19-04-2013, 02:35 PM
Lesson Plan – Synonyms, Antonyms & Homonyms
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INTRODUCTION
Your learner has set some learning goals around reading and writing in the context of
grammar. Let’s think of synonyms, antonyms and homonyms as clothing and
accessories in a wardrobe. Your piece of writing can be dressed up in various styles
according to the accessories and clothing you choose. Sometimes you may opt for a
plain, sensible style, and other times you may dress up for a flashier more dramatic
style. In this lesson plan you can practice exercises found in your Tutor Training Manual
such as phonics, sight words, a cloze activity, and more.
Essential Skills practiced in this lesson
• Reading
• Writing
• Oral Communication
• Thinking
Learning Objectives
• To create a list of synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms
• To become familiar with various synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms
What are Synonyms?
Synonyms are different words that have the same or similar meanings. An example of
two synonyms are the words rush and hurry. There are several more words that have
the same meaning and there are even idioms that have the same meaning, for
example, “Get a move on!” is an idiom that means to hurry or move quickly.
Synonyms are easy to find if you have a thesaurus. A thesaurus is similar to a
dictionary but rather than give you a definition of a word, it gives you a list of other
words that have the same or similar meaning.
Why use Synonyms?
We use synonyms for a variety of reasons; look at the examples listed below to practice
using them:
1. Spice up your writing; synonyms can any word in the English language. Instead of
writing, “That’s a nice car” you could write, “That’s an elegant automobile” if your
reader audience would respond more to the image that sentences creates.
However, if your reader audience is that of a pop culture magazine, it might be
more appropriate to write, “That’s a sweet ride.” Synonyms help create the mood of
your sentence according to who you are writing for or what kind of image you want
to portray.
2. To avoid being repetitive, you can use synonyms of a word when you have to write
it twice in a sentence. For example, “My children are 3, 5 and 8, they’re really great
kids.” If you say children twice it can sound repetitive and boring but by changing to
kids in the second part of the sentence you are avoiding that.
3. Use a synonym to be more specific about an idea, for example: “I have dance class
every Wednesday night” becomes more interesting and informative when you say, “I
have salsa class every Wednesday night.”
What are Antonyms?
An antonym is a word that means the opposite of another word. For example, “happy”
is the opposite of “sad”. “Happy” can be the opposite of more than one word, for
example: angry, miserable, and unhappy. Be sure to choose the correct antonym for
your word depending on its meaning. For example, “light” can mean bright in which
case the antonym is “dark” but if the meaning is “light in weight” then the antonym is
“heavy”. If you’re not sure if an antonym’s exact meaning, find the definition in a
dictionary first.
Why use Antonyms?
Antonyms are opposites of words and, like synonyms, can help us make our writing
more interesting or for greater clarification when using a contrasting idea. It is
particularly useful to use a thesaurus to help improve your vocabulary of antonyms, as
well as synonyms.
Tic-Tac-Toe
There are several ways to practice new vocabulary or practicing using new ways to
write. In this case, I chose a game to practice using both synonyms and antonyms.
Now, you might think that games have no place in adult literacy, but imagine my
delight and joy when I came across this idea online and not only did I get to play
games on the computer, I got to do it while I was “working”. It’s a clever twist on a
simple game of Tic-Tac-Toe.
To carry this game into a more “acceptable” world of learning (you can see my
reluctance at leaving this game) you can write down all of your antonyms and
synonyms on flashcards, create a story using them and then make a cloze activity from
your story. You could even have some fun with your short story and first underline all
of the nouns in the story and decide which ones you can find antonyms for and see how
that changes your story or how nonsensical it becomes!