Lesson video

Hello, everyone, my name is Miss Butt, and today I'm going to be teaching you some new vocabulary.

Today we're going to be learning three more words, which mean the same thing as surprised.

The reason we're learning these words today, is because in your journalistic writing report, you're going to be writing lots of witness statements.

And if you were a witness who saw a crime, you would probably feel very surprised or shocked.

So we're going to be learning different ways to describe that feeling of feeling surprised and shocked, so that you've got lots of exciting new words to use in your writing.

I hope you enjoy the lesson.

Here's what we're going to do today, we're going to first of all introduce the new vocabulary one word at a time.

And we'll be looking at Mrs. Wordsmith illustration to help us really understand what these words mean.

Then we will identify word pairs and synonyms for each word.

And finally, we'll apply these words in sentences.

And we'll try to write sentences that will hopefully be very useful in your writing unit on journalistic reports.

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 to make sure you've got those things that you need, and also to clear away anything that may distract you so you can really focus on your learning.

Okay, great, here's some key vocabulary we'll be using today.

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

Synonym, word pair, adjective, noun, lovely.

So a synonym is a word that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, like merry and happy, mean more or less the same thing.

So today, we'll be learning synonyms for the word surprised or shocked.

Word pairs are words that often appear together.

So if we took the word bright, it might be paired up with the word sun, moon, or light, because these are things which are quite 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 took the example of a bright sun, bright would be the adjective, the describing word, and the sun would be the noun or the thing.

So let's take a look at our first surprised word for today.

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

What's happening in this picture? Can you tell me what you can see, and how you think this character is feeling, and why are they feeling that way? You could either describe what you see, or you could just have a quiet, think about it.

Pause the video and do that now.

Okay, I think we can all agree this character looks quite shocked or surprised.

It looks like their alarm has gone off, and that's maybe why they're jumping out of bed like that, their mouth is wide open, their eyes are wide open.

They look like perhaps they were in a really deep sleep and suddenly got woken up, and that alarm clock looks like it must be very loud.

This word is alarmed, alarmed.

It is an adjective meaning frightened, startled or disturbed.

How you feel when you get woken up suddenly by a loud noise.

So imagine that you were fast asleep in your beds, sleeping really deeply and having lovely dreams, and then suddenly, there was an enormous crashing sound that might make you feel very alarmed.

And we can see in this word, there's the root word, alarm.

And we can see how that links to the meaning have a little think about that.

How does it link to the meaning, the word alarm, and then the word alarmed, which means frightened, startled or disturbed.

So it links, doesn't it? Because an alarm which might wake us up, or an alarm which might make you leave a building if there was a fire alarm or a burglar alarm that might go off to alert you that there was an intruder in the house would make you then feel frightened, startled or disturbed.

So we can see how the root word, alarm is linked to this adjective alarmed.

So I'm going to read some words to you, and as I read these words, I'd like you to see if you can spot the synonyms of the word alarmed.

Remember, if the word is a synonym, it means nearly or exactly the same thing.

If it's not a synonym, then it will be a word pair.

Disturbed, animal, burglar, voice, startled, look, frightened, expression, policeman, to help you, here's the word in a sentence.

"I was a little alarmed when I saw a wolf "entering Mrs. Puckett's house, as I didn't recognise him, "and he looked rather suspicious." This is an example of what one of the witnesses might say, and we can see that we've got speech marks around it.

So if the word is a synonym, we should be able to take out the word, alarmed in that sentence and replace it with a synonym.

So pause the video, and see if you can now tell me which three words are synonyms of the word alarmed.

Okay, so the synonyms are, disturbed, startled, and frightened.

So we could say I was a little frightened when I saw a wolf, or I was a little disturbed, or a little startled.

And don't worry if you're not too sure about them, if you haven't heard that word startled, because we're going to think a little bit more about that word later in the lesson.

So here are the word pairs.

An alarmed animal.

When might an animal feel alarmed? Have a think about that.

Perhaps if it suddenly heard a shotgun, it might be alarmed.

An alarmed burglar.

Perhaps if they were trying to burglar a house and the alarm went off, they might feel alarmed.

An alarmed voice, picture what that might sound like.

An alarmed look, show me an alarmed look.

An alarmed expression, and an alarmed policeman.

Now it's really important that we learn new vocabulary that we read and say the words out loud, because we won't learn them or remember them just from reading them.

So I would like you to now pause the video, and read these words, but say them out loud with their word pairs, off you go.

Well done, so before we move on to our second illustration, you've got five seconds to tell me, what does alarmed mean? Well done, it means frightened, startled or disturbed.

Here's our second illustration.

What's happening in this picture? What can you see? What do you notice? How is this character feeling, and why? Can you pause the video and have a really close look at that picture now and describe what you can see.

It looks like this lady, that's actually Mrs Wordsmith herself, that was out for nighttime walk, and suddenly it looks like this spaceship has just shone this light on her.

And again, I can really see from her body language and her facial expression that she is extremely shocked at what she has seen.

So let's find out what this word is.

Astonishing.

Astonishing.

Astonishing is also an adjective, and it means surprising or amazing.

When something is so incredible, you can't believe what you're seeing.

Can you have a think? Have you ever seen anything before that has been astonishing? Something so incredible, you almost couldn't believe what you saw.

Something I once saw that was quite astonishing was once when I was driving my car down to Cornwall, which is right in the southwest of England, and we were driving behind a farmer.

And the farmer was carrying a horse box, which usually would have a horse in it.

But as we were driving behind this farmer, a cow's head popped over, so it wasn't carrying a horse, it was actually carrying a cow.

And the cow suddenly leaped up and it put its two front legs over the back of the horse box.

And slowly the cow was falling further and further down, and we were trying to be beep our horn and trying to let the farmer know that the cow was about to tumble out of the horsebox.

But he didn't notice that we were beeping, that we were trying to get his attention.

So he carried on driving until eventually the cow's hooves were dragging along the road, so it was literally nearly on the floor.

And luckily at that point, just as the farmer realised we were beeping, and heard us, and slows down, the cow tumbled out into the road and it was a really astonishing sight, but luckily the cow just got up, and walked off.

So it was absolutely fine, it wasn't hurt.

But it was something that was quite astonishing.

I did not expect to see that when I was driving down to Cornwall, I wonder what your story was.

So let's take a look at which of these words could be synonyms of the word astonishing.

Beauty, spectacle, amount, discovery, speed, achievement, amazing, success, fact, awesome, surprising and sight.

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

Seeing a large man flying towards the house was quite an astonishing sight.

So any of these words and their synonyms we should be able to replace in that sentence with the purple word astonishing.

Can you pause the video, and see if you can tell me which three words are synonyms now.

So the synonyms are, amazing, awesome, and surprising.

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

So we might have astonishing beauty.

Gosh, imagine something so beautiful that it was astonishing.

That doesn't just mean astonishing beauty of a person, it might be astonishing beauty of something like, if you were looking at a beautiful sunset, it might be astonishing beauty.

An astonishing spectacle.

A spectacle is like a display or a performance, so have a think what that might be look like, an astonishing spectacle.

An astonishing amount.

Maybe you might see something like, he ate an astonishing amount of lunch today.

An astonishing discovery.

Astonishing speed, somebody might drive, or something like whizzed past at astonishing speed.

Astonishing success.

Astonishing fact, something that's so incredible, the fact makes you feel astonished, and an astonishing achievement.

What might an astonishing achievement be? Perhaps you might have heard of somebody, who has made an astonishing achievement for example, maybe they might have climbed Mount Everest.

So just as before, can you now please pause the video and read these word pairs out loud because that's the way that you will remember this word astonishing, off you go.

Well done.

So finally, before we move on to our last word for today, you've got five seconds to tell me what astonishing means.

Well done.

It means, surprising or amazing.

When something is so incredible, you can't believe what you are seeing.

Here's our final illustration.

What's happening in this picture? What can you see, what story is this telling? How do you think this character is feeling? How would you describe them? Can you pause the video and either have a think or either describe what you can see now.

Okay, so here we've got Mrs. Wordsmith, the character is a jack in the box and has sprung out onto this other poor little creature who looks again extremely shocked.

It looks like because that glasses have flown off and there's a book in the air, that perhaps they were quietly reading, suddenly this thing sprung out.

This word is startled, startled.

So we heard this word startled earlier because it was actually one of the synonyms for the word, the first word we looked at for alarmed.

Okay, so startled is an adjective, and it means surprised or frightened, like the feeling you get when someone jumps out at you.

Now, when somebody jumps out at me and makes me jump, which quite often the children in my class do, it makes me really startled.

It also makes me feel kind of irrationally angry, and then I have to just say, it's just a joke, it's fine, but because it makes me so frightened, it makes me a bit angry.

So, the early meaning of startle, was to move quickly.

So that was originally the meaning of this word, startle meant to move quickly.

So how does that relate to the word now? Now it means surprised or frightened, like when somebody jumps out at you.

How does that link? Have a little think about that, you might want to pause the video.

Okay, well when you're startled, you move suddenly or jump.

So for example, when my children in my class hide behind the door and jump out at me, I usually jump out of the way or move quite suddenly.

So we can see how that meaning has changed but still sort of linked.

Okay, which of these words are synonyms of the word startled? Creature, deer, frightened, laugh, surprised, cry, glance, a glance is a quick look at something.

Eyes, alarmed, rabbit.

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

When she saw what was going on, she let out a startled cry.

Could you pause the video and tell me which three words are synonyms? Okay, the synonyms are, frightened, surprised and alarmed, which means the rest of these words are word pairs, sorry, which told me to now.

A startled creature, startled eyes, a startled glance.

Perhaps if you saw a mouse running across the floor, you might give a startled glance.

A startled cry, a startled laugh, a startled rabbit, perhaps if suddenly it's crossing the road and saw a light and the lights of a car kind of approaching it, it would be startled.

And a startled deer.

So just as before, can you now pause the video, and read these word pairs out loud.

Excellent, well done.

Okay, so we have now learned three new ways of describing the feeling of being shocked or surprised.

I wonder, if you could pause the video now and tell me what each of these words are, off you go.

Let's see how you got on, if you remembered.

The first word was alarmed, the second word was astonishing, and the third word was startled, these are all adjectives.

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

So imagine that somebody saw these words in a book and said to you, what's does the word astonishing mean? Or what does the word startled mean? And you have to describe what that word meant, how would you put it into your own words what these words meant? Off you go Okay, so just so you can see how you got on, alarmed means frightened, startled or disturbed.

Astonishing is surprising or amazing, and startled means surprised or frightened.

So alarmed and startled, are very, very close in meaning, okay? Astonishing is more, it's not so much that a person would be surprised, it's more that there's something that has been surprising, okay? So you might say I was alarmed, or I was startled, but you would say it was astonishing the thing that you saw whether it was the spectacle, or an amount that somebody had eaten or an achievement.

So we're going to take a look now for the last part of our lesson, to applying these words in sentences.

I've written a sentence and you hopefully will see, that this is an example of a sentence that could be in your witness reports.

I'd like you as I read this, to think about which of these three adjectives would fit best in this sentence.

According to a local resident, Mrs. Puckett was heard letting out a, cry moments after the wolf entered her house.

A local resident is somebody who lives close by, to Mrs. Puckett was heard letting out a, cry moments after the wolf entered her house.

Can you pause the video, and tell me which of these adjectives you would put in the sentence? Okay, so startled would work, but also alarmed would work, we could have a startled cry, or an alarmed cry.

We couldn't really have an astonishing cry, so if you put startled or alarmed then those both would work in this context.

Okay, so I can see here some speech marks.

So I think this is some direct speech of a witness.

"It was quite, how quickly it all happened!" One witness exclaimed.

It was quite, how quickly it all happened.

Which adjective would you put in this sentence? You can always try and test them.

It was quite alarmed how quickly it all happened.

No, that doesn't sound right.

It was quite astonishing how quickly it all happened.

Oh, that sounds right, I'll just check the last one as well.

It was quite startled how quickly it all happened.

No, that doesn't sound right.

So astonishing is the answer for this one.

Okay, it's now your turn to write a sentence using either the word alarmed, astonishing or startled.

If you wanted to really challenge yourself today, you could even try to write three sentences using each word in each sentence.

And it can be quite tricky to just think of the sentence on the spot.

So here are a couple of sentence scaffolds you could use to help you.

Remember, we're trying to practise sentences that will be really useful in our journalistic writing.

And when especially, when you write your witness section, because the witnesses would all feel surprised or shocked at what they saw.

So you could start your sentence with, one witness reported comma, we always have a comma before the speech come second.

And then you could put one of these words in some speech, in some direct speech.

And maybe that character might be describing how they felt and why.

Or you could write a complex sentence.

So, when I saw, comma I.

When I saw a man hurtling towards the window, comma, I let out a startled cry, okay? Would be an example.

Or perhaps you don't want to use either of these sentence scaffolds and you want to come up with your own sentence, and that is absolutely fine as well.

They're just there to help you if you'd like to use them.

So remember, the most important thing, is that you are using one of these new words that we have learned.

And if you are going to try to use some speech, some direct speech, then don't forget your speech, punctuation rules, okay? Good luck, everyone.

Okay, brilliant, well done.

I wish I could read all your sentences.

So well done, you've completed your lesson.

I hope you feel really proud of yourselves that you've learned three very ambitious new words that you can use in your writing.

Perhaps you could go and teach somebody else what these words mean.

So you can show off a little bit what you've learned.

I really enjoyed teaching you today, and I hope to see you all soon.

Bye, everyone.