Teaching Adjectives

“An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or a pronoun. To modify a word is to describe the word or to make its meaning more definite”

This explanation is fine for those who already speak English well and are familiar with grammar terminology, but beginners need much more support, examples, and simplified speech.

Think of yourself as a beginner. Think of what you know when you start out speaking or reading/writing a new language. Think of how little you understand when you hear the words of the language. Now think of yourself in the classroom hearing the above explanation from a teacher speaking in the foreing language. Would you really understand it? Are you sure your beginner students would find it easy to follow that explanation?

Why not simply say:

An adjective is a word that tells us more about a person, an animal or a thing. For example, a dog can be: black, tall, small, ugly, nice, happy, fat, thin, old, etc."

Look at these other examples: red car, fat cat, long table, happy people, rainy day, etc.

When teaching beginners you should always work on the principle that any detailed grammar explanation will be too complicated for them. So the most import thing is to keep it simple, providing lots of examples and giving your students plenty of practice.

Quick Activity

Show your students a series of flash cards, and ask them to give you some adjectives that would describe what is represented in the picture.

Take the lead at first in asking questions – simple drill-like ones at first and then freer ones. For example:

Show the class a picture of a young dog and start asking random questions like:

More examples such as this one could be done, more specifically one involving an old, fat, and grey dog. Students could be asked similar questions to give them a chance to practice their language and also give the teacher a chance to ensure students are advanced enough to move on to more complex sentences.