Teaching of Noun Phrases

Genesis A. Labor
MA-ELE 2019
Functions of Noun Phrase

• Subject
Ex: My grandfather is a farmer.
• Subject Complement
Ex: My grandfather is a farmer.
• Direct object
Ex: My professor recommended an
extremely captivating book.
Functions of Noun Phrase

• Object Complements
Ex: My aunt calls my uncle sweetheart.
• Indirect Objects
• Ex: The salesman sold the company
suffering from the scandal new computers.
• Prepositional Complements
Ex: Because of the lengthy delay, we
missed our flight.
Functions of Noun Phrase
• Noun Phrase Modifiers
Ex: We reserved twenty hotel rooms.
• Derterminitives
Ex: My brother’s apartment is small.
• Appositives
Ex: My grandfather, the farmer, bought
more farm land.
• Adjunct Adverbials
Ex: We decided to go home.
Interactive Activities in
Teaching Nouns and
Noun Phrases
 Emerging Strategies

• Combining Strategies/ Eclectic Method

– Using concept or graphic organizers
– Proposed by Rivers (1981)
– to absorb the best techniques of all the well-
known language-teaching methods into their
classroom procedures, using them for the
purposes for which they are most appropriate
 Interactive Activities
• ABC NOUNS
- Write the letters A through Z on flashcards, and
put them in one pile.
- In a second pile, place flashcards with the words
“person," “place," “thing," or “idea" on them.
- Play a version of “Around the World" by instructing
two students to stand up, reading them a letter
from one pile and a type of noun from the other
pile, and seeing which student can think of the
right type of noun that begins with the appropriate
letter first.
 Interactive Activities
• The Longest List
- Have students break into groups, and have them
make a four-column chart with the titles “Person,"
“Place," “Thing," or “Idea." Tell them that they will
have twenty seconds to fill out each column with
as many nouns as they can think of. This fast-
paced noun activity should take less than two
minutes. Encourage students to share their lists
with the class, and reward the longest fully-correct
list with a small prize or a bit of congratulatory
praise.
 Interactive Activities
• Guess the Sport
- For this noun game, have students pick a sport
that they enjoy. Then have them write a list of
nouns that relate to the sport. (For example, for
basketball, they might choose “court," “basket,"
“backboard," and “rim.") Have them stand up and
read their lists aloud, and encourage the rest of
the class to guess which sport the list describes.
 Interactive Activities
• Toss the Noun
• Go over nouns before you begin play. (A noun is a
person, place or thing.) You may want to give
some examples or ask students to give examples.
• Go over rules of the game.
• Speak quietly, and only about the game.
• Throw softly and underhanded.
• If you break these rules, you get one warning and
then you are out of the game.
 Interactive Activities
• Group Noun Game
- For this noun game, have students pick a sport
that they enjoy.
- Then have them write a list of nouns that relate to
the sport. (For example, for basketball, they might
choose “court," “basket," “backboard," and “rim.")
Have them stand up and read their lists aloud, and
encourage the rest of the class to guess which
sport the list describes.
 Interactive Activities
• Complete Sentence
– Begin by writing a name of a student etc.
– Invite a student to come forward and add words
to turn her name as a subject of a sentence,
into a noun phrase.
• Describe a friend
– Divide class into two
– Have them describe a friend in a form of noun
phrase
 Interactive Activities
Variation for Higher Levels

Instead of nouns, let the students give

noun phrases with a particular function.
Example:
Noun Phrase – Appositive
Thank You!