Lesson video

Hello everyone, my name's Mrs. Riley, and I'm here today to teach you some new vocabulary.

In today's lesson, we're going to be focusing on vocabulary that is associated to different smells.

So we'll be thinking about how we can describe all kinds of different smells.

But as we'll see as the lesson progresses, these words have been grouped together because they can describe smells, but actually they are useful in lots of other contexts as well.

So they're going to be really helpful.

Let's get started, shall we? The outcome of today's lesson is to use the words "overpowering", "pungent", "putrid", "toxic", "faint," and "musty" effectively in multiple contexts.

These will be the keywords that we'll be using in our lesson today.

Could we start off by just practising saying them out loud? My turn, your turn, are you ready? Noun.

Adjective.

Synonym.

Word pair.

Fantastic, a noun is a naming word for people, places, or things.

An adjective is a word that describes a noun.

So a smell is a noun because it's a naming word for a thing.

And we might describe a smell using an adjective.

So it's highly likely today that if we're describing smells, we're going to be learning adjectives.

A synonym is a word that has the same or similar meaning to another word.

And word pairs are words that often appear together.

Today we'll be learning words by learning the definition first, but then we'll be looking at the synonyms, so words that have a similar meaning, and then word pairs, so how can these words be used effectively? In our lesson today, we have three learning cycles.

In each learning cycle, we will learn, well, in the first two, we will learn just one word, and then in the third learning cycle, we're going to be learning four words altogether.

So six new words in total.

Let's get started with our first new smell word.

Now, before I tell you what this word is, I would like you to closely examine this picture.

Here is Plato and Oz, the two Mrs Wordsmith characters.

But what's happening here? You could either pause the video and have some thinking time, or if someone's close by, you could pause the video and discuss what you see now.

Well done, well, in this video, I can see Plato has got a cup of coffee.

And I don't know if you've ever spoken to someone when they are drinking very strong coffee, but it can give you coffee breath.

Now, I don't know if this is just coffee breath or if it's something even worse because Plato is talking and you can see it's almost like, the breath that's coming out is almost like a punch in Oz's face because that is how strong Plato's breath smells.

And we can see Oz has sort of fallen backwards.

She looks a bit dizzy like she's been knocked out by this strong smell.

So let's find out what this word is.

Overpowering, my turn, your turn: overpowering.

Well done, well, we can see some words inside that word, can't we? We can see "power" and we can see the word "over", which in this case is a prefix.

So we can put those together and think about it and that will help us to think about what overpowering might mean.

So it's an adjective and it means overwhelming or unbearable, something that you can't bear, like a smell so strong it knocks you over.

We could add "ly" to turn this word into an adverb: overpoweringly.

For example: The overpoweringly strong smell hit him like a punch in the face.

So an adjective describes a noun, but an adverb can describe an adjective or a verb.

In this case, it describes an adjective.

It's describing the strong smell.

The overpoweringly strong smell.

So this is quite a useful tip.

When we learn adjectives, not always, but often, we can add "ly" and turn them into an adverb, and then we can use them in another way.

So these words are synonyms of overpowering.

They have a similar meaning: "overwhelming", "unbearable", "strong".

And here's the word in a sentence.

The overpowering stench of Plato's breath took Oz by surprise.

These are word pairs of overpowering.

So if you were reading a book and came across the word "overpowering", it might be paired with one of these words: an overpowering smell; an overpowering force; an overpowering stench; an overpowering urge.

So if you have an urge to do something, perhaps sometimes if I'm in a really quiet, serious room, I sometimes have an urge just to make a silly noise or something.

So if it was an overpowering urge, it would be a really strong or overwhelming urge to do something.

Overpowering emotion.

So perhaps you would be trying to keep really calm about something, but you had overpowering emotion that you couldn't hold back.

And finally, overpowering desire.

Again, maybe you were trying to ignore a desire of something, but if it was overpowering, it would be too strong to ignore.

So just as I did, could you now pause the video and read these word pairs out loud? Because that way, hopefully they will stick in our memories, off you go.

Excellent, well done.

So let's check what we've just learnt.

Which of these words is a synonym for overpowering? Is it a: strong, b: smelly, or c: weak? Pause the video while you think about your answer.

Well done, the correct answer is a: strong is a synonym for overpowering.

They have a similar meaning.

Okay, for your first task in today's lesson, you have got a word map with the word "overpowering" written in the middle.

Around overpowering, you have either got synonyms or word pairs.

First, I'd like you to circle the synonyms. And then I'd like you to draw a line from overpowering, up or across or down, to the word pair.

And as you do that, perhaps you could say it out loud.

Here's a sentence to help you.

The overpowering stench of Plato's breath took Oz by surprise.

Now, if a word is a synonym, you could take out overpowering and see if you could replace it in that sentence.

If you can, it's likely it will be a synonym.

If it doesn't sound right, it's likely to be a word pair.

So that's a little trick that you can use if you are unsure.

Pause the video now and good luck.

Well done, let's go through the answers together.

The synonyms are "overwhelming", "unbearable", and "strong".

The word pairs are overpowering force, overpowering stench, overpowering urge, overpowering desire, overpowering smell, and overpowering emotion.

Let's take a look at our second new smell word.

Again, here's a picture.

Can you see what's happening here? This is Brick, could you pause the video and either have some thinking time or describe what you see now? Well done, well, Brick here is holding his shoes.

He looks like he barely wants to even touch them.

And there is a smell that is rising from these shoes that is being drawn in a funny way of a skull and crossbones to really emphasise how bad the smell is that's coming from these shoes.

And Brick is kind of turning to face away from them so he doesn't have to inhale the stench.

Let's find out what this word is.

"Pungent", my turn, your turn: pungent.

Well done, pungent is also an adjective.

It means having a strong smell or sharp taste, like stinky trainers after a game of football.

These words are synonyms of pungent: "smelly", "stinky", and "strong".

The pungent smell of Brick's trainers was too strong to ignore.

He decided he must buy a new pair.

These are word pairs of pungent: pungent smell, pungent odour, and odour is another way of describing a smell, a pungent scent, pungent aroma.

Could you now pause the video and read those word pairs out loud? Well done, we've got five more word pairs.

Pungent sauce, so can you remember? It said it could describe a smell, or it could describe also a really strong taste.

So a pungent sauce, pungent taste, pungent cheese, pungent flavour, and finally, pungent spice.

Again, can you pause the video and read those word pairs out loud? Well done, let's check what we've just learnt.

Which of these words is a synonym for pungent? a: plain, b: poisonous, or c: smelly? Pause the video while you think about your answer.

Well done, the correct answer is c: smelly.

Okay, so the same as we have done earlier, you've got another word map with "pungent" written in the middle.

Could you first circle the synonyms? And second, could you draw lines to the word pairs? Here's a sentence to help you, and remember that trick, if the word can replace pungent in that sentence, it's likely to be a synonym.

If it doesn't sound right, it's likely to be a word pair.

Pause the video now while you complete this first part of your task.

Well done, let's go through the answers together.

The synonyms are "smelly", "strong", and "stinky".

The word pairs are pungent smell, pungent odour, pungent sauce, pungent flavour, pungent taste, pungent spice, pungent scent, pungent aroma, and pungent cheese.

The next part of your task, I would like you to write a sentence using either the word "overpowering" or "pungent".

Or you could even try and write a sentence which includes both words if you like.

Use the word pairs to help you.

Here are the word pairs for overpowering, and here are the word pairs for pungent.

So start off by picking which word you're going to use, you're going to write a sentence about.

For example, you might choose pungent.

Then pick a word pair, for example, pungent cheese, and then you can build your sentence around that word pair.

Try to be as ambitious as possible with the sentence and think about all the things that you've learnt in your grammar and English lessons.

Once you've written your sentence, read it back, see if you could improve it.

Think about all those amazing things that you know how to do in your writing.

So pause the video now while you write your sentence using either "overpowering" or "pungent".

Well done, let's take a look at an example sentence together and think about whether this sentence uses pungent correctly.

The cheese had such a pungent taste that all the other flavours were hard to notice.

Well, I can straightaway see that I've used a word pair: pungent taste.

So I know I've used this word pungent correctly.

I could have just ended my sentence there.

The cheese had a pungent taste.

And I could have just done a full stop.

But I've added this extra bit of detail to really exaggerate, or show, how strong the flavour is.

The cheese had such a pungent taste that all the other flavours were hard to notice.

Because the taste of the cheese was so pungent, or strong, the other flavours were hard to notice.

Could you check how effective is your sentence? Is there an extra detail you could add to make it even more effective? Pause the video now.

Well done.

Let's just check, could we also use overpowering in this sentence? Let's see if it works.

The cheese had such an overpowering taste that all the other flavours were hard to notice.

Yes, we can use overpowering in that sentence too, because our overpowering we know means overwhelming or strong and that works within this sentence.

Okay, it's time to look at our other new smell words.

The first word was overpowering.

The second word was pungent.

Let's see what our four other smell words are going to be.

So first I'd like you to look at these pictures and perhaps you could predict what each word might be from looking at the clues in the illustrations.

So here's the first one, what's happening there? Here's the second one, what's happening there? Here's the third one, ooh, yuck, don't know if I'd want to eat that sandwich.

And here's the fourth one.

What's happening in that picture? If you like, you could pause the video and spend a bit of time looking closely at each picture, describing what you see, and maybe even predicting what the word might be.

Okay, well done.

Let's go through and see what each of these pictures, what word it represents.

So the first one is "faint", it's an adjective.

It means barely noticeable or slight, like the trace of a delicious smell carried on the breeze.

So we can see there that Plato's reading, and Army is sitting close by eating.

It looks like some kind of lovely Mexican wrap or burrito or something.

And you can see that Plato has got a faint smell of it.

So it's not strong, it's slight, it's barely noticeable.

The second one is "musty".

Again, an adjective meaning stuffy and stale, like the smell of an old stinky jumper that badly needs a wash.

Okay, so musty: stuffy, and stale.

Then we've got "putrid", an adjective meaning rotten and decayed, like an old mouldy sandwich.

So we can see there that the bread looks very mouldy.

So if something is putrid, it implies that it has gone rotten in decayed, which is what happens to things if they're left for a long time.

Not all things become rotten and decayed.

If I left this mug, it would not go rotten and decayed 'cause it's made of china.

But if I left some milk in the bottom there and left that over a few weeks, it would become rotten and horrible and stinky and putrid.

And finally, we have got "toxic", an adjective meaning poisonous or harmful, like dangerous radioactive waste.

And we can see in that picture that because this substance is so toxic, Grit has had to put some sort of protective clothing on.

And he's dipping, it looks like a chicken drumstick into that toxic bubbling substance.

And it looks like it's almost making it disappear because it's so strong and harmful and poisonous.

So let's just practise saying each word out loud.

Are you ready? Faint.

Musty.

Putrid.

Toxic.

Well done, okay, let's see if you can match the adjective to the correct image.

Pause the video now.

Well done, so putrid is the rotten or decayed sandwich, oop, sorry, that Bogart's eating.

Faint is that barely noticeable smell that Plato has got a whiff of.

Toxic is that substance which is very harmful or dangerous.

And musty is the smell of Army's jumper that maybe has been sitting right at the bottom of a drawer and hasn't been washed for ages.

So it smells a bit musty.

Okay, so we've now got lots more word maps, four more for each word.

I'm not going to go through each one of how to do it, because hopefully you feel confident now.

You need to circle the synonyms first and then draw lines to the word pairs.

For each of these, there will be a sentence there to help you.

In this case, Grit choked on the putrid smell of the egg salad that had become rotten in his bag.

Oh, yuck, imagine that.

So can you pause the video while you complete this first word map? Well done, let's go through the answers.

The synonyms are "rotten", "disgusting", and "decayed".

The word pairs are putrid food, putrid smell, putrid meat, putrid slime, putrid stench, putrid breath, putrid water.

Well done, let's go to our next word map.

This time we've got "musty".

Musty is not quite as bad as putrid.

Okay, so we've got, first of all, circle the synonyms and then draw lines to the word pairs.

Here's the sentence, Brick's old gym bag smelled of damp, musty clothes.

Pause the video now while you complete this word map.

Well done, the synonyms are "dusty", "stuffy", and "stale".

The word pairs are musty clothes, musty smell, musty odour, an odour is another word for a smell.

A musty attic, yeah, an attic would be musty because quite often there are no windows, so no fresh air is coming in.

Musty books, imagine in a library if there was a load of books that were really high up and far away, and no one ever opened them up to air them.

They might be musty books.

A musty closet, again, maybe one that's not been opened very often and everything's gone a bit stale and old in there.

Musty air, and musty basement.

Again, a bit like an attic, often basements or cellars might be musty because there's no window, so there's no way of fresh air coming in.

to look at another word map this time for faint.

to look at another word map this time for "faint".

Here's the word in a sentence.

Brick knew it was unlikely he would win, but he still had a small faint hope that he would.

So we can see in that sentence that whilst faint can describe a smell, in this sentence, it describes a hope, a small faint hope.

It's something that's slight or not that noticeable.

So a slight hope that he would win.

So again, can you circle the synonyms first and then draw lines to the word pairs? Off you go, pause the video now.

Well done, so the synonyms of "faint" are "weak", "subtle", that's like the opposite of strong.

If you gave someone a strong hint of an answer, it would probably give them the answer very easily.

If you gave them a subtle hint, it would be like a weak hint or a slight hint, but hopefully it might help them.

And "slight", so "weak", "subtle", and "slight" are synonyms of faint, they have a similar meaning.

And the word pairs are: a faint hint, so you might eat something and say, they might say, "Can you taste the sugar? "There's a faint hint of sugar." A faint hope, bit like in that sentence, a faint hope that he would win.

A faint sound, so again, something slight or subtle, not loud.

Faint perfume, so not strong perfume, but just faint perfume.

A faint whisper, a faint smell, faint odour, a faint glimmer, a faint whiff, a faint smile, so a slight smile, and a faint shadow.

So we can see there that this word "faint" can describe a smell, an odour, but it can describe lots of other things as well.

So it's a very useful word.

Okay, and finally, this is our last word map of the day, it's "toxic".

Here's the word in a sentence.

Stax put on a mask to stop himself breathing in the dangerous toxic gas.

So again, which of these words has a similar meaning to toxic and is therefore a synonym that needs to be circled and which is a word pair for toxic? Pause the video now while you complete this final word map.

Well done, let's go through the answers.

The synonyms of "toxic" are "dangerous", "harmful", and "poisonous".

The word pairs are toxic waste, toxic chemicals, toxic effect.

So you might say, let's say that there was one of your friends, but they were a bad influence on you because they were always trying to make you do things that were like where you were making bad choices.

Someone might say they have a toxic effect on you, okay? So a dangerous or harmful effect on you.

Toxic combination, and again, that you and this friend, somebody might say they're a toxic combination, or there might be two chemicals, which by themselves are safe, but if you combine them, it might make a toxic combination, a dangerous combination.

Toxic wasteland, toxic substances.

Maybe there might be toxic substances in a science laboratory.

Toxic gas, so something that you might inhale, and toxic fumes.

So well done if you managed to separate the synonyms from the word pairs in that word map.

Okay, for our final task in today's lesson, you have got six sentences and each sentence has a gap missing with a word missing.

I would like you to fill the gaps with either the word "overpowering", "pungent", "musty", "putrid", "faint," or "toxic".

So all of the six smell words we've used today.

Now you might find that in some of these sentences, more than one option works.

So what I would suggest doing is if there's one where you think, "Oh, well, it could be this or this or this," leave it blank and go to the next one.

Start off by doing the sentences where you're sure what the word is, and then go back to those ones that you were unsure of.

And by then, because you will have used some of the other words, there might only be one or two options left.

So that will make it a bit easier for you.

Let me read the sentences to you.

The smell of mm chemicals filled the laboratory.

Oz just about managed a mm smile, but she thought the toothbrush was a terrible gift.

The ancient treasure chest let out a mm smell when it was opened after thousands of years.

Oz felt an mm urge to giggle in the serious meeting.

Vultures pecked at the mm meat rotting in the desert.

"Put those away," yelled Oz when she caught a whiff of Grit's mm feet.

So first of all, remember the word pairs.

You might spot the word pairs and remember which words they matched to and that might help.

But also remember that trick of if you're not sure, leave it out, go to the next one and you can always come back to it at the end.

So good luck with this final activity in today's lesson.

Pause the video now.

Excellent, well done, let's go through the answers together.

So the first one is: The smell of toxic chemicals filled the laboratory.

We know chemicals is a word pair for toxic, something that's dangerous or harmful or poisonous.

Oz just about managed a faint smile, but she thought the toothbrush was a terrible gift.

To be honest, I'm not sure if I'd want a toothbrush as a present either.

So a faint smile is a sort of slight smile, barely noticeable.

The ancient treasure chest let out a musty smell when it was opened after thousands of years.

Remember we spoke about musty attics or cellars because there's no fresh air in there.

So if this chest has been closed for thousands of years, the air would be musty.

Oz felt an overpowering urge to giggle in the serious meeting.

I'm glad it's not just me, Oz feels like that too sometimes.

Vultures pecked at the putrid meat rotting in the desert.

Remember, putrid things are often decayed.

"Put those away," yelled Oz when she caught a whiff of Grit's pungent feet.

So well done if you managed to get those correct answers.

Maybe you got a couple ones that were different because some of those words we know have a similar meaning.

For instance, overpowering and pungent, but we couldn't have a pungent urge and actually also overpowering, the word before it is "an" overpowering.

We know we use "an" instead of "a" or "a" when the following word starts with a vowel.

So that was a little subtle hint there that you might have noticed.

Okay, let's summarise what we've learnt today.

So we've learnt six new words that are associated with smell.

As we've seen, they can be used in other contexts as well.

Overpowering means overwhelming or unbearable, like a smell so strong, it knocks you over.

Pungent means having a strong smell or sharp taste, like stinky trainers after a game of football.

Faint means barely noticeable or slight like the trace of a delicious smell carried on the breeze.

Musty means stuffy and stale like the smell of an old stinky jumper that badly needs a wash.

Putrid means rotten and decayed like an old mouldy sandwich.

And finally, toxic means poisonous or harmful, like dangerous radioactive waste.

All six of these words are adjectives, they are all describing words.

I hope they are really useful in your speaking and your writing.

Perhaps you might even come across one of these words in a book that you're reading.

Well done for sticking with this learning for the whole lesson and for working so hard.

You've written a sentence, you've done lots of word maps, and you've managed to fill in the gaps with these words that we have learnt today.

So we've achieved a lot and you should feel very proud of yourselves.

Hopefully I'll see you for some more learning another time.