Complex Sentences: Lesson 7

Goal: make the criterion concrete before any grammar, so the rest of the lesson has a reason to exist.

Ask everyone to write one sentence about their last holiday. Take three onto the board exactly as written, errors and all. Then count the verbs in each one aloud with the room.

Put the band 6 / 7 / 8 descriptors up (they are in the student primer) and read band 7 twice: a variety of complex structures, frequent error-free sentences. Ask what it does notsay. Someone will get to “long”.

I went to Baku and I saw the old city and we ate fish and
it was very nice and then we came back.          — 26 words, band 5 range

Although we only had two days, we saw the old city.
                                                  — 10 words, band 7 range

Finish with the definition, and leave it on the board for the whole lesson: a complex sentence is one independent clause plus at least one dependent clause.

Goal: a reliable test they can run on any sentence, including their own.

Teach the count: find the verbs, find the subject of each, and you have the clauses. Then the three types, in this order (simple, compound, complex), with the warning that and · but · or · so produce a compound sentence, not a complex one, however long it gets.

Do the read-aloud test for dependence. Read “Although it was raining” and stop. Let the silence sit. Ask what is missing. That feeling, the sentence not being finished, is the whole of the fragment error in Stage 9.

Then Worksheet 1. Individually first, then pairs to compare before you take answers. Spend the feedback time on Q3, Q5, Q9 and Q10, the compound ones, because that is where the misconception lives.

Goal: the core move of the lesson. Start from the relationship between two facts, and let the joiner follow. Build this by discovery. Do not read the table out.

Put two flat facts on the board and nothing else:

It was raining.   We went out.

Ask the room to join them into one sentence. Collect everything. You will get Although it was raining, we went out, then We went out although it was raining, then Even though…. Write all of them up. Ask: has the meaning changed? (No.) Has the sentence changed? (Yes.) That is variety, and it costs nothing.

Now the comma, discovered from the board rather than stated: ask where the comma is in each version and why one has none.

Although it was raining, we went out.     ← dependent first  → comma
We went out although it was raining.      ← independent first → no comma

Only now build the meanings table with them (time, reason, contrast, condition, purpose/result), taking joiners from the room and sorting them into columns as they are offered.

Then Worksheet 2. Every gap names the meaning wanted, so several joiners are right, so take alternatives and put them on the board. Finish the stage by asking three students to say one of their answers with the clauses the other way round.

Goal: one contrast structure they already reach for and almost always break. Short stage, single rule, immediate practice.

Do not start with the words. Put these two on the board and ask the room which one is wrong. They will hear it before they can explain it.

Although the weather was bad, we went out.
Despite the weather was bad, we went out.

Then get the rule out of them by asking what comes aftereach word. “The weather was bad” is a clause, subject and verb, and despite cannot take one. Board the test as a question, not a rule, because that is the form they need in the exam: what follows the gap?

although / though / even though  +  SUBJECT + VERB
despite / in spite of            +  NOUN or -ING

escape route:  Despite THE FACT THAT prices rose, demand stayed the same.

Then Worksheet 3: eight items, four of each, two minutes. Take feedback by asking not “what did you write?” but “what comes after the gap?” Q5 is the one to dwell on: the fact that turns a clause into a noun phrase, which is why despite becomes legal there.

Warn them off overuse. Despite the fact thatis correct and it is also five words doing one word's work: fine once in an essay, tiresome three times.

Goal: the second big source of complex sentences, and the punctuation decision that carries real meaning.

Do not open with a list of pronouns and what each one is “for”. That list is what produces ✗ the city where I visited, because it makes the choice feel like vocabulary. Teach it as joining two sentences and swapping one pronoun, which makes the choice mechanical and checkable.

Put two sentences on the board where the second refers back to the first with a pronoun. Ask which word points backwards. Then swap it and move it to the front of its clause, in front of the room, one word at a time.

The teacher has retired.  +  HE taught me French.
   → The teacher WHO taught me French has retired.

The village has no school.  +  My grandparents live THERE.
   → The village WHERE my grandparents live has no school.

The village has no school.  +  My grandparents love IT.
   → The village WHICH my grandparents love has no school.

      he/she/they → who        him/her/them → whom
      it          → which      there        → where
      then        → when       his/her/their→ whose

Now run it backwards on the error, which is the part that makes it stick. Write the city where I visited and ask them to rebuild sentence two. I visited there. Let them hear it. Then I visited it, and it hands them which. Contrast immediately with I lived there, which is normal English and really does give where.

✗ the city WHERE I visited      "I visited there"?  ✗
                                "I visited IT"      ✓ → WHICH

✓ the city WHERE I lived        "I lived THERE"     ✓ → WHERE

✓ the teacher WHOM I met        "I met HIM"         ✓ object → WHOM
✓ the teacher WHO met me        "HE met me"         ✓ subject → WHO

Two things to state once and then police. The pronoun you replaced is gone. Watch for ✗ the village where my grandparents live there. And whom is the object form: worth teaching because it is obligatory after a preposition (the colleague with whom I worked), but tell them plainly that who is accepted elsewhere and that in a defining clause they can just delete it. Do not let a student produce ✗ the teacher whom taught me in the name of being formal.

That last one is the point worth making twice. Situations where…, systems where…, countries where… are far more useful in Task 2 than actual places, and students never think to use them.

Correct people which on the spot, every time. The substitution catches it too: they work gives who, never which.

Then the comma pair. Put both on the board together and run the CCQs before you explain anything. The meaning difference should land before the label does.

Students who cheat are expelled.
Students, who cheat, are expelled.

Give them the delete test: if you can remove the clause and still know who or what you mean, it takes commas. Then the rule they break most: never “that” after a comma.

Then Worksheet 4. Questions 1–6 are the pronoun, 7–10 are the comma decision. Tell them to read the bracketed meaning first in 7–10, because that is what decides it.

Goal: turn the relative clauses from Stage 5 into phrases. This is the cheapest range upgrade in the lesson. The concept is one they already understand, so all that is new is the form and the word order.

Start from where Stage 5 finished. Put a defining relative clause on the board, cross out the pronoun and be, and let them watch the sentence shorten without losing anything. Then ask for another example and do it with them.

Students WHO LIVE in cities play outside less.
   → Students living in cities play outside less.

The report WHICH WAS published in 2019 changed the law.
   → The report published in 2019 changed the law.

   the participle comes AFTER the noun
   as soon as anything follows the verb

   ✗ living students          ✓ students living in the city
   ✓ rising costs             ← one word alone can go in front

Now the form. One question decides -ing or -ed, and it is the same active/passive question they already meet in reading: does the noun do the verb, or is the verb done to it? Students live, so living. Nobody asks the bridge to build itself, so built.

Then the front position, which is the version that reads as band 8, and the one trap that comes with it. Board the good example and the broken one together and ask the question rather than stating the rule.

Because she had finished the report, she went home.
   → Having finished the report, she went home.

Built in 1890, the bridge still carries traffic.        ✓

✗ Walking down the street, the building looked old.
        who is walking?  →  the building. That is what it says.

One question fixes every dangling participle: who is doing this verb? If the answer is not the subject sitting immediately after the comma, it has to go back to being a full clause.

Then Worksheet 5. Q1–6 are the form choice, Q7–10 are the dangling participle. Take Q8 and Q10 orally and make them repair the sentence out loud, not just name the fault.

Keep the stage tight. This is a range extension, not a core structure. If it runs over, cut the front-position participles (Having finished…) and keep only the reduced relative clauses, which is the half they will actually use.

Goal: the third and last type of dependent clause, and the one that carries academic writing. Adverbial clauses add a circumstance, relative clauses describe a noun. A noun clause is the noun.

Build it by substitution, so they see the slot before they see the label. Put a simple sentence up, underline the noun, and replace it with a clause. Do it in all three positions.

The result       was surprising.
What the study found   was surprising.      ← subject

Everyone knows  the answer.
Everyone knows  that prices will rise.      ← object

The question is  the cost.
The question is  whether we can afford it.  ← after "is"

Then the openers, sorted by what they are for rather than listed: that for a fact, whether / if for a yes-or-no, what for the thing itself, why · how · when · where for the reason, way, time or place. Add the fact that last, and label it what it is: the same escape route they met with despite in Stage 4.

Now the error, which is where most of the twenty minutes should go. They will produce Nobody knows why did the price rise. Get it onto the board from the room rather than supplying it, then repair it with them.

DIRECT    Why did the price rise?          question order, + did

EMBEDDED  Nobody knows why the price rose.
                        ↑ statement order, no "did", no "?"

✗ Nobody knows why did the price rise.
✗ It is unclear what does the government want.

Then Worksheet 6. Q1–6 are the opener, Q7–10 are the word order. Finish the stage on the payoff: ask each pair for one sentence beginning It is often argued that… or What many people forget is that… on the current essay topic, and reject any where the clause after it says nothing.

Goal: four patterns they can place, not just conjugate. The form is the easy half. The half that earns the mark is knowing which conditional belongs in which IELTS question, so board the form and the job together and never separately.

Board the four patterns as forms, then sort them into real and unreal, which is the distinction that actually causes the errors.

0  If + present,        present          general truth
   If you heat ice, it melts.

1  If + present,        will + verb      real future
   If it rains tomorrow, we will cancel.

2  If + past,           would + verb     unreal now / imagined
   If cities banned cars, the air would be cleaner.

3  If + past perfect,   would have + V3  unreal past, finished
   If they had left earlier, they would have caught the train.

Now the part that makes this an IELTS stage rather than a grammar stage. State the principle before the table, because it is the thing they get wrong: the conditional is chosen by meaning, not by exam part. Real or unreal, and which time. The exam parts in the table are simply where that meaning comes up most often, which is why every pattern here has a personal use in Speaking Part 1 as well as an academic one in Writing. The zero conditional is not a Task 1 structure. It is the structure for things that are always true, and your own habits are always true, which is why it belongs in Part 1 too.

Give one personal model and one academic model for each, so nobody leaves thinking a pattern is only for essays. Board these and have the room copy them.

A quick raise-your-hand round to finish. Read out exam-style prompts from across the whole test and have them call the number, so the sorting is by meaning and not by part. “What do you usually do if you have a free evening?” (0, Part 1) · “What happens if a student misses too many classes?” (0, Part 3) · “What will you do if you pass the exam?” (1, Part 1) · “What will happen if the population keeps growing?” (1, Part 3) · “What would you do if you could study any subject?” (2) · “Is there anything you would have done differently at school?” (3). The meaning of the question tells them which one to use, and that is the whole skill.

Two things to state explicitly. Unless = if not, so unless we act means if we do not act, and it does not take a second negative. And If I were you is the fixed form worth memorising for Speaking, even though was is accepted.

Then Worksheet 7. Q12 is a mixed conditional: unreal past with a present result. Leave it for the strong students and only board it if someone gets there.

Goal: turn four recurring errors into four things with names, because an error they can name is an error they can find in their own writing.

Board the four names and one example of each (splice, run-on, fragment, double joiner), then the repairs. Give the comma splice the most time; it is the one this group produces most, and the L1 explanation matters, so say it out loud: in Azerbaijani a comma can join two clauses, in English it cannot.

Teach splice and run-on as one fault, not two. Both are two complete sentences pushed into one, and they differ only in what sits at the join: a comma in the splice, nothing at all in the run-on. Show that by drawing the split line on the board and reading each half aloud as a separate sentence. If both halves stand on their own, the sentence is broken whatever punctuation is there. This is the move students need, because they hunt for the error by looking at the comma, and a run-on has no comma to look at.

Both are the SAME fault: two complete sentences in one.
The only difference is what sits at the join.

SPLICE    The city is crowded  ,  it is also polluted.
                             ^^^ a comma
          both halves are complete sentences → broken

RUN-ON    Tourism creates jobs     it also damages the environment.
                              ^^^ nothing at all
          both halves are complete sentences → broken

          repairs for BOTH:
          .            Tourism creates jobs. It also damages…
          ;            Tourism creates jobs; it also damages…
          , but        Tourism creates jobs, but it also damages…
          dependent    Although tourism creates jobs, it also damages…

FRAGMENT  Although many people work from home.
          → finish it: …, they still travel to meetings.

DOUBLE    Although the salary was low, but he accepted the job.
          → delete “although” OR delete “but”

Then Worksheet 8. They name the fault first, which is the part that marks, and then rewrite each broken sentence on paper. Take the rewrites orally; there is more than one right repair and hearing three of them is the point.

Three of the ten are already correct. Do not warn them about this. Students who “fix” a correct sentence are showing you they are pattern-matching on length rather than reading.

Goal: put the structures into one piece of continuous writing, which is the only place the lesson counts.

Send them to Worksheet 9. Six flat simple sentences; they rebuild them into three sentences: one contrast, one reason or result, one relative or conditional. Ten minutes writing, then swap and run the check sheet on a partner's work rather than their own.

If students brought a recent WT2, use their own body paragraph instead of the sample. It is a better task and the correction lands harder on their own words.

In feedback, take two sentences you saw during monitoring, one that works and one with a splice or a double joiner, and rebuild the second on the board with the room. End on the sentence that works.