How to teach the language of likes and dislikes
As can be seen from numerous online forum posts, chat page conversations and reviews, people love talking about their loves and hates. Talking about likes and dislikes is also a great way of bonding, something that is just as important for classroom dynamics as it is for dating.
Talking about likes and dislikes is something you can usefully start very early in language learning because the word “like” is easily translatable and even very young and very low level students can get a lot out of really communicating by asking and answering “What’s your favourite animal/ colour/ food?”. For higher level students there is a whole range of language such as “absolutely detest”, and students explaining why they feel that way adds freer speaking to any topic you decide to tackle with this language point.
Because you can talk about likes and dislikes of almost any kind (food, art, music, etc), this language point can be tied to almost any topic – and that’s a good thing because students usually pick the key phrases up extremely quickly and so need some vocabulary to make time spent on this point worthwhile. You should also think about quickly expanding the phrases you present and practise beyond “I like” and “I don’t like”.
Phrases I would present, in approximate order, include:
- I like…
- I don’t like…
- Do you like…? Yes, I do/ No, I don’t
- My favourite… is…
- What’s your favourite…?
- What kind of… do you like?
- I really like…
- I quite like…
- I love…
- I hate…
- … is okay.
- How do you feel about…?
- I really don’t like…/ I don’t really like…
- I’d like… (contrasted with “I like”)
- … is one of my favourite…
- I like… which…
- like to + verb (the British meaning of “think that I should”)
- I detest…/ I adore…
- I absolutely detest/ adore…
- My least favourite… is…
- What I (most) like about… is…
- I don’t mind…
- I can’t get enough…
- I used to like… but…
- I loathe…
- I’m fond of…
- I’ve always hated…
- I have mixed feelings about…
- I don’t have any strong feelings about…
I tend to go up to “… is okay” even with false beginner classes, if only because real communication is difficult without having that range of language to choose from.
Problems students have with this language include:
- Using the short answer “Yes, I like” rather than “Yes, I do” (for some reason much more so than with similar wrong forms like “Yes, I make” and “Yes, I take”)
- Confusing “My favourite… is…” and “I like… a lot”
- Using “dislike” where “don’t like” would be more suitable
- Collocations such as “I absolutely like…”
- Confusing “I really don’t like…” and “I don’t really like…”
- “My most favourite…” (also a common native speaker mistake)
- “It likes me” for Spanish speakers
- “I don’t quite like…” for “I don’t really like…” or “… is okay”
- Putting the wrong form after the verb, e.g. “I like cat” and “I like a cat”
Presenting the language of likes and dislikes
Using smiley faces to represent liking and downturned mouths to represent disliking is an almost universal way of presenting this point, which is strange because it simply doesn’t work. A disgusted face (tongue sticking out of wiggly mouth) works slightly better with the topic of food, but it is easily confused with a tongue licking your lips for “yummy”. More seriously, there is no way for students to tell from a face if it means “I like”, “I really like” or “I love”, and one or two students may imagine it just means “… makes me happy”. It is also almost impossible to come up with situations where none of that other language is a possible interpretation from the context.
Given how simple this language is and how common it is in other languages, by far the best solution is simply to translate “I like…” (or confirm students’ correct translations) and get on with the rest of the lesson. I say this as someone who almost never uses translation, but who has seen other teachers tie themselves in knots over something that can be dealt with in seconds.
Once the key meaning of “like” is out of the way, you can easily present expressions like “quite like” and “really like” that have milder or more extreme meanings by putting them on a scale, using faces with larger and larger smiles etc at this stage if you really want to. Having the phrases in context can help students do this for themselves, e.g.
“I like ice cream”
“Only like it? I love it! But I don’t like vanilla ice cream”
“Me neither. In fact, I hate it!”
An even bigger clue for students is shown by the exclamation marks above, with the teacher saying the phrases with suitable intonation and stress usually being enough for students to rank the phrases by how strong or weak they are – especially if that is reinforced with body language such as facial expressions. The class can then move onto practice of suitable pronunciation such as asking students to just make noises to represent their feelings and their partners guessing what phrase would be most match that.
I was once very proud of my ability to explain the difference between “I like + verb + ing” and “I like to + verb” in British English to even false beginner students (first forced on me by a low level textbook that included it), but I now look back on that as perhaps the biggest waste of classroom time ever. If you do want to do so, perhaps with higher level classes, the classic way is to ask students whether “I like to go to the dentist twice a year” can possibly mean I enjoy doing so. The +ing form also being used after the verb “enjoy” is another clue to the difference between the two forms.
You’ll also need to decide whether you want to present “like + countable + s/ uncountable”, just correct mistakes with nouns, or entirely leave that grammar point until later.