A lesson plan for intermediate students to study word origins, practice speaking and reading.

1. Word
Origins

2. Hello!
I am Yuliia Shevchenko
I am here because I love my job. I’d like to share my lesson plan
with anybody who is interested in teaching English.
More lesson plans you can find in my blog: http://lovelifeasateacher.blogspot.com/

3. Instructions for use
1. Discuss with your students if they know the meaning of the following
words: cup, snob, posh, UFO, pros and cons. Elicit any ideas on the origin
of the words from your students.
2. Students work in pairs. They look at the notes the student has taken while
studying word origins and try to guess the history of the word origin with
the help of the notes.
3. Ask your students to search the
dictionary for some
information about the word
origin and complete the chart
as in the example.
Nota Bene! Each group of
students receive one word and
the text with information taken
from Oxford dictionary.
4. Students present their findings to
the class in the form of a short report
using the chart they’ve completed.
5. Ask students to search the internet
for some other words and expressions.
Students study the origin and share
the survey with the classmates.
More info on the word origin you may find here : http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/word-origins

4. Quotations are commonly printed
as a means of inspiration and to
invoke philosophical thoughts
from the reader.

5. cup
✣An Old English word, from Latin cuppa. As early as 1640 cup could
mean ‘a sports trophy in the form of a cup’, originally for horse-racing.
To be in your cups is to be drunk. In the past you could also use the
phrase to mean ‘during a drinking bout’. It is unclear which meaning is
intended in this passage in the biblical Apocrypha on the strength of
wine: ‘And when they are in their cups, they forget their love both to
friends and brethren, and a little after draw out swords.

6. Quotations are commonly printed
as a means of inspiration and to
invoke philosophical thoughts
from the reader.

7. ufo
✣According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term ‘unidentified
flying object’ goes back at least to the 1950s: it is recorded in 1953, in a
book by the US aviator and writer Donald Keyhoe. The OED also gives
a citation in 1956 by Edward Ruppelt, an officer in the USAF, stating
that he’d invented the term as a more general one to replace the earlier
description for such objects, flying saucer.
✣Strange objects in the sky were first named flying saucers in the 1940s:
the first OED citation is from The Times, in 1947. They were so called
because of an account by a US pilot, Kenneth Arnold, who stated in
various newspaper and radio interviews of that year that he’d seen
‘saucer-like’ objects in the sky while he was flying past Mount Rainier.
By the time Ruppelt and his USAF colleagues were investigating reports
of these sightings in the 1950s, it was clear that ‘saucer’ was too limited a
description, since the objects in question were said to be of many
different shapes: hence Ruppelt’s invention of ‘UFO’.

8. 1.
Transition headline

9. Pros and cons
✣The phrase ‘pros and cons’ is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase pro
et contra, ‘for and against’, and has been in use in the abbreviated form
since the 16th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
✣‘Pros and cons’ is a well-established standard usage; Oxford’s larger
dictionaries do not mark it as ‘informal’ or in any way restricted in use.
The much longer alternative is the phrase ‘arguments for and against’.

10. Quotations are commonly printed
as a means of inspiration and to
invoke philosophical thoughts
from the reader.

11. SNOB
✣There is a long-standing belief that snob has some connection with
Latin sine nobilitate ‘without nobility’, abbreviated to s-nob, which then
became snob. It is an ingenious theory but highly unlikely, as a snob
was first recorded in the late 18th century as a shoemaker or cobbler.
The word soon came to be used for any person of humble status or
rank—Cambridge undergraduates used the term to mean ‘someone
from the town, not a member of the university’, and this in turn led to
the broader sense ‘a lower-class person, or a person lacking in good
breeding, or good taste’. In time the word came to describe someone
who seeks to imitate or give exaggerated respect to people they
perceive as superior in social standing or wealth.

12. Quotations are commonly printed
as a means of inspiration and to
invoke philosophical thoughts
from the reader.

13. posh
One of the more frequently repeated explanations of the origin of a
word is the story that posh, comes from the initials of ‘port out,
starboard home’. This is supposed to refer to the location of the more
desirable cabins—on the port side on the outward trip and on the
starboard side on the return—on passenger ships between Britain and
India in the 19th century. Such cabins would be sheltered from the heat
of the sun or benefit from cooling breezes, and so were reserved by
wealthy passengers. Sadly, there is no evidence to support this neat and
ingenious explanation. The P&O steamship company is supposed to
have stamped tickets with the letters P.O.S.H., but no tickets like this
have ever been found. A more likely explanation is that the word
comes from a 19th-century slang term for a dandy, from thieves' slang
for ‘money’. The first recorded example of posh is from a 1915 issue of
Blackwood's Magazine.

14. Who used this word
for the first time?
When did it first
appear?
What was the
meaning of the word?
Short history
word
Example-how I can use the word?
Definition of the word – what is the current meaning of the word?

15. Penguins are found almost exclusively in the southern hemisphere, where
they catch their food underwater and raise their young on land.
The sailors In 1577-80
• where I want the test
penguin
A large, black and white sea bird that swims and cannot fly.
Welsh pen gwyn,
meaning 'white head'
The sailors on
the expedition may have
mistaken penguins for great
auks, or simply applied a
term they knew to an
unfamiliar bird.
Example

16. Thanks!
Any questions?
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