Lesson video

Hello, everyone.

My name's Miss Butt, and today I'm going to be teaching you some new vocabulary.

At the moment, you're preparing to write a journalistic report.

As part of that journalistic report, you'll be writing lots of witness statements.

Now if you were a witness and you saw a crime, you would probably feel very shocked.

And so today we're going to be learning three different ways of describing feeling surprised or shocked.

Because in our writing, we don't want to keep saying "I felt shocked" over and over again.

I hope you enjoy today's lesson.

Here's what we're going to do in today's lesson.

First, we're going to introduce the new vocabulary, one word at a time.

We'll be looking at Mrs. Wordsmith illustrations to help us really understand what these words mean.

Then, we'll identify word pairs and synonyms for each word.

And finally, we will apply these words in sentences, and we'll write sentences that hopefully will be really useful when you write your witness statements.

So you will need something to write on and something to write with, towards the end of the lesson.

Perhaps you could pause the video now and make sure you've got the things that you need.

Okay, here's some key vocabulary we'll be using in this lesson.

I'm going to say each word, and then I'd like you to repeat it back to me just so I know that we're all engaged.

Synonym, word pair, adjective, noun.

Lovely.

A synonym is a word that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, like the words merry and happy.

So today we'll be learning synonyms of the word surprised.

Word pairs are words that often appear together.

So if we took the word bright, the word pairs might be a sun, a moon and a light, because these are things that are often described as being bright.

An adjective is a describing word, and a noun is a person, a place or a thing.

So if we take the example of a bright sun, bright would be the adjective because it describes the sun, and the sun would be a noun because it is a thing.

So before we start to look at our vocabulary, can you just think of as many ways that you possibly can to describe being surprised? For example, one way you could say you felt surprised, or another way, is shocked.

I wonder if you can pause the video and have a little think if there are any other ways you can think to describe being surprised.

Well done.

I wonder if any of those words you thought of are the words we're going to be learning today? Let's take a look at our first surprised word.

Before I show you what the word is, I'm going to first of all get you to look at this illustration.

Can you tell me what's happening in this picture? What story is this picture telling? What can you notice, and how would you describe how this character is feeling, and why? Can you pause the video and either have a think about that or you can describe what you see? Well done.

I can see that it looks like this character has won the lottery.

I think that because I can see a clue.

It says jackpot winning numbers, and the numbers the character is holding are the same as the numbers on the screen.

This character looks extremely surprised.

I can see that from their body language.

They've gone all rigid, they're sitting up straight, they're looking at their piece of paper, they've got wide eyes, their mouth is open, so definitely looking surprised.

This word is flabbergasted.

Flabbergasted.

Flabbergasted is an adjective, so it's a describing word, and it means very surprised or amazed, how you would feel if you won the lottery.

So you wouldn't be flabbergasted if you just felt a little bit shocked about something.

It's when you're very surprised or amazed.

So I'm going to read a set of words to you now, and as I read them, I'd like you to see if you can spot which words are synonyms. That means that these words would mean the same thing or nearly the same thing as flabbergasted.

The other words will be word pairs.

Astonished, by the news, by the view, by her reply, amazed, by his email, very surprised, by their offer, by her suggestion.

Here's the word in a sentence to help you.

One witness was flabbergasted by the news that the next door house had been burgled.

If a word is a synonym, we should be able to replace the word flabbergasted with the synonym.

So can you pause the video now and tell me which three words are synonyms? Let's see how you got on.

The synonyms are astonished, amazed, and very surprised.

That means the rest of these words are word pairs, which I'll read to you now.

Flabbergasted by the news.

Hmm, when might somebody be flabbergasted by the news? Flabbergasted by the view.

Perhaps close your eyes and picture a view that might make you feel flabbergasted.

Flabbergasted by her reply.

Maybe if somebody was very rude, it might make you feel flabbergasted.

Flabbergasted by his email or by her email.

Flabbergasted by their offer.

So perhaps if you were trying to sell something and you tried to sell it for five pounds, but somebody said, "I'll pay you 100 pounds," you would be flabbergasted by their offer because it's much more than you asked for.

And flabbergasted by her suggestion.

It's really important when we learn new vocabulary to actually say the words out loud.

So I'd like you now to pause the video and read these words out loud just as I did.

And as you read them, try to picture a scenario in your mind.

Excellent, well done.

So before we move on to our second word, can you very quickly in five seconds tell me what does flabbergasted mean? Well done, it means very surprised or amazed.

Let's look at our second illustration.

What is happening in this picture? What can you see, how is this character feeling? Again, you can either have a think about this or describe what you see.

Pause the video and do that now.

Okay, this word is speechless.

Speechless.

Speechless is an adjective and it means dumbstruck or lost for words, how you feel when someone hangs up on you.

I think that's what might have happened to this character here.

It says call ended on that phone, and they're looking extremely speechless about the fact that somebody has just hung up on them.

Can you have a think about the suffix -less? The word's suffix is a group of letters at the end of the word, and we can see in this word speechless, the suffix is -less, L-E-S-S.

What does this suffix mean? Can you think of any other words which have -less at the end? Hmm, have a little think about that now.

You might want to pause the video.

Okay, so fearless, helpless, luckless and hopeless are all more examples.

So let's now see if that can help us find out what the suffix -less means.

If you are fearless, it means you are without fear.

You don't have any fear.

If you are helpless, you are without help.

If you are luckless, you have no luck.

And if you are hopeless or something is hopeless, there's no hope.

So if you are less, if you see the suffix -less at the end of the word, it means it's without.

So if you're speechless, it means you have got no speech, you're without speech.

So you're completely stuck for words.

As I read this set of words, could you see if you can spot the synonyms of the word speechless? Utterly, almost, dumbstruck, temporarily, lost for words, practically, absolutely, totally, tongue-tied.

If you're temporarily, it means if you do something temporarily, it's for a short amount of time.

So if you were working somewhere temporarily, it wouldn't be forever, it would just be for a short amount of time.

Here's the word speechless in a sentence.

A delivery driver who saw all the action unfold said he was totally speechless when he realised what was going on.

Could you pause the video now and see if you can tell me the three synonyms of speechless? So the synonyms are dumbstruck, lost for words, and tongue-tied.

Literally as if your tongue is in a knot and therefore you can't say anything, no words would come out.

That means these words are word pairs which I'll read to you now.

You might be utterly speechless, almost speechless, temporarily speechless, practically speechless, absolutely speechless, or totally speechless.

Now just like before, can you pause the video and read these word pairs out loud? Well done.

So before we look at our final image, you've got five seconds to tell me what does speechless mean? Well done.

It means dumbstruck or lost for words.

Let's look at our final illustration.

What is happening in this picture? What are these two characters doing and how do you think this character, the bigger character, is feeling? How would you describe them? Could you pause the video and have a think about that now? Okay, this word is stunned.

Stunned.

Stunned is an adjective, so a describing word.

And it means amazed, dazed, or stupefied.

That word stupefied means that you're very shocked or amazed, like being so surprised, you instantly freeze.

And that's what we can see is happening in this picture.

Because one character has got almost like a stun gun that's making the other character completely freeze, and we can really see that again through that body language, the eyes being wide open, they're staring, rigid, so that's what the word stunned means.

So just as before, I'm going to read you some words, and I'd like you to see if you can spot which of these words might be synonyms. Dazed, surprised, amazement, crowd, disbelief, horror, amazed, look, and stupefied.

To help you, here's the word in a sentence.

Stunned crowds stood staring in disbelief as they watched all the action unfold.

Pause the video and tell me which three words are synonyms. Okay, the synonyms are dazed, amazed, and stupefied, which means the rest of these words are word pairs which I'll read to you now.

Stunned surprise, stunned amazement, a stunned silence.

Just picture when might there be a stunned silence? Perhaps what I was picturing was if a crowd were watching some kind of amazing show like a circus or the theatre, and then one of the actors did some kind of incredible trick or gymnastic trick.

The audience might sit in stunned silence.

A stunned crowd, stunned disbelief, stunned horror, and stunned look.

Perhaps you could all quickly show me what a stunned look might be like.

Well done.

So just as before, can you please now read these word pairs out loud just so this new word stunned really sticks in your memory? Off you go.

Excellent, well done.

So we've now learned three new words.

I wonder if you can remember what each word is? Use the images to help you.

Off you go.

Okay, so the first image was flabbergasted.

That character was flabbergasted they'd won the lottery.

The second one was speechless, and that character was speechless because somebody had hung up on them on the phone.

And the third one was stunned.

We can see how that character is frozen to the spot.

Now I'd like you to come up with your own definition for each word.

So imagine that you are trying to explain to somebody who'd never seen these words before and they came across these words in a book and they said to you, "What does flabbergasted mean?" Or, "What does speechless mean?" How would you describe in your own words what these words mean? Can you pause the video and do that now? Well done, so just one reminder.

Flabbergasted meant very surprised or amazed, speechless means you're dumbstruck or lost for words, a bit like being tongue-tied, and stunned means you're amazed, dazed or stupefied like if you instantly froze because something shocked you so much.

Okay, let's take a look at applying these new words in sentences.

Now I've tried to write sentences that might be useful in your journalistic reports because in your journalistic reports you'll be writing lots of witness statements so people who saw the crime.

Have a look at this first sentence as I read it to you.

A local resident, who was walking her dog at the time, said, "I was completely.

when I saw what was going on.

This is usually such a safe neighbourhood." Okay, so a local resident's seen what's gone on and they felt completely.

when they saw what was happening because usually it was a safe neighbourhood.

Could you pause the video and tell me which of these three words, which of these three adjectives you think would fit best in the sentence? Okay, hopefully you discovered as you put each one in the sentence that actually all of these adjectives could work.

That's because these words of course are synonyms of each other.

They mean more or less the same thing.

We could say that the local resident was completely flabbergasted, or completely speechless, or completely stunned.

I went for flabbergasted, but if you chose the other two, then that would definitely work, as well.

Here's another one.

"At the time, I was completely.

I just froze!" Now we can see that this is direct speech because there's a 66 and a 99 at the end.

He froze, how do you think this character might be described as feeling? So I've gone for stunned.

The reason I chose stunned in this sentence was because she froze, or the witness froze, and I know that that's quite linked to what the word stunned means.

But equally, we could say, "I was completely flabbergasted," or, "I was completely speechless." They would work, as well.

So now, it's your turn to write a sentence using either the word flabbergasted, speechless or stunned so that you can practise putting these words into sentences.

It can be difficult to come up with a sentence just on the spot, so I've written a sentence scaffold here that might help you.

Perhaps you might say, "One witness reported, comma.

." And then you can have your speech and you could use one of these words within your speech.

So, "I was completely mmm because.

Okay, so that's one sentence scaffold you could use.

Another sentence scaffold you could use is this scaffold, which is for a complex sentence.

It starts with a subordinating conjunction when.

"When I saw mmm.

comma, and then we would have the main clause.

What happened when you saw mmm? So you might, for example, say, "When I saw the man hurdling towards the window, I was completely speechless." The important thing is with these sentences is to use the words that we've learnt today.

You might even want to challenge yourself by writing two or three sentences so you could use each word in a sentence.

And you don't have to use these sentence scaffolds if you don't want to, but they're there to help you if you'd like.

So good luck, remember to check the spellings of these words, because they'll be on the screen in front of you, and can you now have a go at writing your own sentence or sentences.

Excellent, well done.

Congratulations, you have completed your lesson and you've learned three really ambitious and impressive new adjectives.

I really hope that these words will be very useful when you write your witness statements as part of your journalistic report.

But I also hope that you enjoyed learning these new words.

Perhaps you could use them when you're telling a story if you ever felt really surprised, or perhaps you could go and teach someone who's a friend or a family member what these words mean.

Thank you so much for working so hard, and I'll see you soon.

Bye, everyone.