Teaching Comparative Adjectives: An ESL Lesson Plan

One of the most fundamental things for ESL students to learn is how to use comparative adjectives to describe nouns. When students have a strong knowledge of comparative adjectives, not only can they describe things but express themselves better in conversation.  Keep scrolling to read about teaching comparative adjectives effectively. You will also find a free Off2Class ESL lesson plan download on the topic. 

When to use this lesson on comparative adjectives

This lesson is the first of three on the topic. It is designed so that teachers can introduce a new concepts to students engagingly and educationally. You can teach this lesson to beginner, elementary English speakers or use it as a review for more intermediate-level speakers. This lesson can also be used during individual and group lessons. Keep in mind that age does not necessarily correlate with a learner’s level of proficiency in English. 

Before this lesson, students should have prerequisite knowledge of the present simple tense, present continuous tense and the ability to count syllables. 

Download the lesson here:

What will students learn about comparative adjectives?

In this lesson, students will study and apply the rules relevant to comparative adjectives. The objective of this lesson is to use the comparative forms on an adjective including spelling changes and the irregular forms: better, worse, further. 

First, you should ask your student to describe the images using adjectives that they already know. Then they will learn to describe different images using comparative adjectives like old and older. This is a great way to warm up for class and gauge a student’s current knowledge of adjectives. 

Then you will introduce students to different groups of adjectives. They will have many opportunities to fill in the blanks and match words with images throughout the lesson. 

Additionally, students learn the rules to form comparative adjectives. For example, most one-syllable adjectives form the comparative by adding —er or —ier. With this, they will work on applying these rules and completing related activities. 

Also, in this lesson students will work on counting syllables. Since they should have preexisting knowledge of syllables this is a good point of practice. You can even try to challenge students by having them come up with a four-syllable word in English! 

Finally, students will learn about two-syllable (or more) adjectives. To make these types of adjectives comparative, you add more to them. For example, delicious becomes more delicious. With this, students will practice filling in the blanks with one, two and three-syllable comparative adjectives. 

By the end of this lesson, students will be able to determine when to change the end of an adjective or whether to add more to make it into the comparative form. 

Wait, there’s more…

Wondering how to make these lessons even better for students? Download a free Off2Class account so you can access the teacher notes that come with this lesson; they are extremely useful! In any case, be sure to encourage students and go at their pace. Teaching comparative adjectives has never been easier!

We at Off2Class hope that you found this post helpful as well as the free lesson download. Please, leave a comment down below to let us know when you use this lesson!