Mountain tops and rooftops (compound nouns)

Ewa | Mar 18, 2024

LESSON OVERVIEW

The main objectives of this lesson are to:

• understand and practise compound nouns;
• discuss a promotional video that aims to attract tourists to a country;
• create an ad for one’s own country.

With this lesson, students learn and practise compound nouns (e.g. sunlight, coffee shop, snowstorm, etc.), talk about themselves and discuss a funny ad that attracts tourists to Sweden and elaborates on the distinctions between Sweden and Switzerland. They also practise compound nouns by creating ads for other countries whose names sound similar (Austria and Australia), as well as their own country.

COMPOUND NOUNS

This lesson starts with a warm-up in which students identify nouns based on specific criteria (start with the letter ‘s’, have more than six letters, and are country names). Then, they match definitions with pairs of pictures that illustrate the words. The pictures help students brainstorm what the words might be (e.g. seafood, mountain tops, raincoat, etc.). After that, students analyse these words and choose the correct answers to create statements about compound nouns. Next, they examine the compound nouns again and say which ones they can use to talk about themselves.

VIDEO AND DISCUSSION

In this part of the lesson, students prepare to watch a funny promotional video. Before the video, they examine a table, complete the country names (Sweden and Switzerland) and discuss what they know about each country. Then, they watch the video and choose two sentences that describe it best. Students watch the video again and check their comprehension by choosing what each country should talk about according to the speaker. Afterwards, students discuss questions about the video’s humour and purpose, and similarities between country names that can cause confusion. After that, they imagine that Austrians and Australians want to create an ad about their countries. They use the words in the boxes to create compound nouns that these countries should talk about. Finally, students write an ad for their country using compound nouns. They give reasons to visit it without being too serious.

HOMEWORK/REVISION

This lesson also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students complete gaps with words described in brackets. Then, they look at the compound nouns they created and explain which three they would use to talk about themselves and which three they wouldn’t. The task is available in the teacher’s version of the worksheet. You can print it and hand it out to your students. It’s also included in the e-lesson plan.

WORKSHEETS

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