To explore the functions of fronted adverbials

Key Stage 2

English

Chocolate Making - Explanation writing

English grammar

T2: Word level objectives

﻿Hello everybody, it is Mrs Hardisty here with your English lesson for today. We are going to be looking at grammar and in particular fronted adverbials, which are really, really useful for making our writing fantastic. So when you're ready, let's begin. This is what we're going to be covering in today's lesson. We going to think about the definition and purpose of fronted adverbials, so what they are and why they're useful. And then we're going to look at lots of different examples and then you're going to practise using and punctuating fronted adverbials correctly. So for this lesson, you will need some paper and pencil. So please make sure you have those and then we can start. What are fronted adverbials? An adverbial is a word or phrase or a clause that gives more information to a sentence. And if it's fronted, that just means is that the front at the start of the sentence. So in this sentence here I have, the beans are dry and ready to packed and at the front of the sentence I have my adverbial that tells me when that happens. After one week, comma, the beans are dry and ready to packed. So our adverbial is giving more information about when the beans are packed and it's a fronted adverbial because it is at the front, at the start. Now hopefully, you would have spotted that we already use fronted adverbials in our writing a lot of the time, but we might not know that that's what they were called. I'm sure that you have used after one week or later or next, in your writing before and now we know what it is, and why we use it. So can you just check for me? What are fronted adverbials? Is it option one, words, phrases or clauses that start a sentence and give more information? Or is it two, words or phrases that describe a verb? Which one is it? Can you show me, is it one or two? Point to it. That is right, it's option one. It can be really easy to think that a fronted adverbial because it's got that word adverb in it, just describe a verb but they are different to just adverbs. So let's look at some examples now. So our fronted adverbials will often mean when or where or how. So let's look at some examples we might want to use in our own writing about chocolate. So fronted adverbials that mean when, my turn, your turn. Afterwards, Before long, Eventually, which means after a long time, and then later. And did you spot that all of them started with a capital letter because at the start of our sentence, at the front of our sentence, so they need to have a capital letter. And then the punctuation mark that they have after each one is, a comma. So these are the ones that mean when what about fronted adverbials that mean where. My turn your turn. Deep inside, On the straw mats, Under the banana leaves. And you can see that some of our adverbials are just one word and some of them are phrases. What about ones that mean how something is done. My turn your turn. Slowly, Carefully, Rapidly, With great precision. So that's being really precise. And did you spot here for our adverbials that mean how a lot of them are actually adverbs only, they describe a verb and they often end in that LY but not all of them are. So that last one with great precision is a phrase. It's not just one adverb word. Let's look at them in a sentence now. So I've got the sentence. Cocoa pods are grown and harvested. But I want to add a fronted adverbial to give my reader more information. So now I've got, Once they are ripe, comma, cocoa pods are grown and harvested. So my fronted adverbial what does it mean? Does it mean when, where, or how it means when, it tells me when the pods are harvested. Here's another example. The light cracked shells are blown away. That's my sentence. And to give my reader more information, I have a fronted adverbial. Inside the winnowing machine, so now it's telling me where it happens. The light cracked shells are blown away. And look, I've got my comma there at the end of my fronted adverbial. And another one. The rollers crush the nibs into a paste called chocolate liquor. So we have when, and we have where you can probably guess what this is going to describe now. This is how. So slowly comma The rollers crush the nibs into a paste called chocolate liquor. So my fronted adverbials are really useful because they can help my reader understand what I'm describing in more detail. Show me with your thumbs, true or false a fronted adverbial can go anywhere in a sentence. Is that true or false? Show me your thumbs. It's false. An adverbial can go in different places, but a fronted adverbial must go at the start. All right, I've got four different examples of words and phrases here. One of them is an odd one out. Can you spot which one? So I've got quickly. In the factory. After two hours and brittle, hard beans. Three of them are similar and have a similar purpose. And one of them is different. Which one is the odd one out? Can you point to it? Can you shout out which one you think is the odd one out? I think it's brittle hard beans 'cause the other three were examples of our fronted adverbials that tell us where or when or how and our brittle hard beans was an example of an expanded noun phrase. So two adjectives describing a noun. My noun was beans and my two other words, brittle and hard were describing the beans were additives. The other three were my fronted adverbials. Now sometimes we might just use an adverb as our fronted adverbial. So we might just use a word often ending in LY, to describe how something happens. So here I've got the sentence. The melted chocolate is poured into moulds. And I want to use an adverb to describe how that happens. So I've used the word Carefully, and again, I've got a comma after it. Carefully comma, the melted chocolate is poured into moulds. We might use a conjunction as a fronted adverbial. So I've got the sentence. The beans are scooped out, and now I've got, after the pods are split open, comma, the beans are scooped out. So I've got a sequencing ordering conjunction here. Did you notice as well? And it's also an example of a subordinate clause. So after the pods are split open is a fronted adverbial and it's a conjunction and it's a subordinate clause. So we can also start our sentences with a fronted adverbial that has a verb ending in ING. So in this sentence, my fronted adverbials starts with the word Roasting. Roasting in the oven, comma, the beans become hard and brittle. So one example of a fronted adverbial we can use is where we have a verb that ends in, what does it end in? ING. So I've got another sentence now. And I'd like you to tell me whether the fronted adverbial describes When, Where, or How. With great precision comma, the pods are split open. Does that describe when, where, or how point to it, tell me, tell the screen. So that describes How. It describes how the pods are split open. What about this one. In the factory, the beans are sorted by size. Is that When, Where, or How? Tell me. So that's telling me where in the factory. After this, milk and sugar are added. So is that an example of a When, Where or How. After this, It's a When, isn't it? So now let's see if we can choose the most appropriate fronted adverbials for our sentence. I've got the sentence. Cocoa pods are grown and harvested. And I've got four different options that we could use. Carefully. In many countries. In tropical parts of the world. and Every year. Now quite a few of them would work in a sentence and they will make sense. But I think only one gives the exact precise information that will really help my reader understand. So which one would you choose for this sentence? Can you point to it? Can you tell me which one you would use? So if it was me, I would use in tropical parts of the world, comma, cocoa pods are grown and harvested. Because it's really precise. It's telling me exactly where the pods are growing. It would work to have in many countries. So in many countries, cocoa pods are grown and harvested. But in tropical parts of the world it tells me exactly where it happens. So we've looked at loads of examples and now you're going to practise using your own fronted adverbials. Let's just recap some examples that you might want to use in your writing. So Afterwards. Before long. Under the banana leaves, Rapidly. Just have a little think, which ones might you want to use? So I've got four sentences here, and in a moment, you're going to pause the video and choose a fronted adverbial that could start each of these sentences. And I've also given you a bit of help because I told you what sort of fronted adverbial you need to use. So it might need to describe where something happens or when or how. So I'm going to read them out and then you can do your task. Number one. The beans begin to ferment. So where are the beans when they start to ferment? Number two. The beans are dried and ready. So when does that happen? How long do they need to be drying in the sun? Number three. The paste is pushed through rollers. So how is that paste pushed through rollers? And then number four, additional ingredients are added. So when does that happen? Can you pause the video now? And you can either use one of the fronted adverbials we've looked at or choose your own to start each sentence. I'll see you in a minute. Great work. Let's look at what I decided and see if you chose similar ones or different ones. So the first sentence I wanted you to describe where the fermenting happens. So I've chosen, Under the moist banana leaves. And moist was one of the adjectives that we looked at in an earlier lesson to describe those banana leaves. Under the moist banana leaves, comma, the beans begin to ferment. You may have chosen something else. You might have written under some banana leaves or in a tray. Number two. So this was when the beans are ready. So after one week in the sun, comma, the beans are dried and ready. So hopefully you also wrote something like after one week, the beans are dried and ready. Number three. So this is why I wanted to know how something happens. I chose the adverb repeatedly. So repeatedly, comma, the paste is pushed through rollers. So it happens over and over again. And then number four, once the chocolate is melted, comma, additional ingredients, such as caramel, nuts and fruit are added. So I chose an adverbial phrase that tell me when it also was a subordinate clause, once the chocolate is mounted. You might have just chosen something like, later additional ingredients are added or next additional ingredients are added. But hopefully you might've used a slightly longer fronted adverbial lifeline. So it's really important that we make sure that we always have a comma after our fronted adverbial. In these sentences, unfortunately, I have missed out the comma each time. So in a moment after I've read them, I'd like you to pause the video and then write out the sentence where the comma should go in your sentence. Number one. When the beans arrive at the chocolate factory, they are hand-sorted by size and country of origin. So think about where you think the fronted adverbial finishes, where the rest of the sentence continues and that's where you need to put your comma. Number two. After two hours in the oven, the beans have become dark in colour and extremely hard. Number three. Eventually the lumps in the chocolate liquor are smoothed away. And number four. At this stage, milk and sugar are added. So the way to do this is to think about what's the main part of the sentence. And then what's that extra information I added at the start in my fronted adverbial and the comma comes out of that extra information. So pause the video, work out where your comma should go. Lovely work, let's see the answers. So my fronted adverbial for the first sentence was, When the beans arrive at the chocolate factory. And then I have my comma. But number two it is slightly shorter. After two hours in the oven, comma, you might have thought the comma came just after the, after two hours. But then that would mean the rest of the sentence was in the oven the beans have become dark in colour and that wouldn't quite make sense. The comma needs to come after the word oven. Check yours and make sure it matches mine. Number three. The comma came quite early on. It came straight after my adverb. Eventually, comma, the lumps in the chocolate liquor are smoothed away. And then number four, we know that the main part of the sentence was milk and sugar are added. And so I've just put in my fronted adverbial to say when this happens at this stage, comma. Brilliant work everyone. So let's have a recap of what we have done in our lesson today. We thought about the definition and purpose of fronted adverbials. So what they are, and why we use them. We looked at lots of different examples, and then you practise using them yourself. We have finished our lesson for today. We're going to try to use lots of these fronted adverbials and our writing all about how chocolate is made. I'll see you soon. Bye bye.

To explore the functions of fronted adverbials

To explore the functions of fronted adverbials

Slide deck

Lesson details

Key learning points

Licence

Video

Lesson appears in

UnitEnglish / Chocolate Making - Explanation writing

English

UnitEnglish grammar / T2: Word level objectives

English grammar