Order of Adjectives

The order of adjectives in English is important! You can't just put them haphazardly in any order that you like. There are guidelines governing these sorts of things. It just wouldn't be right to talk about your Italian, beautiful, new sports car, or your Alpine, green, sleeping, down bag. But you can certainly tell others about your beautiful, new, sports car and your green, down, Alpine, sleeping bag.

This is a grammar lesson plan to guide your students through the complexities of ordering adjectives, with some fun practice activities thrown in so that they don't forget what to say in the future. At the end of this page you will find a free download of this lesson to print off and use in your next class.

Learn some new Adjectives

Here is a table with some basic adjectives and their rather more sophisticated synonyms.

ugly (things)	drab, hideous, unsightly, frightful, plain, awful
beautiful (things)	lovely, magnificent, marvelous, stunning, exquisite
happy	cheerful, delighted, upbeat, chipper, jolly
unhappy	dejected, despondent, dismal, downcast, bleak
thin (nice)	petite, slender, slight, slim
thin (not nice)	scrawny, emaciated, haggard, skinny
fat (nice)	well-built, stocky, plump, chubby
fat (not nice)	flabby, obese
big	colossal, humongous, immense, mammoth, massive
small	puny, scrawny, minuscule, tiny, diminutive
few	sparse, meager, paltry, scarce
many	abundant, substantial, numerous, bountiful, ample

Cut up the table, and get the students to match the adjectives on the left with their synonyms on the right. Once they have done this, explain to the students the slight differences in meaning, where necessary (e.g. flabby means to have lots of loose fat, whereas obese means to be very overweight).

After they have matched the synonyms, get the students to choose one word that is new for them from each row, and use it to describe something, explaining their reasoning e.g.:

My mother is so cheerful, because she always has a smile on her face, and a kind word to say.

My sister is very skinny because she doesn’t eat enough.

Order of Adjectives

Tell the students that they are going to be learning about the order of adjectives and placing them in the correct sequence. Try to elicit the correct order from them (i.e. find out if any students have learnt this in the past and can remember it).

To help them along, give them the following sentence (or make up your own):

Yesterday I bought a beautiful, small, new, pink, French, plastic, hair brush.

There's a great, big, hairy, black spider in my bedroom!

beautiful/great – opinion

small/big/hairy – appearance

new – age

pink/black – colour

French – origin

plastic – material

hair – purpose

So the correct order of adjectives is:

Opinion
Appearance (size, shape, condition)
Age
Colour
Origin
Material
Purpose

Controlled Practice

Get the students to place the following descriptions in the correct order (the answers are in the downloadable lesson plan at the end of this page):

pink, silly, Hello Kitty ball
scratch-proof, new, sleek iPad
3-week old, rotten, smelly pear
intelligent, young, beautiful French woman
South African, hand-made, fascinating rug
golden, ancient, tiny coin
vintage, Italian, sports, incredible car
flatscreen, brand new, HD TV
busy, high-level, American executive
delicious, mocca, frothy coffee

Complete the Table with the correct Order of Adjectives

Get the students to compete the table, by adding more adjectives to each category:

Opinion	Appearance	Age	Colour	Origin	Material
ridiculous	rectangular	antiquated	striped	beach	plastic
beautiful	big	new	red	Spanish	wooden

Practise

Each student needs to choose one item/noun. They can choose anything they like, and then they need to choose 4 adjectives from different columns to describe their noun (or add some extra if they can't find any appropriate ones). On the board, each student needs to take a turn drawing their noun, and writing down the four adjectives in random order. The other students need to write down the adjectives in their correct order. Get feedback as you go along to make sure the students have the correct order.

Memorizing a Template

From the previous exercise, the students should all have a sentence with a noun and 4 adjectves, with the adjectives being in an order agreed upon by the class. For homework they need to draw a lovely picture of their item, and memorize their sentence as a template for future reference for ordering adjectives. During the next class, go through their sentences (and get them to show their picture) again, and check that they have memorized them.

More Practice

Cut out some pictures from magazines, so that the students each have 2 to 3 pictures (or more for smaller classes). The students are going to make up a story using their pictures. The first student starts with the story on the basis of one of their pictures. They need to include at least 3 consecutive adjectives in their section of the story. The second student continues the story using their picture and at least 3 consecutive adjectives. Continue until all the pictures have been used.