About this activity
Twelve cleft sentences: It is Sam who won the race. It was the dog that barked all night. It was Maria who found the keys. It was on Friday that we left. It is science that I like best. A cleft splits one clause into two in order to put emphasis somewhere specific, and it is the construction students meet constantly in reading and almost never produce.
How to use it in a session
Start from the plain sentence and transform it. Sam won the race becomes It is Sam who won the race, and doing the conversion in that direction makes the point of the structure obvious — you are choosing what to emphasise. Then reverse it: give the cleft and ask for the plain version, which checks comprehension. Ask what each one is emphasising, because a student who cannot say why you would use it will not use it. Twelve minutes covers the set with transformations.
What to listen for
Listen for who against that. Clefts on people take who and clefts on things take that, and students who have never had it explained tend to use one for everything. Watch for the tense in the frame — it is against it was — which students often leave at the default rather than matching to the sentence. Notice whether the emphasis is understood: asking who won the race after It was Maria who found the keys is a good check.
Carrying it home
Clefts show up in ordinary insistence — it was me who did it. Pointing one out when it happens naturally in conversation does more than practice sentences, because the emphasis is real.
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- Fifth through eighth, where complex syntax in reading outstrips what students produce in speech and writing.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all twelve sentences play with no login.
- Why teach a structure students rarely say?
- Because they read it constantly. Comprehension of a cleft depends on recognising that the emphasised element has been moved, and producing a few is the fastest way to make that structure visible.