Bigger, faster, stronger

Objective & content

By the end, A2- pupils can compare two things and defend a guess: I think the elephant is heavier than the car. The bank is 25 projectable slides: a how-to slide with an example, then 12 questions, each on two slides: the two pictures and the question, then the answer with a simple fact (An elephant weighs about 5,000 kg. A car weighs about 1,500 kg.).

Pedagogical guide

Use it as a five-minute warm-up for speaking in pairs. Some answers are a surprise (a house is taller than a giraffe, an apple is heavier than a mouse, a parrot lives longer than a dog), so pupils argue before they check, and the comparative comes with a real opinion behind it. The facts use rounded, everyday numbers. The questions are interchangeable: three or four per lesson.

Suggested procedure

1. (1 min) Show the how-to slide and read the example together.
2. (3 min) Show a question and read it together. Pupils guess with a partner, then vote with their hands. Show the answer slide and read the fact: who guessed right?
3. (1 min) At the end, pupils say the biggest, the fastest and the heaviest thing they saw.

Adaptations

• [S] Write I think the ... is ...er than the ... on the board, with the adjective of the question underlined.
• [A] Pupils write a new question for the class, with two pictures they can draw or name.

Materials & prerequisites

A projector or screen; the bank is a 16:9 PDF, one slide per page, with no printing needed. Assumes short comparatives (bigger, faster) and numbers up to a thousand.