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In the limitation of time, I intend to deal with something about the theory of the Adjectives and Adjective phrases in English and point out some similarities and differrnces in the uses

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- Tuy Phước, Tháng 5 năm 2011 -

TRƯỜNG THPT SỐ 1 TUY PHƯỚC



Giáo viên thực hiện : Nguyễn Thị Hồng Minh

Tổ : Ngoại Ngữ

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By Nguyen Thi Hong Minh – From Tuy Phuoc I High School

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I: INTRODUCTION ……….……… 1

1.1 Background and the reason for the study ……… ……….… …1

1.2 Aims of the study……….…… 1

1.3 Methods of the study……… … 2

1.4 Design and rationale of the study……….……….……… … 2

PART II: INVESTIGATION AND APPLICATION ……….… ……2

I THEORETICAL BACKGROUND……… ……….……… 3

2.1 Definition of adjectives… ……… ………….3

2.1.1 Position of adjectives…… ……… ….2

2.1.2 Position : attributive only……….………… 4

2.1.3 Position : predicative only……….………… …… ……….……….… 4

2.1.4 Position : immediately after nouns……….……… 5

2.1.5 Position and meaning.……… ……… ……….……….5

2.1.6 Adjective complementation……….………… … 5

2.1.7 Order of adjectives……… 6

2.2 Definition of Adjective phrases……….……… 7

2.3 The uses of Adjectives and Adjective phrases……… …… ….…8

2.3.1 The semantic roles of adjectives and adjective phrases……… … 8

2.3.2 The syntactic roles of adjectives and adjective phrases…… …… 11

2.4 Teaching Adjectives and Adjective phrases……… 14

2.5 Some basic principles in teaching Adjectives and Adjective phrases……15

* Suggested Exercises and Keys to the Exercises in teaching adjectives and adjective phrases……17

III INVESTIGATION:……….……….….23

3.1.The subject……… … ……….……… 23

3.2 Data collection……… 23

3.2.1 The questionaires… … …….……….……… …… 23

3.2.2.The Class observation……… ……… ……… … 23

3.3 Data Analysis……… ……… ……… ……… ……23

IV Suggested some techniques or activities in teaching adjectives and adjective phrases….25 V. APPLICATION.……… ……… … 30

Illustration 1……… ……… 31

Illustration 2……… … ……… ……… …… ……35

PART III: CONCLUSION………… ……… … 40

Suggestions REFERENCES ……… ………… ……… … 41

Appendix Survey Questionaires………… ………42

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When you read a composition or a story, you sometimes utter “How good is it!” Apart from the content, there are some other factors greatly contributing to the effectiveness

Now, we have a look at the following story

“ It’s illegal to drive under the age of seventeen in Britain, but a 17-year-old boy

managed to pass his driving on the day of his seventeenth birthday Most people would

consider this impossible because you need a lot of lessons to pass the test David Livesery arranged to have an eight-hour lesson beginning at dawn on his birthday At first he was very careful and hesitant, but he had a wonderful teacher and his driving improved amazingly during the day By four in the afternoon,still feeling energetic, he was ready to take his test and he drive home very slowly in the reddish light of the setting sun David’s

driving attracted the attention of two policemen, but they broke into smiles and congratulated him warmly when he showed them his certificate and told them his story

With the appearance of the Adjectives and Adjective phrases , the above story either makes you interested or makes an impression on you, doesn’t it ?

Obviously, to make good use of English as much as possible, people are required to master all aspects of English, both a complicated system of structures and that of vocabularies

In English, Adjectives and Adjective phrases is a neither small nor simple category Due to its different functions by syntax and by semantic, the Adjective phrase is both of great occurrence in all kinds of writing and plays an important role in making good essays, especially descriptive compositions Moreover, it is said that the Vietnamese language is plentiful and various.Therefore, the Adjectives and Adjective phrases themselves make a contribution to the variety and richness of the language

On the whole, using adjective phrases are quite common and advantageous

The most important reason why I vote for this study has derived from the mistakes

my students have made while they are speaking and writing

Owing to the above reasons, I have made up my mind to choose “The uses of Adjectives and Adjective phrases in English” as my topic of the study

1.2 Aims of the study:

With the reasons above in my mind, the specific aims of the study accordingly are: + To present the uses of Adjectives and Adjective phrases and Vietnamese equivalents

+To point out some similarities and differences in the uses of Adjectives and Adjective phrases

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+ To suggest some techniques in teaching Adjectives and Adjective phrases

+ To give out some practical exercises for the further understanding of the English Adjective phrases

In the limitation of time, I intend to deal with something about the theory of the Adjectives and Adjective phrases in English and point out some similarities and differrnces

in the uses of Adjectives and Adjective phrases to help English learners to make good use of them

I am not planning on studying a larger population, just the population at a high school

1.3 Methods of the study :

* A study on theoretical background from Methodological books and materials

* Survey questionnaire

* Personal observations by attending classes

1.4 Design and rationale of the study :

* This study consists of 3 parts and an appendix:

1 Part I is the introduction

2 Part II is the theoretical background; the investigation and application

3 Part III is the conclusion The Reference and Appendix are the last parts of the study

* Data collections for analysis in this study come from students of Tuy Phuoc I High school: 50 students from the eleventh form and 50 students from the twelveth form

PART II INVESTIGATION AND APPLICATION

2.1 Definition of Adjectives :

The book critic R Z Sheppard once remarked that adjectives “are the potbelly of poetry” Many English language teachers would not take such a disparaging view Adjectives are often quite fun to teach and the rules surrounding them are, usually, quite straightforward This month’s article is the first of two in which we throw the spotlight on adjectives We start by looking at adjectives in relation to the wider phrasal structures they occur in, examining issues of position, complementation, and ordering

When we want to give more information than can be provided by using a noun alone,

we can add an adjective to identify a person or thing, or describe them in more detail, e.g.:

her new dress

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the football player

Nouns used in this way are usually referred to as noun modifiers Though they are functioning in a similar way to some adjectives, we classify them as nouns Examples like this are often referred to as compound nouns, with the first noun identifying a particular type

in relation to the group of people or things described by the second noun.In the following article, we will focus on true adjectives, rather than noun modifiers

2.1.1 Position of adjectives:

Most adjectives can appear before a noun as part of a noun phrase, placed after determiners or numbers if there are any, and immediately before the noun, e.g.:

She had a beautiful smile

He bought two brown bread rolls

Adjectives placed before a noun in this way are generally referred to as occurring in the attributive position

Most adjectives can also occur as complements of the verb be and other link verbs such as become, feel or seem, e.g.:

Her smile is beautiful

She didn’t seem happy

Adjectives placed after the verb in this way are generally referred to as occurring in the predicative position

When the information contained in an adjective is not the main focus of a statement, then the adjective is usually placed before the noun in the attributive position

However, when the main focus of a statement is to give the information contained in

an adjective, the adjective is usually placed after the verb in the predicative position, compare:

He handed me a bucket of hot water (attributive position)

I put my hand in the bucket, the water was very hot (predicative position,

emphasising hot.)

Though most adjectives can be used in both the attributive and predicative positions, there are a number of adjectives that can occur in one particular position only, as described below:

2.1.2 Position: attributive only

There are some adjectives which can only be used before a noun, in the attributive

position For instance, “We talk about the main problem” but cannot say “The problem was main”

Adjectives which occur only in the attributive position are generally those which identify something as being of a particular type For instance, we can talk about a financial decision where financial distinguishes this from other types of decision, e.g.: medical, political This group of adjectives are often referred to as classifying adjectives, and rarely occur in the predicative position unless we specifically want to emphasise a contrast, e.g.:

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a chemical reaction not, e.g.: a reaction which was/is chemical

the phonetic alphabet not, e.g.: the alphabet is phonetic

It was an indoor pool not, e.g.: The pool was indoor

Other adjectives which generally appear in the attributive position are those which are used for emphasis, e.g.:

The show was absolute/utter rubbish

You made me look a complete fool

The project was a total disaster

2.1.3 Position: predicative only

There are some adjectives which only usually occur in the predicative position, as complements of be or other link verbs For instance, you can say He felt glad but wouldn’t normally talk about a glad person

Adjectives which usually occur in the predicative position include those which describe feelings, such as afraid, content, glad, ready, sure, sorry and upset, e.g.:

She felt afraid but not, e.g.: an afraid girl

My daughter is upset but not, e.g.: my upset daughter

They also include a group of adjectives with prefix a-, such as asleep, alive, alone, ashamed, awake, aware, e.g.:

I like being alone but not, e.g.: I like being an alone person

The baby’s asleep but not, e.g.: the asleep baby

2.1.4 Position: immediately after nouns

Some adjectives that describe size or age can occur immediately after a noun that indicates a unit of measurement, e.g.:

She was about five feet tall

Her baby is ten months old

The walls were six inches thick

There is a small group of adjectives, sometimes referred to as post nominal adjectives, which can only occur immediately after a noun Examples are:

the president elect

the devil incarnate

Many other adjectives can be used immediately after a noun when they form part of a (reduced) relative clause, e.g.:

Let’s use the time available

Is she someone capable of making difficult decisions?

I’d like to speak to all the people involved

2.1.5 Position and meaning

There are some adjectives which can occur either before or after a noun, but the position they occur in has an effect on their meaning, e.g.:

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 the concerned parents (= ‘the parents who are worried’)

 the parents concerned (= ‘the parents who are involved/mentioned’)

 the present situation (= ‘the situation which exists now’)

 the people present (= ‘the people who are here/there’)

 a responsible person (= ‘a person who is sensible/reliable’)

 the person responsible (= ‘the person who is to blame or has responsibility for something’)

2.1 6 Adjective complementation

When adjectives occur in the predicative position, after be or other link verbs, they are sometimes followed by a prepositional phrase or verbal complement Some typical examples are summarised in the table below:

I felt angry with him

a beautiful young woman

a large round table

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a beautiful wooden table

sounds fine, but a structure like:

a beautiful large round carved wooden table

though grammatical, would not normally occur in everyday speech or writing.Descriptive adjectives used in this way belong to seven main types The table below summarises the types and the usual order in which they appear if more than one adjective is placed before a noun:

 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th

 opinion size age shape colour origin material

 lovely big old triangular white Italian wooden For example, if you wanted to use an adjective referring to size and an adjective referring to shape, you would put the size adjective first, e.g.:

a large round table

Similarly, an age adjective would normally be placed before an origin adjective, e.g.:

a young Italian woman

An opinion adjective would occur before a shape or colour adjective, and a shape or colour adjective would occur before a material adjective, e.g.:

a beautiful green silk dress

If two colour adjectives are used, then and is placed between them, e.g.:

She was wearing a long black and gold scarf

If three colour adjectives occur, a comma is placed after the first and the last two are linked with and, e.g.:

The table was covered by a large red, white and blue flag

As a general rule, the adjective which is closest to the noun is the most closely linked

to the meaning of the noun, describing a feature which is the most permanent about it, compared to adjectives which express a variable characteristic, such as an opinion For instance, if we consider:

an expensive/cheap/beautiful black leather bag

the ‘leather-ness’ of the bag is a more essential characteristic than ‘cost’ or ‘appearance’

If more than one adjective occurs which expresses an opinion or describes a general quality, then the adjective with a more general meaning, e.g.: nice, bad usually precedes the one with a more specific meaning, e.g.: comfortable, clean, for example:

a lovely soft blanket

If two adjectives with similar meanings are used, the shorter one often comes first, e.g.:

a soft comfortable pillow

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a difficult but rewarding job

The order of adjectives in predicative position, i.e.: after the verb be or link verbs such

as seem or feel, is less fixed than the order before a noun The conjunction and is generally used to link adjectives in this position, occurring before the last adjective used, e.g.:

The room was small and dirty

He felt cold, wet and hungry

Adjectives expressing opinion are often placed last, e.g.:

Annabel was young, tall and beautiful

If we want to imply a contrast between adjectives, the conjunction but is sometimes used, e.g.:

The flat was small but comfortable

2.2 Definition of Adjective phrases:

First of all, let’s have a look at the definition of phrases and adjectival phrases

Phrases are considered as the second level of classification as they tend to be larger than individual words, but are smaller than sentences We refer to the central element in a phrase as the head of the phrase If the head is a noun then the phrase is called a noun phrase Adjectival phrases are composed of the adjectives that modify a noun and any adverbs

or other elements that modify those adjectives Adjectival phrases always occur inside noun phrases or as predicate adjectives

Example: Dad bought [(a blue and green) sweater]

The adjective phrase is a phrase that functions as an adjective:

Or the adjective phrase is a phrase in which the adjective is the head:

They were quite unware of any wrongdoing

In order to make adjective phrases more simple and convenient to research, I’d like to give out the definition of an adjective phrase as follows:

An adjective phrase is a word or a group of words functioning in a sentence like an adjective It contains an adjective as the head optionally accompanied by modifiers in the form of single words, phrases or clauses

Adjectives and adjective phrases are of common occurrence To make good use of adjectives and adjective phrases, it is necessary to know well about the following:

2.3.1 The semantic roles of adjectives and adjective phrases :

It is said that the adjective is the “soul” of an adjective phrases Therefore, in order to research more convenient we consider that the semantic roles of adjective phrases are like those of adjectives

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(1) Stative verus dynamic adjectives:

A Stative adjective A Dynamic adjective

(2) Gradable verus non-gradable adjectives:

Most adjectives are gradable, that is to say, can be modified by adverbs which convey the degree of intensity of the adjective Gradability includes comparison:

And other forms of intensification:

All dynamic adjectives are gradable Most stative adjectives (tall,old) are gradable, some are non-gradable, principally “technical adjectives” like atomic (scientist) and

hydrochloric (acid) and adjectives denoting provenance, e.g.: British

(3) Inherent verus non-inherent adjectives

Adjectives that characterize the referent of the noun directly are termed INHERENT; those that do not are termed NON-INHERENT

Most adjectives are inherent, and it is especially uncommon for dynamic adjectives

to be other than inherent, an exception is “wooden” in the actor is being wooden.,whicj is

dynamic and non-inherent

Whether or not an adjective is inherent or non-inherent, it may involve relation to

an implicit or explicit standard “ Big” is inherent in “ a big mouse”, the standard being the relative size of mice, contrast “a little mouse” “Big” is non-inherent in “a big fool”, the standard being degree of foolishness, contrast “a big of a fool” The relative standard

is to be distinguished from gradability as well as from the inherent/non-inherent contrast

For example, “perfect” and “good” are non-inherent in “a perfect mother” and “ a good mother” , the standard being motherhood, but only good is gradable ( a very good mother, a very perfect mother) Similarly, though the inherent “big” in “ a big elephant”

is gradable (a very big elephant), the inherent adjective in an enormous noun is not

gradable ( a very enormous noun)

In another aspect, Randolph.Quirk distinguishes two broad semantic groups of adjectives: descriptors and classifiers Descriptors are prototypal adjectives denoting such features as color, size, and weight, chronology and age, emotion and a wide range of other characteristics They are typically gradable In contrast, the primary function of classifiers is

to delimit or restrict a noun’s referent, by placing it in a category in relation to other referents They are typically non-gradable Classifiers can be grouped into subclasses,

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including relational, afflictive and a miscellaneous topical class Classifiers can be more or

less descriptive content while many topical classifiers (such as chemical, medical,political)

provide descriptive content while also limiting the reference of the head noun

Selected examples of adjectives belonging to these semantic domains are:

(1) Descriptors:

Descriptors can be divided into subclasses, including:

+ COLOR- denoting color,brightness: black,white,dark,bright,blue,brown,green,grey,red Eg: The passenger turned quite green with sea-sick

Life seemed grey and pointless after she’d gone

+ SIZE/QUANTITY/EXTENT-denoting

size,weight,extent:big,deep,heavy,huge,long,large,little,short,small,thin,wide

Eg: Lead is a heavy metal

You’ve cut my hair very short

+ TIME- denoting chronology, age, frequency: annual,daily,early,late,new,old,recent,young Eg: There is an early train every Saturday

Ours is a recent accquaintance

+ EVALUATIVE/EMOTIVE- denoting judment, affect,emphasis:

bad,beautiful,best,fine,good,great,lovely,nice,poor

Eg: The car has very good brakes

+ MISCELLANEOUS DESCRIPTIVE- appropriate,

cold,complex,dead,empty,free,hard,hot,open,possitive,practical,pirate,serious,strange,strong ,sudden

Eg: That’s a good film

Especially if you can get the right price

(2) Classifiers

Classifiers can be grouped into subclasses:

+ RELATIONAL/CLASSIFICATIONAL/RESTRICTIVE- delimiting the referent of a

noun, particularly in relation to other referents:

additional,overage,chief,complete,different,direct,entire,external,final,following,general, initial,internal,left,main,maximum,necessary,original,particular,previous,primary,public, similar,single,standard,top,various,same

+ AFFILIATIVE- designing the national or religious group to which a referent belongs:

American,Chinese,Christian,English,French, German,Irish,united

+ TOPICAL/OTHER (e.g giving the subject area or showing a relationaship with a noun):

chemical,commercial,environmental,human,industrial,legal,medical,mental,official,oral, phonetics,political,sexual,social,ventral,visual

In the following excerpt, descriptor adjectives are underlined with classifiers marked

by [ ]

It has never lost an artist from its record label, supposedly because it consists of many

small and friendly [individual] companies(…)

Fujisankei,itself privately owned and independent,seems the ideal partner

But the question must remain as to whether a [Japanese] giant with five times the turnover of the Virgin group will be content to stay a minority player in the long

term (news)

Some adjectives can serve as either classifiers or descriptors Below, the expressions

in the left-hand column contain a classifying or restricting adjective, while those in the

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a secondary school a useful secondary function

Very common adjective typically designate a range of meanings For example, in

some expressions old is descriptive, denoting age (an old radio,old newspapers) In others, it denotes affect (poor old Rusty,good old genetics) Similarly “ poor” has two principal uses: emotive (the poor devil, You poor bunny!) and descriptive (a poor country, in poor health) Even the descriptive uses of poor carry: different denotations such as “ lacking adequate financial resources” and “ not good”

2.3.2 The syntactic roles of adjectives and adjective phrases :

Adjectives function syntactically only in adjective phrases, but since it is the adjective that generally determines the funtion of adjective phrases, we have found it convenient to use adjectives alone to illustrate the functions of adjective phrases and we have often referred to adjectives as a shorter way of referring to adjective phrases

The functions of adjectives and adjective phrases in phrases can be shown in the following table:

adverb (intensifier), e.g very /

perfectly / extremely

good, nice, rich, happy, wide, bright, uncertain, possible, glad, busy, easier, worse, better

prepositional phrase, e.g at maths, about this

adverb (viewpoint), e.g

technically / theoretically adverb, enough / indeed

noun, e.g sixteen feet / two

Examples of postadjectival modification:

 by a prepositional phrase: e.g conscious of, fond of, happy about, good at, sorry for, different from, due to, happy with, etc (for lists of prepositions following adjectives,

see grammar books; dictionaries also give structural information on the use of

adjectives)

 by a finite that-clause:

We were confident that Karen was still alive Many adjectives expressing certainty or confidence, such as aware, certain, confident, sure can be used in this way

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I am anxious that he be/shoud be/?is permitted to resign Many adjectives expressing

volition, like anxious, eager, willing are used with a subjunctive or putative should in the that-clause

 by a to-infinitive clause: Bob is slow to react Bob is sorry to hear it Bob is hard to convince Those darts are awkward for a beginner to use

 by an ing-clause: I'm busy (with) getting the house redecorated We're fortunate (in) having Aunt Agatha as a baby-sitter

 by a comparative clause: It was easier than they say

On a sentence or clause level you can find adjective phrases in the following syntactic functions:

 Subject complement: John was extremely rich indeed / most greatful for your help / busy handing out letters / uncertain what to do / glad to hear from you / better than they say

 Object complement: He’s opening his mouth very wide

You can also find adjectives and adjectives phrases within other phrases:

 Premodifier of a noun: Well, he’s [a perfectly nice lad]

 Postmodifier of a pronoun: Was there [anything nice]?

 Postmodifier of a noun: London is [a city bright with lights]

 Complement of a preposition: The insults continued [in private]

1 Noun phrase modifier

2 Predicate adjective

3 Object complement

Adjectives are traditionally defined as "words that describe nouns." Adjective phrases are defined as phrases that consist of an adjective plus any modifiers or complements such as

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By Nguyen Thi Hong Minh – From Tuy Phuoc I High School Page 14

adverbs and prepositional phrases For example, the phrases blue, very sad, and afraid of the dark are all adjective phrases

Adjectives as Noun Phrase Modifiers

The first grammatical function that adjectives and adjective phrases can perform is the noun phrase modifier Noun phrase modifiers are defined as words and phrases that describe

a noun or noun phrase For example, the following italicized adjectives and adjective

phrases function as noun phrase modifiers:

 My mother planted purple flowers in her garden

 The very tiny puppy barked at the cat

 The restaurant served plain, tasteless soup

 George Washington appointed Edmund Randolph Attorney General

 Barack Obama was the president elect

Adjectives as Predicate Adjectives

The second grammatical function that adjectives and adjective phrases can perform is the predicate adjective Predicate adjectives are defined as adjectives and adjective phrases that follow a copular or linking verb such as be and become and modifies or describes the subject For example, the following italicized adjectives and adjective phrases function as predicate adjectives:

 Under the bed is filthy

 The cake tastes sickeningly sweet

 My cat is black and brown

 Your perfume smells especially musky but very nice

 I am fond of English grammar

Adjectives as Object Complements

The third grammatical function that adjectives and adjective phrases can perform is the object complement Object complements are defined as nouns, pronouns, noun phrases, adjectives, and adjective phrases that directly follow and modify the direct object For

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example, the following italicized adjectives and adjective phrases function as object complements:

 The farmer painted the barn red

 The little girl wanted her room bright pink

 Catholics consider saints holy

 The jury judged the defendant guilty

 My puppy makes me happy

Although not accepted in standard English, adjectives and adjective phrases also function

as verb phrase modifiers and adverbials For example, the adjective phrase too loud in the sentence He plays his music too loud functions as an adverbial However, standard prescriptive grammar rules dictate that only the adverb phrase too loudly should function as the adverbial in this instance Another example is the adjective careful functioning as a verb phrase modifier in the sentence Drive careful Again, prescriptive rules state that the adverb carefully should function as the verb phrase modifier However, the use of adjectives and

adjective phrases as verb phrase modifiers and adverbials is accepted in many forms of spoken English

The three functions of adjectives and adjective phrases in the English language are noun phrase modifier, predicate adjective, and object complement Both native speakers and ESL students must learn and understand the three functions to properly and fully use adjectives and adjective phrases in both spoken and written English

Hopper, Paul J A Short Course in Grammar W.W Norton & Company: New York, 1999 Huddleston, Rodney Introduction to the Grammar of English Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1984.

Adjective Phrase Noun Phrase

Modifier Grammar Tree

Adjective Phrase Object Complement

Adjective Phrase Complement

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The following may be one of the most common ways of teaching Adjectives and Adjective phrases

On the same piece of paper, have students write words that describe them and their personality It helps if you require students to come up with a specific number of describing words For example, I require sophomores to use 30 words to describe themselves as this requires the students to really involve some higher order thinking skills and be creative to find words that they may not use every day

Also, allow students to decorate their shape and allow them to make their project as representative of their individuality as possible

Once students have satisfied your requirements, you should explain to them that those words that describe people, places, and things are called adjectives

Generally, after completing this project, students understand the differences between nouns and adjectives, which is the purpose of the teaching adjectives and nouns lesson plan But this project really lets students be creative, and in some cases, you will see that students have the opportunity to increase their vocabulary and use adjectives that they normally do not use

Also, students will learn new adjectives from each other as you may not allow students sitting at the same table to use a word more than once Teachers have the flexibility

to place their own requirements and limitations on this project

(Cited from British Council Methodology )

2.5 Some basic principles in Teaching Adjectives and Adjective phrases:

Preschoolers and Adjectives

Preschoolers use words to describe people, places, things, ideas, and activities every day Although explicit language and grammar instruction typically begins after preschool in elementary school, preschool aged students can begin to learn about the most basic parts of speech, or grammatical forms, including nouns, adjectives, and verbs This lesson plan outlines activities to teach preschool children that adjectives are words that describe nouns

Discussion and Prior Knowledge

The teacher can introduce the topic of adjectives to the preschool class by asking the students the following questions:

1 Do you know what an adjective is?

2 Do you know what it means to describe something?

Most preschoolers will probably answer no to the first question but should be able to answer the second question For example, the students might say that describing something

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means telling about it The students must have prior knowledge about the concept of description before continuing with the rest of the adjective lesson plan If the students cannot answer question two, then the teacher should review how to describe something

Reading

After the discussion introducing preschoolers to adjectives, the teacher can read one or two books about adjectives to the students Two excellent titles, both by Brian P Cleary, for younger students are:

 Hairy, Scary, Ordinary: What Is an Adjective?

 Quirky, Jerky, Extra Perky: More about Adjectives

Both books talk about adjectives as words that describe things, ideas, and living beings,

or, in other words, nouns The preschoolers will love the fun rhymes that are chock-full of silly adjectives such as "Adjectives are words like hairy, scary, cool, and ordinary." and

"They give us lots of great description, like tall, left-handed, young Egyptian." The illustrations of silly cats with squeaky dogs and hot pink shades with help the preschool aged children learn about adjectives by associating words with pictures

Adjective Sorting Activity

The Adjective Sorting, or "What Kind of Adjective Is It," activity helps preschoolers learn to categorize similar adjectives into categories The students will learn to sort known adjectives into three categories The materials needed for this preschool activity are:

1 Adjective photo flashcards

2 Three baskets

To play the Adjective Sorting game, the teacher should first place the three baskets on

a table at the front of the classroom and read the labels aloud to the students The teacher will then randomly choose cards from the deck of adjective flashcards and ask the students to identify the type of adjective For example, in the case of the sample cards, the teacher would ask, "Is it a color, size, or feeling." If the teacher chose the happy card, then the question would be, "Is happy a color, size, or feeling?" The preschoolers would then answer, "Happy

is a feeling." After the students correctly identify the type of adjective on the flashcard, the teacher will place the card in the corresponding basket

Silly Sentences Activity

The adjective flashcards should have both pictures and written words of preschool level vocabulary words Some printable sample flashcards that contain vocabulary words for colors, sizes, and feelings are available for download at Preschool Adjective Flashcards: Colors, Sizes, and Feelings The teacher should also label each of the three baskets For example, in the case of the sample adjective flashcards, label the baskets as color, size, and feeling

The Silly Sentences activity is another fun adjective activity that will help preschool aged students use adjectives to describe people, places, things, and other nouns The children will learn to think up appropriate (or not so appropriate) adjectives to insert into sentences The materials needed fro this preschool activity are:

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Chalkboard or dry erase board

1 Chalk or dry erase markers

To play the Silly Sentences activity, the teacher should first write a sentence on the board and include blanks in front of the nouns Some sample sentences are:

 The _ man ate the _ apple in the _ kitchen

 A _ car crashed into the _ tree on a _ morning

 My _ dog _ stole a _ toy from my _ brother

The teacher will then call on individual students to provide adjectives to fill in the blanks

to create silly sentences Preschoolers will love making and hearing silly sentences like "The purple man ate the yucky apple in the boring kitchen" and "My crazy dog stole a giant toy from my bad brother." Optional: The teacher can write the silly sentences the class comes up with on blank sheets of paper and have the preschool students draw pictures to illustrate the silly sentences

Assessment

At the end of the adjective lesson, the teacher should review what the preschool students learned by asking the following questions:

1 What is an adjective?

2 What does it mean to describe something?

3 Name some words that describe

4 What types of words are big, purple, and scared?

The preschool aged children should be able to answer all four questions completely after

reading the adjective books Hairy, Scary, Ordinary: What Is an Adjective? and Quirky, Jerky, Extra Perky: More about Adjectives by Brian P Cleary and after playing the Adjective

Sorting and Silly Sentences activities By learning about adjectives as words that describe nouns at an early age in preschool, children will be better prepared for later grammar and

language study in elementary school and beyond

in teaching adjectives and adjective phrases:

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EXERCISE 1 : Underline the adjectives and adjective phrases in the following sentences and then choose the appropriate letter A-H for each question if the adjective phrases have the function of:

A: Pre-modifier in noun phrases

B: Post-modifier in noun phrases

C: Post-modifier in prepositional phrases

D: The head of noun phrases

E: An exclamation

F: Subject complement

G: Object complement

H: Adjunct

Eg: Have you read anything interesting?

Answer: Have you read anything interesting?  B

1 Strange, she was surprised

2 I think they are doing evrything possible to protect the workers

3 A hard worker may well have a soft heart

4 The people present are waiting for the result of the present talks

5 Wonderful!

6 I find it difficult to do this exercise

7 He sat there as silent as if he were the dumb

8 What I would like to do is to go somewhere really quiet

9 It burnt the grass black

10 The men were eager to begin the climb and they rose at first night

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