Teaching notes and ideas
Name of resource:
Reactants and Products
Age group(s)
Subject(s)
8 to 11, 12 to 14
Science
Topic
Language Level
Chemical reactions
Intermediate / Advanced
EAL Nexus
Description of resource
 A pair of worksheets that learners use in a collaborative activity to work out the
reactants and products in a variety of scientific experiments. They then use this
information to write the word equations to the reactions.
 A PowerPoint presentation that gives the answers to the work on the worksheet
Preparation needed
You will need:
 One worksheet for each learner
 Access to a projector for the PowerPoint presentation
You will need to:
 Photocopy the worksheets. Make sure when you give them out that the learners
are in pairs with one having worksheet A and the other having worksheet B
Curriculum objectives
 To know some of the factors that show a chemical reaction has taken place
 To know the difference between reactants and products and to be able to
identify them in a variety of situations
 To be able to write some word equations
Language / literacy objectives
Functions
Structures
 Describing
 Passive: is formed / was added etc.
 Explaining
 I know … because …
This project and its actions were made possible due to co-financing by the European Fund for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals
© British Council 2014
EAL Nexus
 Justifying
 I think it’s the reactant/product because…
 It must be the reactant/product because…
 It’s the reactant/product because…
Vocabulary
 Chemicals: methane, oxygen, carbon dioxide, water, iron sulphate, iron,
sulphuric acid, hydrogen, sodium chloride, sodium hydroxide, hydrochloric
acid, nitric acid, sodium carbonate and sodium nitrate.
 Conjunction: because
This resource could be used:
 whole class
 one to one or small group
Ideas for using the resource
What to do
 Set up the PowerPoint presentation and hand out the worksheets.

After identifying the reactants and products in the experiments, learners check
their answers with their partner. This is a collaborative activity.
Other ideas for making the best use of this resource
 If learners find the concept of the passive difficult, they could be asked to
reverse the sentences. For example, ‘iron is added to sulphuric acid’ becomes
‘when you add iron to sulphuric acid.’ This could then lead to a discussion of
the differences between formal and informal language and which is most
appropriate for writing science experiments.
Possible extension activities
 It is likely that this resource will be used as part of a topic on chemical reactions.
Therefore, the teacher could introduce experiments in future lessons with similar
chemicals to those on the work sheet and ask learners to identify the reactants
and products.
This project and its actions were made possible due to co-financing by the European Fund for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals
© British Council 2014