School Vocabulary- Things in Common

School Vocabulary- Things in Common

Make statements about topics and/ or using words from the list below, and see which

things are true for your partner/ teacher too (making them say “Me too”, “Me neither”, etc):

Ask about any vocabulary below which you don’t understand, trying to make a true

personal statement (including negative statements if you like) each time.

Change partners and make questions about the vocabulary below.

Suggested questions

 Did you ever study…?/ Have you ever studied…?

 Did you ever…?/ Have you ever…?

 Did you like…?/ Do you like…?

 Did you study…?/ Do you study…?

 Do you think that… is useful/ interesting/ boring/…?

 How did you feel about…?/ How do you feel about…?

 What did you think about…?/ What do you think about…?

 What is/ was the best thing about your classroom?

 What is your favourite subject?/ What was your favourite subject?

 Who is/ was your favourite teacher?/ (What subject do/ did they teach?)

School vocabulary collocations

Join words in the same section to make expressions connected to school:

1. dining

economics

2. class

hall

3. cram

languages

4. hard-

pet/ -room

5. home

principal

6. (deputy) head

-room teacher/-work

7. vice

school

8. home

teacher

9. modern/ foreign

working

10. media

behaved

11. music

centre

12. badly-/ well-

class/ school

13. physical

day

14. school

education

15. skip

lunch

16. social/ religious/ business

room

17. sports

room

18. staff

studies

Check with the vocabulary list. Other collocations may be possible, so please check if you

joined them in different ways.

p. 1

Written by Alex Case for UsingEnglish.com © 2022

School vocabulary to find things in common then ask question about

 art (and crafts)

 assembly

 bully(ing)

 cafeteria/ canteen/ dining hall/ school lunch

 cheating

 class pet

 classroom

 club/ society

 confident – nervous

 cram school

 dance

 drama/ a play

 elementary school/ primary school

 funny – serious

 gym/ gymnasium

 hard-working/ studious – lazy

 HE/ home economics

 head of…

 (deputy) head teacher/ (vice) principal

 (junior) high school/ secondary school

 homeroom teacher/ tutor

 homework/ assignment

 information technology/ IT

 lab/ laboratory

 (modern/ foreign) languages (French, Chinese, Korean, German)

 library/ media centre

 mathematics/ math/ maths

 music (room)

 naughty/ badly-behaved – well-behaved

 nursery school/ kindergarten/ pre-school

 pass – fail

 PE/ physical education/ sports day

 pond

 punishment – reward

 receptionist

 science (biology, physics and chemistry)

 skip (class/ school)

 social studies/ humanities (history, geography, ethics/ religious studies, business stud-

ies/ economics)

 staff room

 stress/ stressful/ stressed

 strict – relaxed

 (PE) teacher

 test/ quiz/ examination/ exam

p. 2

Written by Alex Case for UsingEnglish.com © 2022

School vocabulary abbreviations

Write short versions of each of the expressions below:

 gymnasium

 home economics

 information technology

 laboratory

 mathematics

 physical education

 religious education/ religious studies

 examination

Use the mixed answers under the fold below to help.

--------------------------------------------fold----------------------------------------

exam

gym

HE

IT

lab

math

PE

RE/ RS

Without looking at the first section, make the expressions above longer.

School vocabulary opposites

First with no help, try to think of an opposite for each word below.

 confident

 funny

 hard-working/ studious

 naughty/ badly-behaved

 pass

 punishment

 strict

Use the list of vocabulary above and/ or the mixed answers below to help.

--------------------------------------------fold----------------------------------------

 fail

 lazy

 nervous

 relaxed

 reward

 serious

 well-…

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Written by Alex Case for UsingEnglish.com © 2022

School vocabulary word formation

Write at least one more version of each word below (e.g. a noun if it is a verb).

 assemble

 confidence

 study

 laze

 economy

 assign

 behaviour

 educate

 punish

 reception

 biologist

 physicist

 chemist

 historian

 geographer

 ethical

 religion

 stress

 relax

 examine

Use the suffixes below to help with the task above. Some can be used more than once.

- -ation

- -ed

- -ful

- -ics

- -ion

- -ious

- -ist

- -ment

- -ry

- -s

- -t

- -y

Check above. Many other versions are possible, so please check if you wrote something

different.

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Written by Alex Case for UsingEnglish.com © 2022

School vocabulary examples/ categories

Without looking above for now, brainstorm as many examples as you can of each category

below. Many words not above are also possible.

Kinds of school/ Types of school

School subjects/ Things that you study in school

Other things that people do in schools

Places in a school

People in a school

Adjectives to describe school (places, subjects, teachers, students, etc)

Look at the list of vocabulary above to help, brainstorm more, then compare as a class.

p. 5

Written by Alex Case for UsingEnglish.com © 2022