Conversation Activity Best Friends and Worst Friends

The following exercise focuses on what students like best and 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. Activity Practice expressing opinions and reported speech. Choosing which qualities would make a best friend and which qualities would make an undesirable friend. Best Friend — Friend from Hell: 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. Exercise Instruction Put the following adjectives/phrases into one of the two categories: best friend or undesirable friend.  Take notes on the preferences of your partner. confident in his/her abilitieshandsome or beautifultrustworthyoutgoingtimidpunctual intelligentfun-lovingrich or well offartistic abilitiesinquisitive mindpossess athletic abilitieswell-traveledcreativefree spiritspeaks English wellinterested in the same thingsinterested in different thingsfrom the same social backgroundfrom a different social backgroundloves to tell storiesrather reservedambitiousplans for the futurehappy with what he/she has