who is best and least friends?

Best Friend - Friend from Hell

The following exercise focuses on what students like best - least about friends. The exercise allows students to practice a number of areas: expressing opinions, comparatives and superlatives, descriptive adjectives and reported speech. The overall concept of the lesson can easily be transferred to other subject areas such as: holiday choices, choosing a school, perspective careers, etc.

Aim: Practice expressing opinions, reported speech

Activity: Choosing which qualities would make a best friend and which qualities would make an undesirable friend.

Level:Pre-intermediate to upper-intermediate.

Outline:

• Help students activate vocabulary by asking them for descriptive adjectives describing good friends and bad friends.


• Distribute worksheet to students and ask them to put the descriptive adjectives/phrases into the two categories (Best Friend - Undesirable Friend).


• Put students into pairs and ask them to give explanations for why they have chosen to put the various descriptions into one or the other of the categories.


• Ask students to pay careful attention to what their partner says and take notes, as they will be expected to report back to a new partner.


• Put students into new pairs and ask them to tell their new partner what their first partner has said.


• As a class, ask students about any surprises or differences of opinion they encountered during the discussions.


• Extend the lesson by a follow-up discussion on what makes a good friend.

Friends Step 1: Put the following adjectives/phrases into one of the two categories: Best Friend or Undesirable Friend

confident in his/her abilities

handsome or beautiful

trustworthy

outgoing

timid

punctual intelligent

fun-loving

rich or well off

artistic abilities

inquisitive mind

possess athletic abilities

well-traveled

free spirit

speaks English well

interested in the same things

interested in different things

from the same social background

from different social background

loves to tell stories

rather reserved

ambitious

plans for the future

happy with what he/she has

Best Friend / Undesirable Friend