Topic: Subordinate clause

A clause which is subordinate to some other part of the same sentence is a subordinate clause.

Sentences with 'if': Activity

If you're wearing red, raise your hand.

If you're wearing blue, stomp your feet.

If you're wearing velcro, scratch your head.

If you have a zipper on your clothes, scratch your ear.

If you're the tallest one, wiggle your nose.

Sentences with 'because'

In this activity, students practise composing sentences with the word because.

Goals

Identify the causal relationship that underlies use of because.
Compose some reasonable sentences using because.

Lesson Plan

The teacher explains that today, we will practise using the word because.

Sentences with 'because': Activity

I'm wearing wellies.

Why?

Because it's raining.

I'm wearing wellies

because

it's raining.

You're it.

Why?

Because I tagged you.

Y6 GPaS Test: Identify the subordinate clause

Find the subordinate clause in a range of examples

Identify the subordinate clauses in each of the following examples. Click on the words that comprise the subordinate clause to select or deselect them.

Y6 GPaS Test: Identify the relative clause

Identify the relative clause in each of the following examples. Click on the first and last word of the relative clause to select or deselect it.

Y6 GPaS Test: Subordinate clause?

Select whether the example sentence contains a subordinate clause or not.

Clauses: Relative clauses

Look at the highlighted clauses in these examples. What do they add to the meaning of the sentences?

Subordinate clauses in sentences

The Activity page appears in the menu entitled 'This Unit' in the upper right corner of this page. The slide in the Activity page can be displayed on a projector or smart board.

On the slide are several subordinate clauses, including finite and nonfinite clauses. Ask your students to compose 10 new sentences, each containing at least one of the subordinate clauses. Encourage them to use more than one subordinate clause in a sentence.

There are some strong grammatical patterns that guide us. For example, compare:

Clauses: Finite and nonfinite clauses

Look at each of these examples. Do they have present tense or past tense? Can we change the tense?

She feels sick.
I was watching TV.

In the first example, we have the present tense verb form feels. We could change to past tense: She felt sick.

In the second example, the verb phrase was watching contains the past tense form was. We could change to the present tense: I am watching TV.

Clauses: Further guidance for teachers

Modern grammatical descriptions of English differ in some ways from the accounts in traditional grammars. This can sometimes lead to confusion. Here we note a few important differences in relation to the analysis of clauses and sentences.

Englicious (C) Survey of English Usage, UCL, 2012-21 | Supported by the AHRC and EPSRC. | Privacy | Cookies