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Topic: Adverbial

These resources relate to the grammatical function Adverbial. Adverbials are often optional elements in the clause which express circumstances of the situation such as where, when, how or why it happens. An example is in the afternoon in She had a nap in the afternoon. These resources show that there is a wide variety of Adverbials in terms of form, meaning, and position in the clause.

Adverbials and positioning in clauses

Exploring the effect of adverbial placement in different texts

In this lesson, we look at ways of teaching adverbials and the different ways they can be positioned inside clauses.

Goals

  • Explore the effect of placing adverbials in different positions.
  • Understand how adverbials are flexible and can be moved around to 'do different things'.
  • Help students apply this in their writing.

Lesson Plan

In this lesson, we take the concept of the adverbial and explore it through the analysis and creation of literary texts. This has 3 steps:

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Genre of Advertisements

Lesson Plan

Goals: 

  • Identify common discourse and register features of advertisements
  • Analyse how these features are used to achieve the desired effects 
  • Plan, write and evaluate an advert using the same features 

Lesson Plan

Before this lesson, you may want to complete the lesson An Introduction to Genre, so that learners are familiar with the key terms discourse structure and register

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Genre of Advertisements

Activities

Warmer 

Discuss with a partner: 

  • What adverts did you see on the way to school today? What made them memorable?
  • What advert have you seen recently that stuck in your mind? Why? 
  • What kind of writing and information do we normally see in adverts? 

Activity 1 

In pairs or small groups, read Adverts A and B. Take turns describing each text, and then discuss with your partner: 

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Genre of Argument and Discussion 1

Lesson Plan

Goals:

  • Discuss the tone and purpose of argument and disucssion in essays
  • Identify the discouse structures and organisation features
  • Analyse how grammar contributes to organisation

Lesson Plan

Before this lesson, you may want to complete the lesson An Introduction to Genre, so that learners are familiar with the key terms discourse structure and register

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Genre of Argument and Discussion 1

Activities

Warm-up

What kind of text is an argument or discussion?

What is its purpose?

What makes it different from other texts?

Activity 1

Read the essay on the hand out.

1. What is the topic of the essay? What facts do you learn?

2. What is the author's perspective? How can you tell?

3. How is this text written? What is the tone? Why is it written in this way?

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Genre of Narratives and Recounts

Lesson Plan

Goals:

  • Distinguish recounts from narratives
  • Identify the discourse structure and features of register used in narratives
  • Re-order a narrative by following the appropriate features

Lesson Plan

Before this lesson, you may want to complete the lesson An Introduction to Genre, so that learners are familiar with the key terms discourse structure and register

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Genre of Narratives and Recounts

Activities

Activity 1

Today, we're looking at the genre of storytelling. Narratives and recounts are two ways of describing events.

What do you think is the difference between narratives and recounts?

Narratives and recounts both relate events that took place in the past and which occur in a logical order.

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Using Adverbials in Non-Fiction Texts

Lesson Plan

Goals:

  • Explain what an Adverbial is and how they are formed 
  • Distinguish between fronted and non-fronted Adverbials 
  • Explore how Adverbials are used to order information. 

The lesson activities are divided into part 1 and 2. 

Part 1

Warmer

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Using Adverbials in Non-Fiction Texts

Activities: Part 1

Warmer

  1. What is an Adverbial? 
  2. What kind of grammatical units (structures) can function as Adverbial?
  3. What is a 'fronted Adverbial'? 
  4. Why do writers use Adverbials? Why do they move them around in sentences? 

An adverbial:

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Using Adverbials in Non-Fiction Texts

Activities: Part 2

In part 1, you looked at Adverbials and how they are formed. 

In this lesson, you will look at three texts and see how Adverbials help to organise information. 

Warmer

Soon, you will read three non-fiction texts. Before you do, discuss these quesitons: 

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Identify the Adverbials

Find the Adverbials in a range of examples

Identify the Adverbials in each example (there is only one in each sentence). To select a sequence of words, click on the first and last words.

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Adverbial

Subjects, Direct Objects and Indirect Objects are typically noun phrases  (and sometimes clauses) which identify participants in the situation described by the main verb – they answer ‘who’ or ‘what’ questions.

Adverbials are rather different. Consider the highlighted phrases in the examples below:

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Adverbial: Used as linking device

Adverbials typically modify verbs or clauses, but they can also be useful as linking devices to connect clauses to the content of the preceding text. Here are some examples of Adverbials that have this function. Remember that Adverbials can appear in different shapes: as adverbs (or adverb phrases), as prepositional phrases, as (shortened) clauses, or as set phrases.

Listing

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