Reading and Writing 3 Q: Skills for Success

Unit 2 Communicative Grammar Teaching Notes Second Edition

Editing Adjectives
The objective of this activity is for students to practice putting
descriptive adjectives in the proper order.
Materials:
One communicative grammar worksheet for each pair of students.

Instructions:
1. Before the activity, review with students the correct order of adjectives in multi-adjectival
statements. One way to do this is to draw a partially filled in chart on the board and have them
fill in the missing categories and add more examples. For example,

delicious tiny modern triangular blue Egyptian wood cooking

The filled in chart might look like this:

Opinion/ Size Age Shape Color Origin Material Kind/

Quality Purpose
delicious tiny modern triangular blue Egyptian wood cooking
popular huge ancient square bright Mexican brick basketball

2. Model the activity by writing the following sentences on the board:

A hurricane is a storm. It is circular. A hurricane can be 100 miles (160 m) in diameter.
Hurricanes begin in oceans.

A hurricane is _________________________________________________ storm.

3. Tell students that they have to reduce the statements into one statement using descriptive
adjectives, and the adjectives must be in the correct order. After a minute, write a possible
answer on the board:
A hurricane is a huge, circular oceanic storm.
4. Put students in pairs and give each pair a communicative grammar worksheet.
5. At the end of the activity, call on pairs of students to share their statements. Check students
answers using the answer key. Discuss any variations or errors.

Oxford University Press. Permission granted to reproduce for classroom use.