Quantifiers: ESL lesson plans and exercises
Levels A1 to B2 10 lesson plans · 3 drill lessons Exercises that check themselves
Quantifiers are the words before a noun that say how many or how much: some lanterns, a little salt, not many people, none of the users. This page gathers 10 ready-made quantifier lessons from the edio.ai library, levels A1 to B2, in American English. Try exercises from them, see each rule in its lesson's grammar scheme, and find the right lesson for your class in the list by level. The lessons are interactive, and their drills on some, any, much and every check themselves.
Quantifiers lesson plans and drills
10 lesson plans and 3 drill lessons, A1 to B2. Lesson plans are whole lessons with reading, listening and speaking; drill lessons are 45 to 46 self-checking exercises with no new words.
A1Lesson planEnglish A1.2Come to our Lunar New Year party!
A1DrillsGrammar Practice · A1Countable and uncountable nouns: some, any, how much?
A2Lesson planEnglish A2.1Cooking for twenty on Thanksgiving
A2Lesson planEnglish A2.1Everybody cleans up!
A2DrillsGrammar Practice · A2Much, many, a few, a little: how much do we need?
B1Lesson planEnglish B1.1A year's trash in one jar?
B1Lesson planEnglish B1.1No food in the trash!
B1Lesson planEnglish B1.1A farm in the middle of Detroit
B1Lesson planEnglish B1.1A trash collector with googly eyes
B1Lesson planEnglish for IT B1The email that couldn't go 500 miles
B1DrillsGrammar Practice · B1All, both, either, neither, none: two or a whole group?
B2Lesson planEnglish B2.1Can preschoolers save a language?
B2Lesson planEnglish B2.2A house over a waterfall
Try the quantifiers exercises
One exercise from each of 6 lessons. These are the same exercises your students do in edio.
Quantifiers explained
Quantifiers come before a noun to show its quantity: some, any, a few, a little, much, many, a lot of, most, all, none of. The right one depends on whether the noun is countable, and often on the sentence too: positive, negative or a question.
Some and any: positives, negatives, questions
Some goes in positive sentences and in requests (Can I have some dumplings, please?), any after don't or doesn't and in Do…? questions (Do we have any drums?). In this A1 lesson, both come with plural nouns.
| Sentence | some / any | Example |
|---|---|---|
| ✓ yes | some | We have some lanterns. |
| ✗ no: don't / doesn't | any | We don't have any balloons. |
| ? question: Do…? | any | Do we have any red envelopes? |
| asking for things: Can I…? / Can you…? | some | Can I have some dumplings, please? |
From the lesson Come to our Lunar New Year party! (English A1.2)
A few eggs, a little salt, a lot of turkey
A few means a small number and goes with countable nouns (a few guests); a little means a small amount of something uncountable (a little gravy). For big numbers and amounts, a lot of and lots of fit both kinds.
Which word with which food?
| Word | Countable: eggs, guests | Uncountable: salt, gravy |
|---|---|---|
| a few (a small number) | ✓ a few eggs | ✗ |
| a little (a small amount) | ✗ | ✓ a little salt |
| a lot of / lots of (a big number or amount) | ✓ a lot of guests | ✓ lots of gravy |
| some (not an exact number or amount) | ✓ some potatoes | ✓ some butter |
Small or big?
Small 🤏
- a few eggs, a few guests
- a little butter, a little gravy
Big 🙌
- a lot of eggs, lots of guests
- a lot of butter, lots of gravy
From the lesson Cooking for twenty on Thanksgiving (English A2.1)
How many bags? How much trash?
Many and much are at home in questions and negatives, as in How many bags did you fill? and There wasn't much time. In a positive sentence, a lot of is the usual choice for both: We filled a lot of bags.
| Sentence | many: you can count it | much: you can't count it |
|---|---|---|
| Question ❓ | How many bags did you fill? | How much trash did you pick up? |
| Negative ✗ | We didn't have many gloves. | There wasn't much time. |
| Positive ✓ | We filled a lot of bags. | We picked up a lot of trash. |
From the lesson Everybody cleans up! (English A2.1)
From no users to all of the data
The B1 table lines up the whole scale, from zero to 100%, for countable and uncountable nouns side by side. Without a, few and little mean not enough (little feedback), and a drop is fewer users but less traffic.
| Meaning | Countable: users, errors | Uncountable: data, traffic |
|---|---|---|
| zero | no users, none of the users | no data, none of the data |
| a small number or amount | a few errors | a little traffic |
| not enough (negative) | few users, not many users | little feedback, not much feedback |
| a large number or amount | a lot of requests, many requests | a lot of traffic; much traffic in ? and − |
| less than before | fewer users | less traffic |
| an unknown number or amount | some users (+), any users (? and −) | some data (+), any data (? and −) |
| the biggest part | most users, most of the users | most data, most of the data |
| 100% | all users, all of the users | all data, all of the data |
From the lesson The email that couldn't go 500 miles (English for IT B1)
Every, each, all, none of and no
Every and each take a singular noun (Every request fails), all a plural one (All requests fail). None of needs the, our or my before its noun, while no goes straight in front: We have no data.
| Word | Pattern | Example |
|---|---|---|
| every | every + singular noun + singular verb | Every request fails. |
| each | each + singular noun (one by one) | Each manager gets an email. |
| all | all + plural noun + plural verb | All requests fail. |
| none of | none of the / our / my + plural or uncountable noun | None of the airport managers get the emails. |
| no | no + noun (= not any) | No money is affected. We have no data. |
From the lesson The email that couldn't go 500 miles (English for IT B1)
Questions about quantifiers
What are quantifiers in English?
Are there interactive quantifiers exercises?
When do you use some and any?
What's the difference between a few and a little?
When do you use much, many and a lot of?
What's the difference between few and a few?
Is it every user or all users?
How do I teach quantifiers to ESL students?
What are good activities for teaching quantifiers?
Can I use these lessons with a private student?
More English grammar
Lessons for every grammar point, from the verb to be to reported speech. All grammar points