ELT Lesson Plan: Analyzing Prefixes, Suffixes, and Morphemes

This assignment presents a detailed ELT lesson plan designed for ELT/FLT students, focusing on the linguistic aspect of morphology, specifically morphemic analysis. The lesson aims to teach students about affixation, including prefixes and suffixes, and their role in forming new words and changing word meanings. The 45-minute lesson plan includes activities such as analyzing sample texts, differentiating between free and bound morphemes, identifying prefixes and suffixes, and applying this knowledge through oral exercises. The rationale emphasizes the importance of morphological awareness for vocabulary acquisition and lexical skills, supported by relevant research and theoretical background. The plan concludes with a list of prefixes and suffixes to aid student retention and future study of morphology, helping them enhance their understanding of word formation in English.

Running head: ELT LESSON PLAN
ELT LESSON PLAN
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1ELT LESSON PLAN
Prefix, suffix and free/bound morpheme in English morphology: ELT lesson plan
Lesson Plan.
Linguistic Aspect: Morphology
Focus Area: Morphemic Analysis – Understanding affixation, free and bound morphemes in
English.
Duration: 45 minutes.
Target audience: ELT/FLT students.
Resources: List of Prefixes and Suffixes in English.
The aims of the task: To help the students understand affixation in morphemic analysis,
especially why and how different prefixes and suffixes are used in English words during
communication to provide a context specific meaning. The task focuses primarily on teaching
prefixes and suffixes to the students and is divided into the following steps:
Step Duration Description Action
1. 10 minutes The students are provided with a
short sample text where words like
impossible, unstable, illogical,
irrelevant, friendship, boyhood,
friendly, accidental etc. are
provided. The sample text can be
tailored by the teacher to include
context specific words.
The students read the
passage, underline the
words that they think have
an affixation and state their
meaning in turns.
2. 5 minutes The teacher explains the difference
between free morpheme and bound
morpheme. This is done by
The students note the words
they have highlighted from
the passage. Afterwards

2ELT LESSON PLAN
explaining that free morphemes can
exist independently (e.g. round and
table in ‘roundtable’) but bound
morphemes need to attach
themselves to a free morpheme in
order to exist (e.g. un in ‘unhappy’
can only exist when attached with
‘happy’).
Afterwards, the teacher asks the
students to separate the root word
from the bound/free morpheme,
from the words they have
identified.
they attempt to separate the
root word from the
free/bound morpheme
(affix) as follows:
Accidental = accident + al
Friendly = friend + ly
3. 20 minutes The teacher introduces the concept
of affixation to the class.
“Affixes are morphemes that are
added to root words to add a
secondary meaning to the word,
often also changing the word class.
For instance, if the affix ‘un’ is
added to the root word ‘conscious’,
the word ‘unconscious’ results.
Therefore the addition of ‘un’ affix
has changed the meaning of the
word to its opposite. Similarly, the
word ‘head’ is a noun. However,
adding the affix ‘be’ before the
word results in a verb ‘behead’
meaning to chop someone’s head
The students take detailed
notes of the process of
affixation. They understand
the differences between
prefix and suffix.
The students then separate
the identified affixes from
the passage into prefix and
suffix.

3ELT LESSON PLAN
off. Therefore, affixation not only
changes meaning, but also the class
of the root word”
For communicative purposes, two
types of affixations are introduced
to the class, namely prefix and
suffix.
The teacher first describes Prefix as
the affix that is added before the
root word:
im + possible = impossible
in + sensitive = insensitive
tri + angle = triangle
pre + mature = premature
Afterwards, the teacher describes
suffix, as the affix that is added
after the root word:
friend + ship = friendship
neighbour + hood = neighbourhood
gover + ment = government
play + ful = playful
Afterwards, the teacher asks the
students to use the words they have
identified from the passage and
separate the affixes therein into

4ELT LESSON PLAN
prefixes and suffixes.
4. 5 minutes The teacher randomly provides a
few oral sentences to the students,
asks them to identify the words
with affixation in them and separate
the root word from the affix
morpheme.
The students respond to the
teacher’s questions.
5. 5 minutes The teacher then summarises the
class and provides two separate
lists of prefixes and suffixes to the
students. The lists of affixes are
divided into class maintaining and
class changing affixes.
The students collect the list
of affixes and study them
briefly.
Rationale.
The primary objective behind this lesson is to provide the knowledge of affixes in
English morphemic analysis to the students of ELT and FLT. Morphology is a key aspect of
English linguistics that deals with the aspect of words and word formation processes. According
to Carstairs – McCarthy, “The area of grammar concerned with the structure of words and with
relationships between words involving the morphemes that compose them is technically called
morphology” (2017, p. 16). Given that morphology deals with the process of formation of
different words, it is important to understand morphemes, the key functional unit of
morphological analysis. A morpheme is the most minimal unit of morphology (Carstairs –
McCarthy, 2017, p. 16). The current lesson plan builds up on the understanding of morphemes in
english morphology to help the students learn about affixes and the process of affixation.

5ELT LESSON PLAN
Affixation refers to the process of attaching two or more morphemes to a root morpheme
to provide a separate meaning to the root morpheme. As Kim (2013) suggests, learning prefixes
and suffixes significantly help in the acquisition of new vocabulary. For ELT / FLT students,
acquiring new vocabulary is one of the prime objectives. Understanding prefixes and suffixes
helps strengthen the base of learning affixation, which further facilitates the learning of other
aspects like infixes (Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams, 2018, p. 42) and circumfixes (Carstairs –
McCarthy, 2017, p. 74). Besides, the study of derivational and inflectional affixes are also made
feasible by understanding the basics of affixes. The study of affixes form a core part of
morphology, as well as basic linguistic knowledge. As stated in the lesson plan, the knowledge
of free morphemes and bound morphemes become crucial when trying to understand affixes in
English. For ELT learners, the knowledge that prefixes and suffixes attach to the root word either
before or after, is important, not only because it helps them differentiate between the two types
of affixes, but also understand the appropriate affixes to use in specific contexts.
Morphological knowledge is important for ELT students to enhance their lexical skills
and vocabulary knowledge. In the study by Khodadoust, Aliasin and Khosravi (2013) it has been
seen that morphological awareness plays a crucial role in building the receptive vocabulary base
for the students. Furthermore, affixes are also seen to influence the development of vocabulary in
students by helping them code switch with ease (Sampson, 2012). These studies and theoretical
background of affixation in morphology strongly suggest that studying affixes alongside free and
bound morphemes can help ELT / FLT students in progressing in their practical usage of the
English language.
The rationale behind using affixation in the lesson plan is to provide the students of ELT
and FLT with the knowledge about how the meanings of different words change through the

6ELT LESSON PLAN
attachment of bound morphemes. The theory of affixation suggests two different types of affixes,
namely class changing and class maintaining. However, both these types of affixes change the
meaning of the word. For instance, in case of class changing suffixes, adding the affix ‘– ish’ to
the root morpheme ‘child’ results in the word ‘childish’. While child is a noun, childish is an
adjective. This indicates that the knowledge of affixes significantly support the practical use of
the English language by the learners. The lesson plan is therefore fully justified, as it highlights
and focuses on one important aspect of linguistics. Furthermore, it also utilises the specific focus
area from the study of morphology to build the practical knowledge base of the learners which
helps them implement it in real life conversations. Furthermore, the list of prefixes and suffixes
that is provided to the students at the end of the lesson also helps them to retain the specific
affixes, so that in the future discussions regarding inflectional and derivational morphemes and
affixes, they can quickly retain the examples and use them in facilitating their understanding of
morphology.

7ELT LESSON PLAN
References.
Carstairs-McCarthy, A. (2017). Introduction to English Morphology: Words and Their Structure.
Edinburgh University Press.
Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., & Hyams, N. (2018). An introduction to language. Cengage Learning.
Khodadoust, E., Aliasin, S. H., & Khosravi, R. (2013). The relationship between morphological
awareness and receptive vocabulary knowledge of Iranian EFL learners. International
Journal of Educational Research and Technology, 4(1), 60-67.
Kim, C. (2013). Vocabulary acquisition with affixation: Learning English words based on
prefixes & suffixes. University of Hawai'I Second Langauge Studies Paper 31 (2).
Sampson, A. (2012). Learner code-switching versus English only. ELT journal, 66(3), 293-303.