Relative Clauses
Upper Intermediate level
Description
Materials
Main Aims
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To provide clarification, review and practice of defining, non-defining and reduced relative clauses in the context of two book reviews
Subsidiary Aims
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To provide reading for specific information practice using a text about two book reviews in the context of magical novels
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To provide fluency speaking practice in a conversation in the context of the stories they have recreated
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To provide students with a freer writing activity using relative clauses
Procedure (39-49 minutes)
- Put two family trees on the board and asks Ss if they know about these families. - Ss discuss in pairs who these families and people can be or where they can ben taken from. - Ask a few Ss their ideas and explain that these are characters from two novels, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. - Ask Ss if they read the novels and if so what they think about them.
- Put Ss into two and give one half of them a review of One Hundred Years of Solitute and the other half a review of The House of the Spirits. - Ss read their texts and answer the questions next to them: 1. Where is the story set? 2. Which family is the novel about? 3. How many generations of this family are in the novel? 4. What ‘magical’ things happen in the novel? 5. How are the author’s grandparents connected to the novel? - Regroup Ss and they ask and answer the questions about their partner's review. - Ss decide what the two novels have in common. - Get WCFB.
- Focus Ss's attention on the relative clauses in blue and pink in the reviews. - Divide the board into two and write defining relative clauses and non-defining relative clauses on the WB. - Ask Ss match these with the colored sentences, blue or pink. - Ss check their answers in pairs. - Get WCFB.
- Give Ss the guided discovery material. - Ss do the exercise in pairs. - Write example sentences on the WB. - Give Ss answer key. - Ask CCQs and clarify the rules further. - Put Ss into groups of 4 and ask them to read the text again and find two defining, two non-defining relative clause sentences which are not already in pink or blue. The first group who gives the correct sentences wins.
- Give Ss the sentences and ask them join these sentences using defining, non-defining or reduced relative clauses. - Ss work in pairs and joins the sentences. - Ss check their answers with other pairs. - Provide answer key. - Ask which sentences contain defining relative clauses, non-defining relative clauses and reduced relative clauses.
- Put students into groups of 4-5 and present them 4 prompts to start a story. - Ss work in groups and choose one of the prompts. - Give each group of Ss post-its and a blank A4 paper. - Each student in the group, in turns, writes a sentence with a relative clause on a post-it and stick it on the paper to write a group story. - When they finish writing they put their stories on the board for other groups to read and they choose the best story. - Check the sentences on the board and give delayed correction or focus on good language.