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Describing qualities and attributes

Drawing pictures with words: Teaching suggestions

Teaching adjectives should be fun! Children love using adjectives to build up interesting images. Here are a few common activities. You will be able to think up many more.

Labelling

An easy activity for teaching adjectives is to provide students with a picture that they can label. The labels can be prepared beforehand so that the students simply stick them on the picture. Alternatively, you can supply a list of adjectives from which the students can choose. They should then write the adjective near the picture and draw an arrow to what is being described. More advanced students can label the picture without the help of a list of adjectives.

Describe a drawing

While labelling might be useful to reinforce individual vocabulary items, students should also have the opportunity to write full sentences that involve the use of adjectives. The most likely text type would be either a Particular Description (eg describing Jia Jia the Panda) or a General Description (eg describing pandas).

It is usually easier for beginners to write a series of sentences if they have a picture to guide them (either one provided by the teacher or one they have drawn themselves). With more advanced learners, the teacher might find it useful to draw students' attention to the two main patterns of adjective use:

as part of the noun group

The panda has a white furry coat with large black patches.

after a relating verb

The panda is big and furry.

For more information on writing descriptions, see:

Text types: Particular Descriptions: Overview
Text types: General Descriptions: Overview

Listen and draw

In this activity the students listen to a description that contains a number of adjectives (colour, size, shape, patterns, etc) and then draw a picture showing what they have heard.

Synonyms

Students often start off learning the more common adjectives (big, good, nice, little). Later on, however, they need to extend beyond these simple items by learning synonyms, ie words that have a similar meaning. More advanced students, for example, could be asked to identify the synonyms in a text by drawing lines between those adjectives with a similar meaning:

Contrasting pairs

A common way of teaching adjectives is to use contrasting pairs:

cold / hot
young / old
big / small
tall / short

If pictures are provided to demonstrate these contrasts, then very little explanation is needed. Students can play a number of card games with pictures of opposites, such as:

	Matching pairs: Students are dealt five cards and have to match up their cards into pairs of opposites (eg hot/cold). For example, if a player has a 'hot' card, he or she should ask the next player, 'Do you have a 'cold' card?'. When students find a matching pair, they place it on the table and keep asking until they don't get a match. The player with the most cards wins.
	Memory: Turn the cards face down and spread them out on a table. One at a time, each student turns over one card and then another. If the cards match, and if the student can use adjectives to describe the card (eg 'big' and 'small'), then the student keeps the pair. If the cards don't match, they are turned over again and the next student takes a turn.

Terms which you can use in the classroom

When you are talking with your students about this area of grammar, we suggest the following approach:

1.	Begin by using everyday descriptions and explanations, and simple constructions such as This is a word that describes* something*.
2.	The next step might be to use an everyday label. For example, This is a word/group which describes, so we can call it a describing word or a describer. This gives you a way of talking about the grammatical item in class at a level that is easy for the students to understand.
3.	For certain grammatical areas, students will need to know the technical term that is used in their textbooks. When they understand the meaning and function of the grammatical item, you can introduce the technical term. For example, We have been using the term describer, but now we're going to learn the technical term: adjective.

For PrimeTeach teaching activities which provide KS2 students with practice in using adjectives, see:

	Creatures from other planets
	Did you enjoy the film?
	Earth and space homes
	My new festival
	My penfriend
	The sun and the planets
	Wanted! 1
	Weather words
	Witches and vampires