Teaching order of adjectives

[globi]

I hesitate to teach the order of adjectives in front of a noun since I myself, when confronted with this during my years as an ESL student, did not see the point in learning such a long sequence of categories by heart. If you’re a native speaker, the hierarchy is ingrained in you. Only people trying to learn English actually need to know the rule - or don't they? Do you teach it? If yes, how?

 

[emsr2d2]

I teach it. It's hard for students to memorise but that's really the only way. I tend to give them one sentence containing several consecutive adjectives and get them to memorise that one sentence. When they look at that sentence, they can see which category (size, colour etc) each adjective fits into. They already know the adjectives are in the traditional order so they can use that sentence as the base for others.

 

[jutfrank]

I don't think it's particularly worth teaching. Of the hundreds of thousands of errors I've corrected in my life, how many have been related to adjective order? Very few.