Vocabulary: Word Formation Worksheet (B1)

Word formation is the cheapest vocabulary a learner will ever buy. One known root - care - becomes careful, carefully, careless, carelessly, carelessness, and each of those is a mark in a word-formation question and a sentence the learner can now write.

Write the missing words. Some boxes have no common word - write a dash.

Example: decide → noun: decision · adjective: ____ · adverb: ____

• care → noun: care · adjective (positive): ________ · adjective (negative): ________ · adverb (negative): ________
• happy → noun: ________ · adverb: ________ · opposite adjective: ________
• succeed → noun: ________ · adjective: ________ · adverb: ________
• danger → adjective: ________ · adverb: ________
• agree → noun: ________ · opposite verb: ________ · noun of the opposite: ________

Use the word in CAPITALS at the end of the line. Change its form.

Example: Her handwriting is almost unreadable. (READ)

• The bus service in our town is very ________ . You can never be sure it will come. (RELY)
• He gave a long ________ for being late, but nobody believed it. (EXPLAIN)
• It was ________ of you to leave the gate open. (CARE)
• She spoke so ________ that we could hear every word at the back. (CLEAR)
• The new machine has made the old one completely ________ . (USE)
• There is a real ________ that the match will be cancelled. (POSSIBLE)

Add un-, in-, im- or dis- to make the opposite. Write the whole word.

Example: honest → dishonest

• possible → ________
• correct → ________
• comfortable → ________
• appear → ________
• patient → ________
• expensive → ________

Each sentence has one wrong word form. Cross it out and write the correct form.

Example: He drives very ~~careful~~ carefully in the rain.

• My brother is a very success businessman. ________
• The children were very excite about the trip. ________
• Thank you for your kindly letter. ________
• We waited for two hours, which was very annoyed. ________
• She answered all the questions correct. ________

Choose four of these roots - help, hope, use, friend, thought, comfort. For each one, write the word family you know and then one sentence using a form you did not know before today.

• Root: __________ Family: ______________________________________
• Sentence: ____________________________________________________
• Root: __________ Family: ______________________________________
• Sentence: ____________________________________________________
• Root: __________ Family: ______________________________________
• Sentence: ____________________________________________________
• Root: __________ Family: ______________________________________
• Sentence: ____________________________________________________

• Timing: Tasks 1 to 4 take about 35 minutes; Task 5 about 10, or set it as homework.
• Teach the job, not the ending. Before Task 2, ask for each gap: what kind of word do we need here - a thing, a describing word, or a word about how? Learners who ask that question first get word-formation questions right even with an ending they have never seen.
• Task 3 has no rule. Which prefix a word takes is learnt with the word. Do not let learners hunt for a pattern - ask them to record the opposite in their notebook beside the word from now on.
• Task 4 targets the two commonest mistakes at B1: an adjective where an adverb belongs (correct for correctly), and -ed for -ing (annoyed for annoying). Both are worth naming out loud.
• Spelling matters here. Happy - happily, possible - possibility, rely - reliable: half the lost marks in word formation are spelling, not word choice.
• Extension: keep a word-family wall. One root a lesson, written up with its whole family, and learners add a sentence when they meet a new member of it.