthralling. For a main lesson activity, the Key Stage 2 pupils study a film review of The Hulk, written as if it had been composed by the film's leading character. They are then challenged to write in the same style. For the plenary, Leon plans a longer writing task based on reviewing a short French animation. At Warden Park School in Sussex, Claire Leech has a lively class with a disproportionate number of boys so she plans an activity where the pupils will review the way commentators have covered England's performance in the World Cup. Some of her pupils are given broadsheets to study while others read tabloid coverage. Their task is to spot and decode clique, style and bias.

Decoding and Writing Reviews

Invigorate English lessons with these tips on teaching grammar

Teacher Liana Swanton takes the fear out of grammar by breaking it down in a simple way that's fun for pupils. Embedding subordinate clauses in sentences using a simple red and green card method gets students out of their seats and actively building sentences. Comma practice involves displaying rules of commas around the classroom and getting pupils to write their own examples. Meanwhile, Liana from Uplands Community Technology College in East Sussex, uses innovative cards to encourage her pupils to make sentences and conversations with more sophisticated connective words.

Grammar in Secondary English

A lesson in which a basic text is used to explore complex grammar

Barbara Bleiman from the English and Media Centre meets with Gareth Mills from King Edward VI School in Bury St Edmunds to talk about techniques to extend his students' understanding of grammar and complex sentences. The programme follows Gareth as he teaches a lesson examining sentence structure. He uses a children's book to stimulate his students' into reflections on purpose and audience and to practice expanding simple sentences using subordinate clauses. Barbara and Gareth discuss the advantages of using a very basic text to explore complex grammar.

KS3 English - Language and Grammar - Building Complex Sentences

 A Year 9 English language lesson that uses emails and texts 

In this programme, Barbara Bleiman from the English and Media Centre reflects on a lesson for a Year 9 English language class which uses text messages and emails to teach about formality, effective language and grammar choices. She is joined by the head of English at King Edward VI School in Bury St Edmunds, Lindsay Gumbrell, to discuss how using new language forms and engaging with text language can encourage students to be sensitive, confident analysts and users of English. She also reveals how it can form the basis of an enjoyable experience in the classroom.

KS3 English - Language and Grammar - Formal and Informal Texts

Focusing Year 9 pupils' attention on language and character        

Language is always the hardest aspect of teaching Shakespeare to young people, but this programme aims to overcome such difficulties by focusing on key teaching ideas and techniques that will engage pupils with Shakespeare. Macbeth in the Classroom features Sabrina Broadbent, an English teacher at Hornsey School for Girls in Haringey, as she teaches two lessons on the set scenes for Macbeth to her Year 9 class. In the previous two weeks, she has been reading through the play alongside viewing the Polanski film version of the play. In these two lessons, we see Sabrina engage the class with closer work on language and character in Act 1 Scene 3, one of the set scenes for Year 9 SATs examination in May 2004. Sabrina uses many strategies to make the lesson exciting for pupils, including: Pair work on single lines from the scene Drama work as a way in to thinking about staging Choral reading Analysis of Shakespeare's use of language using an OHP The range of activities on the language of Shakespeare featured here are designed to encourage English teachers to try out more active approaches to reading a text and widen their repertoire of approaches.

KS3 English - Macbeth in the Classroom 1

The author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves takes on one English class

International bestselling author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Lynne Truss, tries to convince Year 11 pupils that punctuation will change their world. Her book has re-established punctuation as a hot topic for debate. But will today's internet and texting generation really have much time for the semi-colon? In this episode of The Teaching Challenge, where celebrities find out just how tough it is to be a teacher, Lynne takes on an English class who hold strong opinions. The pupils of Davison High School take to the streets of Worthing to point out bad punctuation to shopkeepers and restaurateurs.

Lynne Truss

Students learn about language and structure when studying Othello

Emphasising story, soliloquy, structure and performance, English teacher Sabrina Broadbent teaches a second masterclass on Shakespeare's Othello. The Year 10 students use props and key quotations to play literary detectives, and piece together the plot outline of Othello. Sequencing work on a key soliloquy follows and finally they get their hands on a copy of the play, and take part in a workshop on a key scene using the Forum Theatre technique. Sabrina uses the activities to help the students gain confidence in using Shakespeare's language, and to create a desire to study the play in depth. This programme is the second in a two-part Shakespeare masterclass series, providing teachers with examples of how to make learning memorable.

More Ways into Shakespeare's Othello

Year 10 and 11 students learn about using commas

Inspiring teacher Phil Beadle leads Year 10 and 11 English students through the five uses of commas, in this CPD resource full of lesson ideas. In this energetic and lively masterclass, Phil Beadle, a former Teaching Awards teacher of the year, uses music and football to demonstrate the rules of comma usage. Phil shows students that precise use of commas can greatly improve their writing and will improve their national curriculum grades. He begins by describing the relationship between speech and punctuation. The students are taught when and when not to use commas, as well as when it is compulsory; rules that are not always taught in schools.

Punctuation - Commas

Practice rhythm and have fun with horrible food

The idea is to create eight rhymes about disgusting food, that the students chant in four different groups and at the end they make a sound as if they were being sick!

School Food Rap

Two Year 9 classes join together to learn about Shakespeare

Key Stage 3 English students work together in an introductory lesson on analysing Shakespeare. English teacher, Karen McWilliam, and lead teacher in English Carol Weale, have joined their Year 9 classes together to provide some fresh ideas about teaching Shakespeare. Building on the classes' knowledge of iambic pentameter, Karen asks the students to look at two speeches by contrasting characters: Macbeth, and Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream. By looking at the rhythm of the verses and the number of syllables in each line of the verses, the students build up an understanding of the emotional state of each character, without even looking at the language. Karen leads the lesson, whilst Carol supports her, assisting with discipline and adding an extra dimension to the teaching. Although team-teaching has potential risks, their similar teaching styles help ensure the lessons run smoothly.

Professional Development for Quality Teaching

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