In this instructional video, presenter Winnie (Miss Tang) explains how adverbs and adverbial phrases or clauses enrich sentences by orienting the reader to time, place, manner, degree, and frequency. She outlines three tiers of success criteria—recognizing adverbs/adverbials, writing sentences that include them, and identifying their types and the sentence complexity (simple, compound, complex). The lesson defines adverbs, lists their functional categories, and distinguishes adverbial phrases/clauses as non‑independent word groups that modify verbs. Using examples from her own narrative "Amber and the Browbeating Bully" (a prequel to "Amber and the Pesky Plastic Problem"), she demonstrates adverbs (e.g., proudly, quickly) and adverbial phrases/clauses (e.g., after school, during the stunts in the routine, on the bed, very carefully) to show how each conveys when, where, how, or how often. The video concludes with a student activity prompting viewers to locate adverbs/adverbials in their reading and to write their own, followed by a call‑to‑action to explore the presenter’s grammar and punctuation playlist.
Chapters
How do we keep our audience engaged and how do we make sure that they really understand what we are trying to say or write? One way we can do this is by orientating our reader and by giving them a sense of time, place, and how something has happened. Hi everyone, this is Winnie or Miss Tang. Today we are learning to use adverbs and adverbial phrases or clauses in our sentences. This is because we are adding more information to our verb or verb group and we are orientating the reader by giving them a sense of time, place, or how something has happened. For our success criteria today, good is I can recognize adverbs and adverbial phrases or clauses in a text. Great is can you write sentences with adverbs and adverbial phrases or clauses? Can you include when, where, and/or how? And amazing is I can identify the type of adverbial phrase or clause and I can identify whether it is simple, compound, or a complex sentence. Adverbs. They are a word that modifies or describes a verb, an adjective, another verb, or you could be modifying or describing the sentence. You can use adverbs to show the manner, so how something has happened, the degree, how often or how much, the place, like where, and time, when. Here are some examples of what a good one looks like. These are examples from a narrative that I have written called Amber and the Browbeating Bully. This is actually a prequel to the book that my friend and I are writing called Amber and the Pesky Plastic Problem. Viviana grinned proudly. So I've used the adverb proudly to show how she grinned. She still wore it every day. I wanted to share how often she wore it. So I have written "every day" and used that as an adverb in my sentence. The Chaotic Cats cheerleading team were practising after school. So we are trying to share when this is happening. So that's why I've written "after school." Another example is Viviana ran quickly towards her. So "quickly" is your "how," so how did she run? And "towards" is I'm trying to give the direction. So she's coming towards her, so the "where." Adverbial phrases or clauses. They are a group of words that modify the verb. They also appear as part of a sentence, and they can't stand alone as an independent clause or its own sentence. They could indicate the when, so the time, the where, the place, or the manner, so the how, how often, or how much. Here is an example of a sentence with an adverbial phrase or clause showing when. Flyers like Amber were constantly being tossed upwards during the stunts in the routine. So during the stunts in the routine is our adverbial phrase or clause to show when this is happening. This is during the stunts, the stunts section in the routine. And then I've also color-coded here some examples of adverbs that I have used. So constantly is an example of how often this is happening. So how often she is being tossed. So tossed is our verb here, and we are showing that she is constantly being tossed, and then upwards is your direction or where this is happening. So she's being tossed upwards. Here is an example of a sentence with adverbial phrases or clauses showing where. Gift bags were cluttered on the bed. So we are showing that— where are they being cluttered? They are on the bed. Verbial phrases or clauses to show how. Rufus placed the cookies very carefully on a rack to cool. So he is placing the cookies on the rack. So placed is our verb in our sentence, and we are showing how he is doing this. So he's putting it really carefully. He could just place the cookies, but I've added the adverbial phrase or clause here because I'm trying to share with the audience that he spent a lot of time making these cookies and he wants to make sure that they end up on the rack to cool because because obviously he doesn't want them sliding off and falling on the floor when he spent all that time making cookies for Amber. And now it is your turn. Can you find any adverbs or adverbial phrases or clauses in the book that you are reading? Can you write different types of adverbs and adverbial phrases or clauses in your own narrative or your own piece of text? To learn how to help your reader understand what you are writing, here is my grammar and punctuation playlist right here. See you in my next video. Bye!
