Nov 30
Best Ever Online Grammar Practice Activity for Relative Clauses
Communicative grammar practice
Practising relative clauses- an idea from Penny Ur
Relative clauses are a bit of a nightmare- the meaning isn't hard but the form is! Here's a great activity (with an online tweak) that takes very little prep and is guaranteed to give your learners meaningful practice they ENJOY!
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Video timeline
00:00 Introduction
01:18 What are Relative Clauses and why are they tricky?
02:52 The Activity
________________________________________
Video transcript
I was looking through some of my old resource books recently and came across this pearl from Penny Ur. It’s got so many brilliant activities in it and I’ve used lots of them over the years but it got me thinking about how these could be adapted so they work well online. Here’s one to start you off with – it’s to practice that nasty piece of English grammar: relative clauses.
I’m Jo Gakonga, I’m a teacher educator and I’ve been a CELTA trainer and assessor for 25 years. I’ve also got a website at elt-training.com where I’ve got lots of materials for teachers at all stages their career including two fantastic courses for you if you’re nervous about teaching grammar.
Grammar for Language Teachers will make sure you know all the nomenclature of grammar and how it fits together and…
Teaching Grammar Communicatively will make sure your learners don’t just KNOW grammar but enjoy USING it.
The links are below so check them out, but not before you’ve tried out this activity …
The target language here is defining relative clauses: those clauses that give essential information about the noun they follow.
He’s the man I love.
It’s the country which has the most beaches in the world.
The meaning of these clauses is pretty self evident and learners very rarely have problems understanding them. But the form- when they need to produce them- is pretty tricky…
He’s the man I love- yes.
He’s the man that I love- yes.
He’s the man who I love- yes.
It’s the country which has the most beaches- yes.
It’s the country that has the most beaches- yes.
It’s the country has the most beaches? NO.
It’s the country where has the most beaches? NO.
It’s the country where I live? Yes….
OMG… and if you’re not sure about the rules here, I’ve got a great course for you!
Let’s assume you do know the rules and you’ve presented them in a clear and communicative way to your learners. They’ll need some practice.
First, you set up a Google doc for each three learners. If you have 12 in the class, for example, you’ll need four Google docs.
On each doc, you’ll have a list of eight nouns. These should be level appropriate to your class but could include words you’ve taught in class recently: a country, a profession or job, a famous building, an item of furniture, something you find in a classroom, an animal, an abstract noun, a concrete noun, a famous dish, a fruit or vegetable, a school subject, a family member, a vehicle, a drink, a time of day, an illness, a body part, a time of life, a movie star.
Chat GPT will make lists for you. The prompt I used is below (bottom of the page).
Put each group into a BOR with a Google doc. You could set this up in the chat like this:
Group 1 – link to doc A
Group 2- Link to doc B
etc
Now, in the BORs, learners work together to write sentences with relative clauses to describe the nouns: There are rules. They have to include a who, a which, a that and an example where the relative pronoun is omitted:
This is a famous person who is still alive and has starred in many movies such as the remains of the day.
This is a place you can climb to the top of the world.
This is a triangle that swims.
Tell them to get as creative as they can. When they have written the sentence on the doc, they delete the word so they’re just left with the sentences. You can monitor and help by commenting on the different Google docs or by visiting the rooms.
When they’ve finished, you then ask groups to swap papers- Group 1 link to doc B etc…
In the same BOR, they try to guess what the noun is and write their group answer on the doc. Give them a time limit and then look at some of the funnier ones as a class or use anonymous examples for error correction and language upgrade.
It’s basically a pretty controlled practice activity, but it’s creative and fun and gives learners lots of exposure to relative pronouns.
Try it out and let me know how it goes in the comments below.
______________________________________________
Link to Grammar Practice Activities- Penny Ur
Link to Grammar for Language Teachers
Link to Teaching Grammar Communicatively
______________________________________________
Prompt for ChatGPT
I am teaching an English language class. The learners are B1 level. I need 4 lists with 8 nouns in each list. I would like to include a selection from the following in each list with the language graded appropriately to B1: a country, a profession or job, a famous building, an item of furniture, something you find in a classroom, an animal, an abstract noun, a concrete noun, a famous dish, a fruit or vegetable, a school subject, a relation, a vehicle, a drink, a time of day, an illness, a body part. Please write these as lists with the words only in a randomised order.
00:00 Introduction
01:18 What are Relative Clauses and why are they tricky?
02:52 The Activity
________________________________________
Video transcript
I was looking through some of my old resource books recently and came across this pearl from Penny Ur. It’s got so many brilliant activities in it and I’ve used lots of them over the years but it got me thinking about how these could be adapted so they work well online. Here’s one to start you off with – it’s to practice that nasty piece of English grammar: relative clauses.
I’m Jo Gakonga, I’m a teacher educator and I’ve been a CELTA trainer and assessor for 25 years. I’ve also got a website at elt-training.com where I’ve got lots of materials for teachers at all stages their career including two fantastic courses for you if you’re nervous about teaching grammar.
Grammar for Language Teachers will make sure you know all the nomenclature of grammar and how it fits together and…
Teaching Grammar Communicatively will make sure your learners don’t just KNOW grammar but enjoy USING it.
The links are below so check them out, but not before you’ve tried out this activity …
The target language here is defining relative clauses: those clauses that give essential information about the noun they follow.
He’s the man I love.
It’s the country which has the most beaches in the world.
The meaning of these clauses is pretty self evident and learners very rarely have problems understanding them. But the form- when they need to produce them- is pretty tricky…
He’s the man I love- yes.
He’s the man that I love- yes.
He’s the man who I love- yes.
It’s the country which has the most beaches- yes.
It’s the country that has the most beaches- yes.
It’s the country has the most beaches? NO.
It’s the country where has the most beaches? NO.
It’s the country where I live? Yes….
OMG… and if you’re not sure about the rules here, I’ve got a great course for you!
Let’s assume you do know the rules and you’ve presented them in a clear and communicative way to your learners. They’ll need some practice.
First, you set up a Google doc for each three learners. If you have 12 in the class, for example, you’ll need four Google docs.
On each doc, you’ll have a list of eight nouns. These should be level appropriate to your class but could include words you’ve taught in class recently: a country, a profession or job, a famous building, an item of furniture, something you find in a classroom, an animal, an abstract noun, a concrete noun, a famous dish, a fruit or vegetable, a school subject, a family member, a vehicle, a drink, a time of day, an illness, a body part, a time of life, a movie star.
Chat GPT will make lists for you. The prompt I used is below (bottom of the page).
Put each group into a BOR with a Google doc. You could set this up in the chat like this:
Group 1 – link to doc A
Group 2- Link to doc B
etc
Now, in the BORs, learners work together to write sentences with relative clauses to describe the nouns: There are rules. They have to include a who, a which, a that and an example where the relative pronoun is omitted:
This is a famous person who is still alive and has starred in many movies such as the remains of the day.
This is a place you can climb to the top of the world.
This is a triangle that swims.
Tell them to get as creative as they can. When they have written the sentence on the doc, they delete the word so they’re just left with the sentences. You can monitor and help by commenting on the different Google docs or by visiting the rooms.
When they’ve finished, you then ask groups to swap papers- Group 1 link to doc B etc…
In the same BOR, they try to guess what the noun is and write their group answer on the doc. Give them a time limit and then look at some of the funnier ones as a class or use anonymous examples for error correction and language upgrade.
It’s basically a pretty controlled practice activity, but it’s creative and fun and gives learners lots of exposure to relative pronouns.
Try it out and let me know how it goes in the comments below.
______________________________________________
Link to Grammar Practice Activities- Penny Ur
Link to Grammar for Language Teachers
Link to Teaching Grammar Communicatively
______________________________________________
Prompt for ChatGPT
I am teaching an English language class. The learners are B1 level. I need 4 lists with 8 nouns in each list. I would like to include a selection from the following in each list with the language graded appropriately to B1: a country, a profession or job, a famous building, an item of furniture, something you find in a classroom, an animal, an abstract noun, a concrete noun, a famous dish, a fruit or vegetable, a school subject, a relation, a vehicle, a drink, a time of day, an illness, a body part. Please write these as lists with the words only in a randomised order.
Write your awesome label here.
THANK YOU!
Your download has been sent to your email inbox.
If you don't see it, please check your Junk or Promotion folders and add jo.gakonga@elt-training.com to your contacts.
If you don't see it, please check your Junk or Promotion folders and add jo.gakonga@elt-training.com to your contacts.
Write your awesome label here.
THANK YOU!
Your download has been sent to your email inbox.
If you don't see it, please check your Junk or Promotion folders and add jo.gakonga@elt-training.com to your contacts.
If you don't see it, please check your Junk or Promotion folders and add jo.gakonga@elt-training.com to your contacts.
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