English teaching resources: Compound (double) words.
English level: B1 – B2
Objective: Practising new words and increasing the students´vocabulary.
Introduction
One of the differences between English and languages like Spanish is how to make words.
While in English, you can put two words together to create a new word, e.g. ASH + TRAY = ASHTRAY; this is very uncommon in Spanish. So instead, they either have one word or use the preposition “de” (=of).
Activity 1: Matching nouns
Give the students two lists of nouns (a and b), tell them to match and explain the meaning of each new compound noun to a partner. (To help the students, you could have images of the words they are supposed to come up with.)
a)
ash
match
up
grand
book
tape
night-
door
post
head
business
central
record-
prime
information
snack
driving
bus
cross
letter
car
washing
petrol
b)
ache
child
club
tray
man
shop
stairs
man
recorder
box
step
park
minister
box
station
machine
player
roads
heating
desk
licence
stop
bar
Activity 2: Writing, competition.
The students can continue working with the same partner, and pairs compete against each other.
The competition is that each pair has to write a story, using as many of the new, compound words as possible. The winner is the pair that has used the most new, compound words in a story that makes sense.