Materials
- Worksheet (one adjective per group)
- Dictionaries - preferably one Japanese to English and one English to Japanese per group
- Color pencils - one color per group, but this one isn't necessary
How to Play
- Review all the grammar points if necessary.
- Split the class into groups of 3 or 4 and give each group one adjective half sheet of paper, the two dictionaries, and if you have them, one color pencil.
- The group has 2 minutes to think of the best sentence they can for that adjective. Once they thought of one, have them write "(A) is the ~est (or the most ~) of all."
- After that, have the groups pass their papers around. Now, each group has 1 minute and 30 seconds to beat the sentence that the previous group wrote for their adjective. This time, their sentence should be "(B) is ~er (or more ~) than (A)."
- If the students can't think of a better sentence to write, they can instead match it by using "as ~ as." It's important to have the English to Japanese dictionaries so that the students can look up whatever thing the previous group used in their sentence.
- Once the papers get back to their original group, you can either collect them right there, or you can give the groups one last chance of 1 minute to write a sentence for that adjective.
- Collect all the papers and have the groups take turns reading their sentences. The colors should make it easy to track which groups were able to write sentences. If the students used a word that they obviously found in the dictionary, ask them what the word is in Japanese. This checks their own comprehension of what they wrote, makes sure the JTE understands what was written, and should hopefully allow the class to follow along too. You and the JTE are judges, so if a sentence doesn't actually beat a previous one, make sure you say so.
- The best sentence for each adjective gets their team 5 points. Second place gets 4, and third place 3. In the case of a tie using "as ~ as," give each group 4 points and the third place team 3 points.
Other Notes
- Encourage your students to be creative with their sentences. This is what the dictionaries are for. I had students who wrote "liquid nitrogen" with their "cold" answer. It was very surprising to say the least.
- If the students make a sentence like "Love is bigger than the universe," then you can either be the judge of who won, or you can put it up to a class vote. Either way, I would give points for creativity.
- Feel free to add more adjectives, but be careful of subjective adjectives. "Impressive," "exciting," "delicious," etc. won't work for this type of activity.
- Just in case, you might want to do a quick run think through of each adjective yourself. Think of the best thing for each adjective so that you're prepared for what kind of answers the students might think of.
- I wouldn't worry about having perfect sentences. Obviously, if their grammar is terrible you might deduct points from their group, but as long as it's not too terrible, I wouldn't be too strict. This activity is meant to be more creative than strict.
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