About this activity
Twelve sentences built around adverbial clauses: We went inside because it started to rain. After the bell rang, we lined up. She sang while she washed the dishes. Although it was cold, we played outside. The set covers reason, time, condition and concession, and it deliberately mixes clause-first and clause-second order, because a student who only ever hears because at the end learns half the pattern.
How to use it in a session
Sort before you produce. Ask what each clause is telling you — when, why, or under what condition — and the conjunctions start to group themselves: after, before, when and until do time; because and since do reason. Then flip the sentences, moving the clause from the end to the front and back again, which is where students discover that the comma moves with it. Although and so are the two most students avoid, so spend the extra minutes there.
What to listen for
Listen for conjunction range. Most students at this level have because and and, and produce every complex sentence with one of them; the goal is not accuracy on because but the appearance of although, since and until in spontaneous speech. Watch for clause fragments, where the student produces Because it started to rain as a whole answer — that is a sign the subordinate clause is being treated as a sentence.
Carrying it home
Ask why questions that need a real clause, and then ask the student to say the whole sentence back. We stayed in because it rained is a better answer than because it rained, and the difference is what school will ask for in writing.
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- Third through fifth, where complex sentence use is expected in writing as well as speech.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all twelve sentences play with no account.
- My student only uses because. Is that a problem?
- It is the usual starting point. Target one new conjunction at a time — although tends to be the highest-value addition, because it carries a contrast nothing else in the student's set can express.