Lesson video

Hello everyone, It's Mr. Brown here with your next lesson.

And today it's a grammar-focused lesson, and we're looking at pronouns.

So let's get started.

Okay, our learning objective for today is to explore pronouns.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or a piece of paper, something to write on.

A pencil, a pen, something to write with, and of course, your brains.

As always make sure they are ready.

Okay, let's start the writing warm-up.

Your writing warm-up is to put these word classes into the correct definitions.

A is a PPT, a person, place, or thing.

What is it? Same for the next one, an describes a word; it tells us what it's like.

Next one, a is a doing or a being word; if you do it or you are it, then the word is a.

And the last one, an describes a verb; it often ends in -ly.

Okay, pause the lesson, and I think the best way to revise these is to write out the whole sentence so that you really, really learn it, and then you've got them written down as well for reference later on.

Okay, off you go.

Okay, so hopefully you've had a chance to write those in.

Let's see if you were right.

The first one, a noun is a PPT, a person place, or thing.

Next one, an adjective describes a word.

It tells us what it's like.

Then we have a verb is a doing or a being word.

If you do it or you are it, then the word is a verb.

And the last one, an adverb describes a verb; it often ends in -ly.

Good job.

Well done.

Can you spot the words that match these word classes in a sentence? So here's the sentence for you, but can you spot which words are nouns, which are adverbs, verbs, and adjectives? Pause the lesson, write the sentence out.

And what I suggest you do, if you've got coloured pencils at home, or in class, it would be great to be able to highlight or circle a word so it was referenced to a colour, or you could write a line, and then miss a line, and then write a line, and then on the missed line, you could write in what the word above means.

Is it a noun or an adverb? Or you could even, if you wanted to cut your page into four, and then put all the nouns in one section, or the adverbs, verbs, adjectives, etc.

It's up to you.

Be creative, off you go.

Okay, so let's see if you were right.

So we had interestingly, which is of course an adverb, good way to start a sentence, one of our fronted adverbials tells the reader how the main clause of the sentence happened.

Interestingly, when I spoke, verb, doing, something you do.

Yesterday, I spoke to someone.

When I spoke to several children, children, noun, person, place or thing, about this, they all agreed it was an excellent, excellent is an adjective, or way to describe something.

It was an excellent idea.

And then of course, if you've got excellent, then there must be a noun after it.

And then noun is idea.

I liked the idea of noun, of idea being a noun, because it really reinforces the fact that nouns don't have to be something you can pick up, you can touch.

An idea, you can't hold an idea, can you? It's just in your brain, but you can still describe it.

You can have an excellent idea.

A cunning idea.

A terrible idea.

Good job.

Okay.

What are pronouns? Good question.

Mr. Brown walked to the shop, but Mr. Brown had forgotten his wallet.

Anything you'd edit about that sentence? Anything you'd change? Would this sound better? Instead of Mr. Brown walked to the shop, but Mr. Brown had forgotten his wallet, Mr. Brown walked to the shop, but he had forgotten his wallet.

Now he, in that sentence, is a pronoun.

Use that clue.

Let's have a look at another one.

The children were in the playground when the children realised it was the end of play.

they worked much better.

The children were in the playground when they realised it was the end of play.

They is a pronoun.

So, are you starting to get an idea of what pronouns are? Pronouns are some of the most useful words in the English language.

They are used in the place of a noun to avoid it having to be named twice.

So Mr. Brown, I'm a noun in that sentence, Mr. Brown walked to the shops.

Instead of having to say Mr. Brown walks to the shops and Mr. Brown had forgotten his wallet, you can just say, and he'd forgotten his wallet; Because we know we're talking about Mr. Brown, because he was already in the start of the sentence.

You use pronouns all the time.

For example, James carried the bag, but it was too heavy for him.

It and him are pronouns.

It is a pronoun that represents the bag, and him is a pronoun that refers to James.

Without pronouns, We'd have to say James carried the bag, but the bag was too heavy for James.

Much, much better the first way.

It flows using those pronouns.

Now there are different classes of pronouns.

There are personal pronouns.

That's I, we, you, he, she, it, they.

Possessive, mine, ours, your, hers, his, theirs.

Object, me, you, us, her, him, it, them.

And reflexive, myself, yourself, herself, himself, itself, yourselves, and then themselves.

Now I don't need to worry too much about the different causes of pronouns.

We will go into those later on.

The main focus of this lesson is being able to spot those pronouns.

Can you identify the pronoun in this sentence? The girl thought it was her turn.

What's the pronoun in that sentence? Can you say it out loud to me? Let's see if you're right.

Her.

Her is the pronoun.

Okay, how about this sentence? Before school, we ate breakfast.

What's the pronoun? Let's see if you're right.

We, exactly.

Before school, we ate breakfast.

Rami knew the shelf was too high for him to reach.

Any pronouns there? Rami knew the shelf was too high for him to reach.

Him, well done.

Okay, how about now? The boys helped themselves to more salad.

The boys helped themselves to more salad.

What do you think? Themselves is correct, well done.

Let's take a look at this next one, and look closely at the question.

Identify the pronouns in this sentence.

So there's going to be more than one.

Always have to look closely at the question.

The boy picked up his coat and placed it on his chair.

The boy picked up his coat and placed it on his chair.

Can you identify the pronouns? Look closely.

There's definitely more than one.

Could be more than two.

Okay, let's see if you've got them all.

The boy picked up his coat, so his is telling us that it's the boy's coat, and placed it, what's it? The coat on his, who? The boy's chair.

Exactly his, it, and his.

Well done.

Okay.

Let's get the same sentence, and let me change the question.

Identify the nouns in this sentence.

So you've identified the pronouns, what about the nouns? Well, of course, there's the boy, the coat, and the chair.

Again, back to that person, place or thing.

The boy is the noun, his is referring to him, and coat is a noun, and it is referring to the coat.

Chair is just the chair, because we haven't written any more in this sentence, so we don't need anything other than just the noun.

We don't need a pronoun for the chair.

Okay, what do we do now? Pause the video to complete this task.

Rewrite.

Rewrite these sentences and change any nouns to pronouns, if necessary.

So the first sentence is, the train was busy and the train was late.

I want to rewrite that sentence, changing any nouns to pronouns, if needed.

Then you've got sentence two, the boy was playful this morning, but now the boy is tired.

Number three, there was a hole in the road and the cat fell into the hole.

And number four, the trees were tall, but the trees weren't tall enough.

Rewrite those sentences, changing any nouns to pronouns if necessary, and then resume when you're finished, and we'll have a look at the answers.

Okay, well done.

Let's see if you were correct.

So the first one, the train was busy and the train was late should be changed to the train was busy and it was late.

We're referring to the train.

The boy was playful this morning, but now the boy is tired should be changed to the boy was playful this morning, but now he is tired.

There was a hole in the road and the cat fell into the hole should be changed to there was a hole in the road and the cat fell into it.

It, that's referring to the hole.

The trees were tall, but the trees weren't tall enough.

The trees were tall, but they weren't tall enough.

They is referring to the trees.

There's more than one, So it can't be it, like the hole, it needs to be they.

Well done.

You've completed today's lesson.

Another great lesson, well done everyone.

See you soon.