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Comparisons are Odious, Are they Not?

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I am sure this super engaging activity about comparatives is just what you need this week.  I am very pleased to have on the blog this week a guest post by colleague  Ángeles Jimenez, from EOI Oviedo, who from time to time, saves my a** by sending me some of her creative activities. This is one of them. I hope you like it as much as I did.

Thanks, Ángeles, the floor is all yours!

 

“Comparisons are odious” says the old proverb, but the truth is that the more you practise, the faster your English will improve.

Every time there was a new grammar point to teach, my B2 students rolled up their eyes in desperation when I handed out another worksheet.

I began to look for new ways which would help me revise the comparative structures at a more advanced level, activating my students’ imagination at the same time. Although I had planned for it to be a brief and fast-paced revision, it turned out to be one of the most effective and engaging grammar lessons in a while – some students got very creative!

WHY PLAY IT.

Although this activity may not be quick, it will surely get your students thinking. It’s suitable for both creative and less creative students.  They can come up with short or long explanations; they are also responsible for the content and the grammar, which means they will have to be attentive and spot their classmates’ mistakes.

WARM-UP

I started by asking my students to place their mobiles on their desks and posing some questions like:

  • What do you mainly use it for?
  • Does it make your life easier or more stressful?
  • Is there anything you don’t like about it?
  • When you need to get another phone, what type will you get?

Now, this question will automatically make students use a comparative structure:

“a better one”, “a more expensive one”, “a lighter one”…

Most of the times, they come up with basic adjectives, nothing to worry about at this stage.

I tell them I have a super expensive mobile phone I got as a Christmas present, adding that I’m in love with it because it’s innovative, powerful, and stylish.

And this is the moment I show them my state-of-the-art mobile phone, which looks something like this:

 

Hopefully, this will make them smile!

NEXT STEP

Involve your students by asking them questions. This will guide them into recognizing the pattern.

  • Do you think your phone is more powerful and efficient than mine?
  • Is it more stylish and better-looking? Does it have a better design?
  • Is it more comfortable to hold?
  • Does the battery last longer?

Inevitably, your students will end up comparing each other’s phones, and this will trigger the use of more adjectives.

To guide the activity in the direction you want it to go, ask them to think of more adjectives, positive and negative, that can be used to describe mobile phones. Write them on the board as they say them, or show them a list on the screen –it will probably include most of the ones they came up with.

Here are some examples:

AFFORDABLE,   APPEALING,   BAD,    BASIC,   CHEAP,    CONVENTIONAL,   DURABLE,   EFFICIENT, EXPENSIVE,   FAST,   HEAVY,   GOOD,   INDISPENSABLE,    INNOVATIVE,   LARGE,    LIGHT,   MODERN

OBSOLETE,    OLD-FASHIONED,    OUTDATED,   POPULAR,    POWERFUL,   RELIABLE,    REVOLUTIONARY

SIMPLE,    SLOW,    SOPHISTICATED,    STYLISH,    SUITABLE,   TIME-CONSUMING,   TOUGH, UNRELIABLE

I usually try to arrange new vocab in alphabetical order. It’s an organized and easy-to-follow format when learning new vocab. And when I forget to include a word when making a list, I can always add it later on.

LET’S GO TO THE FUN PART!

  • Decide on a category of objects with varied items. I chose technology because I wanted to kill two birds with one stone: students learn technology-related vocab or revise it if they have already dealt with it in class.
  • Create a set of noun cards with common objects on them. These can be simply a noun or an image to represent the noun.
  • Students sit in groups around a pile of cards placed face-down. The first student picks up the top card from the pile while the others wait and listen. The students should say why they need to change/buy the object on the card using a comparative structure.

EXAMPLE: I need a less basic, more efficient, and durable smartwatch. The one I’m using can’t keep track of my sleep, and it isn’t waterproof.

  • If the student does it in a convincing and grammatically correct way, they keep the card. But if they make a grammar mistake when using the adjective or give an unconvincing reason, the card goes back to the pile. The game finishes when all the cards have been used.

PDF here

Comparisons are Odious de cristina.cabal

GOING THE EXTRA MILE.

I noticed that when they made mistakes like saying “MORE FASTER”, they were in fact trying to say“ A LOT FASTER”

Go back to some of the examples they used. They probably came up with something like: “I need to get an iPhone because it’s more efficient”. Ask them if it’s A LOT MORE or SLIGHTLY MORE efficient.

Show them a few examples of how to modify the sentence to say how different the object was.

To emphasize that a characteristic is either greater than the typical level, write these on the board:

  • MUCH MORE / ER THAN
  • FAR MORE / ER THAN
  • WAY MORE / ER THAN
  • A LOT MORE / ER THAN

To emphasize that a characteristic is either smaller than the typical level, write these on the board:

  • A BIT MORE / ER THAN
  • SLIGHTLY MORE / ER THAN

Before you carry on with this speaking part, ask them whether they think public transport is far more convenient than moving around by car. Hopefully, students will have different opinions as they have to take into account parking spaces, money spent on petrol, car maintenance…

Hand them out a sheet of paper with discussion prompts. These can be arranged as pair work/group work, so you can ask them to change pairs/groups when they finish and listen to more points of view.

This will help them gain confidence and their motivation increases since they correct their previous mistakes and learn new words.

To provide as much speaking as possible, ask them to produce at least 2 sentences using the ideas on the card + modifiers.

Here are some ideas:

  1. Phone / Face-to-face communication.
  2. Dancing / Doing yoga.
  3. Changing the driving age to 21 or not.
  4. Sharing a flat / Living with your parents

Click here to see more

Sentence Betting: a Vocabulary Revision Game

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I’m really happy to welcome  again Angeles Jimenez as guest writer on the blog. Ángeles is a friend and fellow teacher from EOI Oviedo with over 25 years’ experience teaching adults and, in this blog post, she will be sharing with us a fun engaging game to revise vocabulary.

The Sentence Betting  game is a vocabulary revision game which requires students to recognize, correct and explain vocabulary related to the topic of work. It’s highly adaptable to any semantic field and it’s a great game to review vocabulary as end-of-unit activity and usually a lot more fun than the typical course book review.

Level: This game in particular works best with C1 students since there are difficult expressions B2 students haven’t studied yet.

Preparation: Prepare a worksheet for students to check for word-usage mistakes related to the topic of work. Include correct sentences in a random order.

Time: about 45 minutes

Materials:

  • A sentence betting worksheet (see handout).
  • Fake money or poker chips (optional). You can download play money here

How to play:

1. Divide the class in teams of 4 students. If you want to play with bigger groups, split each group into two teams.

2. Give each team a handout of the betting sheet. Allow them 10 minutes to go down the list of sentences to decide and mark which one is either correct or incorrect.

They need to put a tick or a cross and bet a sum of money between 1$ and 5$ depending on how confident they feel about their answer.

3. The auction. Call sentences aloud one by one and ask each team to bet a sum of money stating whether they think is correct or incorrect. Display the answer on the screen. Ask students to fill in the 3rd column with the amount won or lost.

For example, if a pair of students bet 5$ on a sentence because they believe it’s true and they’re correct, then they win 5$. But if they get it wrong, then they lose that sum.

Students add up the figures both plus and minus. The winner is the team with the most money at the end.

Once a team has won the bet by correctly saying that a sentence is wrong, they have the chance to double their money again by correcting it.

Remind students that once the game starts you will limit the amount of time they have to decide if the sentences are right or wrong.

Variation: If you want to build up excitement, divide each group into two teams appointing a spokesperson, who will be in charge of reading each sentence aloud and giving the correct answer after each bet.

Tip: if you want to keep the activity fast-paced, it may be better to play in teams as poor pronunciation will slow down the game.

Lesson Plan: A Picture-Based Activity to Enlarge Students’ Vocabulary on Travelling

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I’m really happy to introduce a guest writer to you. Maria Jose Díaz is a friend and fellow teacher from EOI Avilés and, in this blog post, she will be sharing with us an excellent communicative activity for C1 students based on pictures. María Jose also runs a blog Ingles en Aviles, which is really worth a visit.

Once again I have to cover the topic of travelling with my C1 students. You might think there shouldn’t be a problem dealing with this theme because everybody likes travelling plus it’s a common topic in the elementary and intermediate levels, which means students are familiarised with it. However, what might be seen as an advantage is a disadvantage for me: students seem bored with talking about different kinds of accommodation, means of transport and flopout versus niche holidays.

After racking my brains for a while I came up with this idea to help students talk about travelling from a different point of view.

Aim: activating new vocabulary through class discussion and providing students with new ideas to talk about travelling.

Level: C1

Materials: pictures of prehistoric people, explorers, missionaries, pilgrims, refugees and holidaymakers.

Instructions:

1. Start the lesson by asking students why people travel. From my experience, they will come up with the following: to broaden their minds, to work, for business, to relax, to know other cultures or to brush up a foreign language.

2. Ask for more reasons and show a picture with prehistoric people. Ask why people travelled in those times and try to get words like look for edible plants, follow animals to hunt (game), survival, look for better climes, nomads, caves…

3. Show a picture with explorers to help them think about people who travelled searching for better trade or commercial routes; they can give examples like Columbus or Marco Polo. You can also show them the silk route.

4. Show pictures with pilgrims or missionaries or the Mayflower. The idea is to make them think about why people move for religious reasons, either to evangelise new civilisations or to go on pilgrimage to places that are important to their faith and beliefs such as Santiago de Compostela, Meca or Jerusalem. Also, some people are forced to leave their countries to avoid persecution because of their religious beliefs or because they do not follow the religion of the country where they live.

5. The idea of persecution links the pictures in number 4 with the picture below. Refugees or asylum seekers also flee their countries to avoid persecution or to escape conflicts or wars, they seek refuge or asylum somewhere else, they look for a better life, in the same way immigrants and emigrants did in the past (and in the present!).

6. Finally, show the pictures below and make students think about their relationship with holidays. Hopefully they will talk about volunteering, ethical tourism and niche holidays.