Teaching Abstract nouns

Question

How do you teach abstract nouns such as character traits?I have to produce a lesson plan for this but I dont know how to teach things like 'Honesty', arrogant or reliable.Can you help please?

Cool Breeze · Accepted Answer

First you must know what you are going to teach. If you cannot do multiplication, you cannot teach it to anybody. If you don't know the name of the highest mountain in the world, you cannot teach it to anybody.

Arrogant and reliable are not nouns. They are adjectives. Familiarize yourself with the basics of English grammar and take a few courses in teaching methods if English is your mother tongue. If it isn't, enroll in a university and obtain a Master's degree in English, English Philology or whatever the subject is called at that particular university.

CB

Anonymous · Answer

That does not answer the question for the person who asked it.

If you look up honesty via online dictionaries you will find it defined as both an adjective and as an abstract noun (Honesty is the 'name' of a character trait). For one example see this link, but I'm sure you are able to google it yourself.

http://dws-sketch.uk.oup.com/cgi-bin/onlineOde/print_entry.cgi?id=H003062335&match_point=3&lemma=&right_column_mode=labels&caption_style=short&search_type=simple

It is a shame that someone who evidently is able to answer the question is not willing to do so!
Why dont you help the person who asked the question? I would also be interested in knowing how you might teach such abstracts.

Cool Breeze · Answer

AnonymousThat does not answer the question for the person who asked it.
If you look up honesty via online dictionaries you will find it defined as both an adjective and as an abstract noun (Honesty is the 'name' of a character trait). For one example see this link, but I'm sure you are able to google it yourself.

There's nothing to answer. A teacher can of course tell his student what a word like reliable means. but no students is so dumb that he can't look the word up himself and find out what it means. Teaching the meaning of an adjective such as reliable calls for no special skill or ability.

A teacher should concentrate on teaching the grammatical behaviour of adjectives, and for that he should know how reliable behaves grammatically. Can it be used attributively? How is its superlative formed? For that. the teacher must have grammatical knowledge of English acquired through studying the language and through experience.

Learning any peciliarities there may be in using reliable idiomatically is another important point. Even without a teacher, a student can read English texts and listen to people use reliabe in speech. Little advice can be given to a would-be teacher about that.

I never said honesty isn't an abstract noun. You say it is also an adjective but your link doesn't prove that. Of course, if you want to call honesty an adjective, I have nothing against that, but I don't what it has to do with the matter being discussed.

A good teacher should teach his student the grammatical behaviour of all countable and uncountable nouns, not just abstract nouns. Concentrating on just one noun (honesty) and a few adjectives is a poor starting point for teaching English. Only an incompetent "teacher" who cannot really teach his students anything worth while will take that as a starting point.

No special skills are required to teach the words mentioned in the first post. In fact, any student can find out about the meanings of the words without a teacher. A competent, qualified teacher is needed for more profound things.

CB

Anonymous · Answer

What is abstract noun of just

Teaching Abstract nouns

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