Show, Don’t Tell: How to Teach Adjectives to ESL Students
When used correctly, adjectives can turn any regular old sentence into something special.
For ESL students, the number of adjectives we use can be overwhelming. Take the word “pretty,” for example. We could also say:
Beautiful, attractive, lovely, appealing, cute, gorgeous, ravishing, stunning or alluring.
Of course, each adjective comes with its own unique nuance that changes the definition slightly—which is what makes adjectives great.
So, here’s how to make English adjectives ESL-friendly!
Contents
- Types of Adjectives Every ESL Student Should Be Familiar With
- 5 Engaging Activities for Adjective Practice
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Types of Adjectives Every ESL Student Should Be Familiar With
There are hundreds of commonly-used adjectives in the English language. To make it easier for students learning these words, try teaching adjectives in groups rather than individual, unrelated vocabulary words.
Today, we’re going to look at some of these adjective categories and how you can teach them to your students. If you want a more in depth-look or quick review of the different types of adjectives, check out “7 Types of English Adjectives to Know.”
Positive Adjectives
Positive adjectives are adjectives that have an inherently positive meaning. They can be used to describe or further identify nouns and pronouns, and without positive adjectives, the English language is reduced to dry, basic sentences.
There are dozens upon dozens of positive adjectives. Words such as “grateful,” “important,” “motivated” and “pragmatic” are considered positive adjectives. It’s important for students to learn positive adjectives so that they can better express their thoughts and feelings about the world around them, people and different situations.
Note: Make sure students are aware that positive adjectives can be turned negative when “not” precedes the adjective. For example, The lecture was not engaging at all. Additionally, students should be aware that some adjectives have negative connotations and definitions themselves, such as “annoyed,” “furious” and “broken.”
Comparative Adjectives
Another important type of everyday adjective is the comparative adjective. Think about how often in our day-to-day lives we compare two or more things. For this reason, students need to become familiar with comparative adjectives and how to use them correctly in order to properly express their thoughts and ideas.
A useful formula for your students to use when thinking about comparative adjectives is: subject + verb + comparative adjective + than + object.
Remind your students that the suffix “-er” is added to the adjective to express the difference between the two nouns; for example, Your house is bigger than my house.
Superlative Adjectives
I like to think of superlative adjectives as related to comparative adjectives.
Your ESL students may also find it easier to understand superlative adjectives in relationship to comparative adjectives.
Similarly to comparative adjectives, superlative adjectives are used to discuss a noun in relationship to other nouns. We use superlative adjectives to show that one object is the least or most, the smallest or greatest in terms of quality.
Encourage your students to memorize the following formula: subject + verb + the + superlative adjective + object. Remind your students that for regular superlative adjectives we add the suffix “-est” to the adjective.
For example, The bus is the easiest way to get downtown.
Note: You may want to take some time to review some of the irregular superlative adjectives. For example, three syllable comparative and superlative adjectives change structure. We say “more diabolical” and “most diabolical” respectively.
Likewise, there are a handful of adjectives that completely change such as “good,” which becomes “better” and “best” respectively. For a more in-depth explanation of the rules surrounding superlatives, you can show your students this post by the British Council.
Descriptive Adjectives
Descriptive adjectives are perhaps some of the most useful adjectives for ESL students to master. These are the adjectives used to describe the size, shape and color of places, people, things and ideas.
Descriptive adjectives allow writers and speakers to modify a noun and paint a vivid picture of that noun in the mind of the reader or listener. Descriptive adjectives include adjectives such as “blue,” “old,” “tall” and “soft.” For example, My brother has blond hair, but I have brown hair.
5 Engaging Activities for Adjective Practice
Now that we’re done covering the most common adjective categories, let’s look at ways you can get students comfortable with using them in sentences. Here are some fun activities to use in your next adjective lesson. Best of all, most of these activities can be modified for any level and age group of ESL learners.
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Using familiar and popular films such as the Netflix special movie Enola Holmes to introduce your students to natively-used adjectives is a fantastic teaching strategy. In addition to this, you’ll notice a higher level of engagement and interest with native content.
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1. Picture Race
Useful for Teaching: Descriptive Adjectives
Picture Race is a great game for getting your students to use adjectives. Before class, print out several pictures you want to use in the activity. If you need help finding pictures to fit the theme of your lessons, check out Pixabay. Make sure you add variety to your photographs or paintings, choosing a mixture of people, places and things.
In class, divide your students into small teams. Each team will need a sheet of paper and a pen. At the front of the room, hold up or display one of the images you’ve prepared. The teams race against each other to come up with as many adjectives as they can to describe the image. Give them two minutes.
At the end of the two-minute mark, have each team read out their list of adjectives to the class. Teams get points for every adjective they came up with that the other teams don’t have on their lists. For example, if Team One and Team Two both have the adjective “green” on their list, both teams cross it off. However, if Team One has the adjective “bright” and the other teams do not, Team One gets a point.
Once the points are tallied, display the second picture. Continue with as many rounds as you choose. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins.
This game is great because some students may have a larger vocabulary and other students can learn from them.
2. Describe Your Best Friend
Useful for Teaching: Positive Adjectives, Comparative Adjectives, Descriptive Adjectives
This is primarily a writing activity. Students should work individually to describe their best friend.
On the board, write down “appearance,” “personality” and “compared to me.” Then, instruct the students to start by describing their best friend’s physical appearance.
- What do they look like?
- What color is their hair?
- Are they tall or short?
Then, students should write a few sentences describing their friend’s personality. They’ll need to exercise their knowledge of positive adjectives to accurately describe their friend. Finally, ask them to compare themselves to their best friend using comparative adjectives.
Save time at the end of the lesson for students to read or share their descriptions with the class. Make any corrections that are needed so that the whole class can learn from the mistakes or errors.
Tip: For a variation on this activity and to get your students to practice different sets of adjectives, ask them to describe their favorite season and type of weather or to describe their favorite city.
3. Grow the Sentence
Useful for Teaching: Positive Adjectives, Comparative Adjectives, Superlative Adjectives, Descriptive Adjectives
This activity is ideal for practicing all types of adjectives, while also giving students the chance to practice the correct positioning of adjectives in various sentences.
Before class, prepare a worksheet listing various sentences with the adjectives removed.
For example: The ____ tomatoes taste _____ than the ____ peppers.
The students will need to fill in the adjectives. If your class needs a little extra help, try providing a word bank with various adjectives for the students to choose from. In the previous example, the sentence should eventually read: The red tomatoes taste better than the green peppers. In some cases, there may be more than one right answer and that’s okay! Aim to provide 12-15 sentences and make sure you create sentences that require different types of adjectives.
After you pass out the worksheet in class, have students work individually or in small groups to complete the exercises. Don’t forget to save time at the end of class for students to share their favorite sentences, and make corrections as necessary.
4. Taboo
Useful for Teaching: Positive Adjectives, Comparative Adjectives, Superlative Adjectives, Descriptive Adjectives
This is a fun, high energy game for the whole class to enjoy!
Start by asking for a volunteer to stand in front of the class. Then, instruct the volunteer to think of an object—it can be a person, place or thing, but should generally be something most students would be able to guess.
Once the student has an image in mind, he or she should begin to describe the object using as many adjectives as they can to describe the thing they are thinking of without actually saying what the object is. The rest of the class must try to guess what the object is based on the description.
You can either have students shout out answers or ask them to raise their hands with their guesses and call on them in turn. The student that correctly guesses the object goes next.
Tip: A more structured variation of this game is to prepare cards with different objects on them before class. In this way, you, the teacher, can control what objects and items are described in class. In class, the first student selects a card and must describe that object without saying what the object is.
5. Adjective Bingo
Useful for Teaching: Positive Adjectives, Comparative Adjectives, Superlative Adjectives, Descriptive Adjectives
Prepare several bingo cards with different images of objects and items. Then, in class, give a bingo card to each student or group. After all the cards have been handed out, stand at the front of the class and call out different adjectives and details about the individual objects.
Give students a chance to see if they have an item that matches your description. For example, you may say “red apple.” On some bingo boards maybe you included a “red apple” and on others you included a “green apple.”
Students will need to listen carefully to correctly fill in their bingo boards. If a student gets a diagonal line, vertical line, or horizontal line, they should call out “BINGO!” Make sure you check their board to ensure they successfully achieved “BINGO!”
Tip: For your more advanced students or older students, you could let them take turns being the person who calls out the descriptions.
Adjectives are the spices that add flavor to the English language. Everyone loves listening to a story if it’s filled with great descriptions. And with these activities that make adjectives ESL-friendly, your students will begin to master adjectives and be able to embellish their English in no time!
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
