Alaa Sahloul Alaa Sahloul

In the media, Extreme adjectives
intermediate level

Materials

Abc Teacher-made Handout.

Main Aims

  • To provide clarification of extreme adjectives in the context of in the media.

Subsidiary Aims

  • To develop Ls writing and spelling.

Procedure

Warmer/Lead-in (1-2 minutes) • To set lesson context and engage students

I will ask the students: Where can you read film reviews? Then, I will elicit the various answers from them.

Exposure (4-5 minutes) • To provide context for the target language through a text or situation

I will tell them that we have extracts from reviews for different films and another work sheet of a table for many words and their definitions. They have to read the extracts and try to match the words in the left with their meaning on the right.

Highlighting (3-4 minutes) • To draw students' attention to the target language

I will ask them to work in pairs, read the extracts below from reviews for different films. And discuss: Is each review good, bad, or mixed? What kind of films does each review describe? I will ask them to find words in exercise 1 that mean the following: a) very good b) very bad c) very funny d) very silly.

Clarification (8-9 minutes) • To clarify the meaning, form and pronunciation of the target language

I will ask them: Do you know the difference between 'happy' and 'delight'? The two adjectives have similar meaning but they are not the same. So, what is the difference? Then, I will tell them that we could say that delight has a stronger meaning than happy. So, delight is similar to very happy or really happy. Then, I will clarify, that's true but could be a good answer. Many adjectives come in pairs, with one 'regular' and one 'strong' adjective. For example: happy is a regular adjective, delight is a strong adjective and both adjectives have the same basic meaning. So, they make a pair (one regular- one strong). I will tell them that, for this lesson: strong adjectives includes adjectives with an absolute meaning, such as sure, true, wrong. It doesn't make sense to say that you're a half sure about something. Strong adjectives and absolute adjectives generally behave in the same way. So, regular and strong adjectives used in different ways, and they also follow different rules, let's see how: 1- Some adverbs can only be used with regular or strong adjectives. So, Is it ok to say 'very tired'? yes. What about very exhausted? Does that sound correct? it shouldn't because the two words don't belong together. You can't use very with a strong adjectives. Sometimes, native speakers do use very with strong adjectives but not in a regular way. As an English learner it's better to remember the simple rule: Don't use VERY with strong adjectives.

Controlled Practice (4-6 minutes) • To concept check and prepare students for more meaningful practice

I will ask the students to match the extreme adjectives in A with an adjective in B. Then, I will ask the students: What is the language used in headlines in your own country? I will ask them to rewrite the headlines, using extreme adjectives to replace the adjective(s) underlined.

Free Practice (3-4 minutes) • To provide students with free practice of the target language

I will ask them to write a paragraph about "social media" using several extreme adjectives.

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