Comparatives and Superlatives - ESL EFL Teaching Resources
ESL EFL Writing and Speaking Activity - Elementary - 25 Minutes
This delightful ESL activity enables you to teach comparatives and superlatives in a personalized manner. Students answer six questions and write the answers in a table. The students then work in groups of six and ask the same six questions to their classmates. The students' answers are also noted down in the table. When the table is complete, students write sentences comparing the information in the table using comparatives and superlatives.
Comparative and Superlative Practice
ESL EFL Lesson - Elementary - 2 Hours
This five-page lesson is useful for teaching or reviewing comparatives and superlatives. Throughout the lesson, the students get plenty of practice using comparative and superlative structures. This in-depth lesson includes a grammar review, comparative and superlative forms, a quiz, writing activities and various questions related to using comparatives. Students also create a dialogue that can be presented to the class.
Comparative and Superlative Quiz
ESL EFL Writing Activity - Elementary - 25 Minutes
This rewarding teaching activity gives students practice at writing comparative and superlative sentences. First, students put different nouns in order depending on the stated adjective, e.g. goldfish, gorilla, human – intelligent. Then, they write comparative and superlative sentences using the adjectives and nouns.
Comparative and Superlative Quiz.PDF Exclusive
ESL EFL Writing and Speaking Activity - Elementary - 35 Minutes
Students learn to associate comparatives with a variety of nouns in this insightful teaching activity. Students work together in pairs. Each pair is given a set of noun cards. The students look at the cards and then take it in turns to put down a card and make a comparative sentence connecting two cards together. This continues until all the cards have been linked with different comparative sentences. When the students have finished, they write out the sentences.
Comparative Cards.PDF Exclusive
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Elementary - 25 Minutes
You can use this simple game to teach comparative and superlative structures to your students. Students are divided into small teams. The class names as many adjectives as they can and you write them on the board. Next, the students name ten countries. These answers are also written on the board. The students then have ten minutes to make as many comparative and superlative sentences as they can, using the adjectives and countries listed on the board. You can play more rounds by asking the students to name other categories such as sports, animals, famous people, etc.
Expressing Opinions and Making Comparatives
ESL EFL Lesson - Elementary - 1 Hour +
In this comprehensive lesson, students learn how to give opinions, agree, disagree and make comparisons. The lesson begins by focusing on the language structures. Then, the students read through some example dialogues and complete gap-fill exercises. Following that, students make their own dialogue in pairs and present them to the class.
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Elementary - 20 Minutes
In this amusing pairwork activity, students read sentences and try to guess the missing comparative adjectives. The class is divided into pairs (A and B) and each student is handed a copy of the worksheet. Students work individually and complete sentences with comparative adjectives. Once the students have finished, they sit facing their partner. Student B starts by reading sentence 1 to Student A. If the sentence has the same comparative adjective as Student A's sentence, Student A can read the next sentence to Student B. If not, Student B carries on guessing comparatives until he or she gets it right. The students continue until they have completed all the sentences.
Fun Facts.PDF Exclusive
ESL EFL Writing and Speaking Activity - Elementary - 45 Minutes
This fun class activity is an imaginative way to teach your students about superlatives. The class is split into two or three big teams. There are ten superlative competitions to enter. Each team enters a different competitor for each event. The team who wins each competition receives one point. Afterwards, all team members race to write the correct superlative sentence for the event. The first team to do this wins an extra point.
ESL EFL Writing and Speaking Activity - Elementary - 30 Minutes
In this teaching activity, students complete a superlative survey about their classmates. Then, the students find out if their statements are right by asking each other questions. Students note down any extra information and then tell the class what they found out.
Superlative Survey.PDF Exclusive
Business English Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 25 Minutes
In this Business English teaching activity, students work in pairs. They take turns reading sentences to their partner omitting the comparative adjective from each sentence. Their partner has to guess the missing comparative in the sentence. Afterwards, they discuss whether they agree or disagree with each statement.
ESL EFL Writing Activity - Pre-intermediate - 25 Minutes
Here is a link to a practical worksheet that teaches students about comparative adjectives. In this worksheet, students learn about equal comparisons (as adjective as) and unequal comparisons (adjective + er than). There are four writing activities in all. In each activity, students fill in the blanks with the appropriate comparative adjective and then create their own sentences using the different structures presented.
Comparatives and Superlatives
ESL EFL Reading and Writing, Speaking and Listening Activities - Pre-intermediate - 1 Hour +
Below is a link to an impressive set of teaching activities about comparatives and superlatives from 'Fun with Grammar' by Suzanne Woodward. You will find five activities for comparatives. The activities include comparison cards and a matching activity. There are also four teaching activities about superlatives featuring a survey, questionnaire and game. Finally, there are four review exercises. These include a reading activity and word search.
Comparative and Superlative - Card Game
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 30 Minutes
This engaging card game allows you to teach your students how to make comparative and superlative sentences with a range of adjectives. Class members work in groups of three or four. Each group has a set of topic cards and adjective cards. Each student in turn picks up an adjective card and chooses a topic. The student has to make a comparative or superlative sentence using the adjective. The sentence must be related to the topic. Students receive one point for each grammatically correct sentence. The student with the highest number of points by the end of the game wins.
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 25 Minutes
In this comparative guessing game, students give three clues to their partner to help them guess a special word. The class is divided into pairs (A and B) and each student is given a corresponding worksheet. The aim of the game is to help their partner guess the word or phrase in bold at the top of each box on their worksheet by giving three clues to them using comparative forms. Before they begin, each student completes three empty boxes at the bottom of the worksheet with their own words or phrases. Once they are ready, the students begin the activity. The students substitute a pronoun for the word they are describing and use comparative forms to describe the object, activity or person to their partner. When everyone has finished, some students give their own clues to the class and they try to guess the word or phrase.
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 20 Minutes
This speaking task is perfect for teaching students how to make comparative and superlative sentences. Students work in groups of three. They play a category card game where they turn over two cards from the same category and make a comparison between two words. If a student turns over two identical words, they make a superlative sentence. When a student completes the comparative or superlative sentence correctly, they keep the two cards. The student with the most cards at the end is the winner.
Compare it.PDF Exclusive
Business English Lesson - Pre-intermediate - 1 Hour +
You can use this Business English lesson to teach adults or university students. Students learn ways to make direct and general comparisons using various comparative and superlative structures. Students also compare companies and products from information contained in charts. In addition, the lesson includes several writing and speaking activities based on comparing companies and their competitors.
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 15 Minutes
This fast-paced speaking game is a great way for your students to practice comparative structures. The class is split into two teams. One student comes up from each team. The two students are given two things to compare. One student starts by making a comparative sentence about the two things. Then, the other student makes a comparison. This continues until one student cannot make a comparison, makes a grammar mistake or is too slow to answer. The winning student gets a point for their team.
ESL EFL Writing and Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 35 Minutes
Students complete superlative sentences about numerous forms of media, including TV, cinema, the Internet and music in this entertaining activity. First, students work alone. They correct sentences by changing the adjective to its superlative form. Then, they complete each sentence with their opinion. Afterwards, students get together in small groups. They tell their group members their opinions. The group members agree or disagree with each other and give their opinions based on what they have written.
Superlative Media.PDF Exclusive
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 15 Minute
Students practice comparative and superlative structures in this teaching activity. Students race to see how many people they can find who fit the comparative and superlative description on their slip of paper. Each student receives one point for each person who matches their description. Several rounds are played using different slips each time. The student with the most points wins.
Superlatives Board Game
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 30 Minutes
In this superlatives board game, students get a chance to practice superlative structures with their classmates. The class is split into groups of three or four. The players take it in turns to throw a dice and move along the board. When a player lands on a superlative square, they have to talk non-stop for 30 seconds about the topic on the square. If a player stops talking before the 30 seconds are up, they have to go back to their previous square. The first player to reach the finish square wins.
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Intermediate - 30 Minutes
This invaluable teaching activity provides your students with the opportunity to ask and answer superlative questions. Students work together in groups of four. Each group is handed a set of superlative question cards. The group members then ask each other the superlative Wh- questions. When all the groups have finished asking their questions, each group tells the rest of the class about their classmates' most interesting answers.
Superlative Strips.PDF Exclusive