Degrees of Adjectives

Students’ Learning Outcomes

·         Articulate, identify and use of regular adjectives.

Information for Teachers

 An adjective: is a word that modifies a noun (or pronoun) to make it more specific. “Rotten” egg, a “cloudy” day, a “lovely” lady, or a “tall,” “cool” glass of water.
·         A Regular adjective: is defined as someone or something that is standard, average, orderly or usual person or thing or something that is done habitually.
·             An example of regular is a woman five feet five inches tall; the regular, average height for a woman.
·             An example of regular is dinner served every night at seven; a regular dinner time.
·             An example of regular is a pint of beer; a regular order.
·         Read these sentences:
1.       Shahid’s mango is sweet.
2.       Hira’s mango is sweeter than shahid’s.
3.       Anwar’s mango is the sweetest of all.
·         In these sentences adjectives change in form (sweet, sweeter, sweetest) to show comparison. They are called the degrees of adjectives.
Ø  The adjective sweet is said to be in the positive degree.
Ø  The adjective sweeter is said to be in the comparative degree.
Ø  The adjective sweetest is said to be in the superlative degree.
·         The positive degree of an adjective is the adjective in its simple form. It is used to denote the mere existence of some quality of what we speak about it used when no comparison is made.
·         The comparative degree of an adjective denotes a higher degree   of the quality than the positive, and is used when two things (or sets of things) are compared:  The boy is stronger than that.
·         The superlative degree of an adjective denotes the highest degree of the quality and used when more than two things are compared; as this boy is the strongest in the class.
Material / Resources
Chalk/marker, board, flashcards, textbook

Worm up activity

·         Ask the students about adjectives as they have already done adjectives in the class.
·         Note down their responses. Responses may be (beautiful, honest, brave, happy, heavy etc.)
·         Now call any two students to keep their bags on the front desk in the class.
·         Ask one of them to come and pick up the bag which is heavy.
·         After that ask, which bag is heavier red or yellow.
·         Now keep one more bag on the desk and ask him/her which the heaviest bag among these bags is.
·         Suppose the child tells that the pink one is the heaviest bag amongst all bags.
·         After this activity briefly tell them about the degree of adjectives.
·         Ask them to give a few examples of different degrees of adjectives.
·         Show them the following chart for better understanding.
·         Ask them to find adjectives with the similar meaning from their textbook and make sentences.
·         Ask them to note people using similar adjectives at home and share them in class.
Development

Activity 1

·         Ask three students of different heights to come forward and stand height –wise.
·         Tell them that student 1 (Name) is tall, student 2 (Name) is the taller and student 3 (Name) is the tallest.
·         Tell them that tall is an adjective which has three degrees; positive, comparative and superlative. In this case the 1st boy is tall, 2nd is taller and the 3rd is the tallest one.
·         Ask them to give some more examples positive, comparative and superlative of adjective.
·         Some other examples of such adjectives are given below:
Positive
Comparative
Superlative
Small
smaller
Smallest
Nice
Nicer
Nicest
Warm
Warmer
Warmest
Neat
Neater
Neatest
wise
Wiser
wisest
clean
cleaner
Cleanest
Easy
Easier
Easiest
Heavy
Heavier
Heaviest
Thin
Thinner
Thinnest

Activity 2

·         Now tell the students that they know how to form the second and third degree of adjective.
·         Tell them to add “er” with adjective to make comparative degree and add
“est” for forming superlative degrees of some adjectives and write them on the board for example wealthy, happy etc.
·         Ask that tell them that the adjectives ending with “y” are magic words. The “y” changes into “I” and then we add “er” and “est” for example: happy, happier, and happiest.
·         Come up with more examples with the help of the students. For example “sad, clever, small, easy, thin, etc.
·         Now ask students to write the comparative and superlative degrees of these adjectives in their notebooks.
Sum up / Conclusion
·         Ask them what have learnt today about adjectives.
·         Ask them to name different comparative degrees of adjectives.
·         Ask students when and why the degree of adjectives is useful.
Assessment
·         Give them five adjectives and ask them to write their comparative and superlatives degrees in their notebooks.
Follow up
·         Ask them to write 10 adjectives and their degrees on the notebooks.
·         Ask students to write 5 sentences using all three degrees of the following adjectives: neat, happy, thin, small
(Example: I had a small cat. She had 4 kittens that were even smaller than her. And out of those four the white kitten was the smallest.)

 

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