Pedagogical Grammar

Prof. Penny Ur
RELATIVE CLAUSES

Irit Poria and Tamara Bourdan

June 15th, 2011
 Task – Based Instruction:

A. Task: Communicative Activity

• I like people who are loyal. Please tell me about
the people that you like:
• I like people who…
Now, let’s talk about some other “likes” and “dislikes”:
• I dislike people who …
• I like days when …
• I dislike places where …
• I dislike films which …
B. Eliciting (implicit) knowledge from pupils, and
presenting the new grammatical topic (explicit
instruction):

• What do all the sentences have in common?

(Possible answer: All sentences have “wh words”)
The “wh words” in the sentences are called
Relative Pronouns (who, which, whose, whom
that), or Relative Adverbs (where, when,
why).
They refer back to nouns/noun phrases:
Who(m) and whose refer back to human-
beings. Which refers back to animals, plants
and things. That can refer back to both living
and non-living things. Where refers back to
places, when- to times and why usually
explains a reason of something.
• What comes after the Relative Pronoun/
Adverb?
• (Possible answer: Some information about the noun
comes before the pronoun.)

• The Relative Pronoun/ Adverb and the information

that follows it are called a Relative Clause.
Sometimes the Relative Clause presents some
additional information about the noun it describes.
Example: John Lennon, who(m) I admire, was
assassinated by a psychopath.
Sometimes the information in the Relative Clause is
crucial to the understanding of the sentence,
because it defines the head noun. Therefore, this
type is more common.
Example: I am wearing the necklace which my husband
bought me.
The underlined R.C. describes/defines the head noun
and is necessary in order to understand the
sentence. Without the relative clause nobody knows
which necklace the speaker is talking about.
We will focus on this type of R.C.
 C. Practice:
a. Traditional (controlled, mechanical) practice:
Procedure: Pupils fill in suitable Relative Pronouns/
Adverbs:
1. The man ___________ you told me about flew to Rome.
2. The city __________ I live is very beautiful.
3. The present ___________ you gave me was amazing.
4. All the people _________ watched the play loved it.
5. The reason __________ I like Dan is his pleasant behavior.
6. The child _________ toy you broke is crying.
7. I will never forget the day _________ we first met.
8. The monster _________ we saw in the movie frightened us.
b. Less controlled practice:
Procedure: Pupils combine the pairs of sentences into
one sentence using Relative Pronouns/Adverbs:

1. The movie was about the holocaust. It made Ann cry.

2. The man is very talented. He is my hair stylist.
3. I would like to read a book. The critics praised it.
4. The woman is so elegant. Her dress is blue and white.
5. I love to swim in places. It is not too crowded there.
6. Do you remember the time? The program starts then.
7. The car was driven by Jim. It won the race.
8. Everybody loves the teacher. She is talking to the principal.
D. Production: using relative clauses in a
communicative activity.
1. Procedure: There is a list of nouns on the board,
and students in pairs or groups (for interaction)
suggest definitions for each of them, using Relative
Pronouns. In the end, the teacher asks them to read
their “products” – their definitions.

Example: A doctor is someone who treats patients.

List: dolphin, teacher, table, pupil, nurse, home, friend,

dog, lion, 7 in the morning, book, tea, homework,
night, Tel-Aviv, pen, mother, school.
2. (Optional) Write a quiz / questionnaire for your
classmates:

Procedure: Students have to write definitions to ten

items, using Relative Clauses. Beside each definition
they will leave a dotted line where an answer will be
filled in.

Example,
A person whose main job is to bake cakes: …………..

The teacher collects their “products”- quizzes, to check

and correct. Then, in the next lesson the students do
them, either in writing, or orally. Obviously, no one
gets the quiz he composed.
 The Underlying Theory
Our underlying theory was Task-Based Instruction
(Skehan):
Our learners were given a communicative task, with the
focus on meaning, which was supposed to lead to
acquisition. We used implicit teaching. But, that is
not enough.
In order to achieve complete acquisition, we added
explicit instruction, which was followed by practice.
After practicing, students were required to apply the
new knowledge in communicative tasks- production.
To sum up, our underlying theory was Task-
Based Instruction. It was followed by PPP,
because implicit instruction is not enough.
Practice is needed to progress from declarative
knowledge to production and automaticity.
Bibliography:

• Crystal, D. (2004). Making sense of grammar.

Pearson-Longman.232-238.
• Skehan, P. (1997). A Cognitive Approach to
Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
• Ur, P. (1988). Grammar Practice Activities.
Cambridge University Press. 268-270.