Activities to Teach Students About Well, Better, Best, Badly, Worse, and Worst
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Learning the nuances of English can be a tricky task for students of all ages, particularly when it comes to understanding adverbs. Adverbs, which are words that modify verbs, often involve the use of comparative and superlative forms. Two sets of adverbs with which students often struggle are well/better/best and badly/worse/worst. Fortunately, there are plenty of activities that teachers can use to help students fully grasp the meaning and usage of these adverbs.
Positive/Negative Word Sort:
Divide students into groups and give each group a set of words to sort into positive and negative categories. For example, the words “good,” “great,” and “excellent” would go in the positive category, while “bad,” “terrible,” and “awful” would go in the negative category. Once the groups have sorted their words, challenge them to come up with as many comparative and superlative forms as possible for each word and then use them in a sentence.
Story Completion:
Create a Mad Lib-style activity where students are given a story prompt that requires the use of comparative and superlative adverbs. For example, “Yesterday, I went for a run. I felt (adverb) than I did last week.” Students can fill in the blank with words like “better” or “worse,” and then come up with a sentence to complete the story.
Rankings:
Give students a list of items to rank in order from best to worst or vice versa. For example, you can ask students to rank their favorite fruits or vegetables from healthiest to least healthy, or their favorite sports in order of excitement. Once students have ranked the items, have them explain their choices using comparative and superlative adverbs.
Video Comparisons:
Show students two videos that contrast with each other, such as a before-and-after video featuring a messy room being cleaned up. Encourage students to talk about the differences they see in the videos using comparative and superlative adverbs. For instance, they may say, “The room looks so much (adverb) now that it’s clean,” or “The mess was (adverb) before, but now it’s the (adverb) it’s ever been.”
Debate:
Divide students into teams and assign each team a side to argue in a debate about a controversial topic, such as whether homework is beneficial to students. Encourage students to use comparative and superlative adverbs to make their arguments more convincing. For example, one team may argue that homework makes students better prepared for tests, while the other team may argue that too much homework is worse for students’ mental health.
Overall, these activities are just a few examples of how teachers can help students understand the nuances of these important adverbs. By incorporating fun and engaging activities such as these into the classroom, educators can help their students master these tricky adverbs and become more confident in their English language skills.