Relative Clauses

Welcome back to the course everybody mastering eilts Writing at Task 2 with the eilts teacher today looking at another grammar point. And that is relative clauses. So let’s get started by reminding ourselves what relative clauses are exactly. Now we have two types of relative clauses. First of all we have a defining relative clauses. These are used to clarify who or what we are talking about when we refer to a particular noun or with non defining relative clauses. We can give more information about something without having to write another sentence. Let’s look at some examples. So first of all a very important punctuation point defining relative clauses do not need a comma before the relative pronoun so. Don’t use a comma when you’re using defining relative clauses the students who work hard are more likely to do well in their exams no comma before who. In contrast with that non defining relative clauses we do need a comma before the relative pronoun. An example here. The government will cut the price of train tickets comma which will make transport more affordable for the public. You can see the differences here between the sentences. The first sentence the defining relative clause. We are clarifying what type of students we are talking about. Students who work hard it’s essential that we have that relative clause in there. So that’s why it’s a defining relative clause it defines the noun. Contrast that with the non defining relative clause which does not define the previous clause but rather just gives more information about it. The government will cut the price of train tickets which will make transport more affordable for the public because we are just choosing to give more information. Here we are not defining the original clause. This is why it’s called a non defining relative clause. It doesn’t define the previous clause. It just gives more information about it. Notice though the comma that comma is so important. Okay that is what defines your non defining relative clauses or it’s one of the elements that defines it. We need to use the comma there. So let’s do a quick matching exercise. Can you match the sentences here with the non defining relative clauses. I’m not worried about defining relative clauses. You should already have a fairly solid command of that grammar point if you’re or aiming for a six to seven seven point five eight score anyway so we’re going to look at non defining relative clauses as they are a slightly more advanced grammatical structure. So. Yes we have six sentences and six non defining relative clauses which must be inserted into the sentences. So I want you to pause the video now and see if you can work out which sentence matches with which non defining relative clause. And when you think you’ve done that come back and we’ll see if you got them right. So let’s have a look and see if you have the correct answers. And as you can see here are all the answers here. School holidays in the UK are six weeks long which gives students a chance to relax. So what we’re doing here is we’re giving more information about the whole expression school holidays in the UK are six weeks long. We are not trying to give more information about one now one or one subjects. We’re just giving more information about the whole expression here. Contrast that with number two where we’re just giving more information about one now sports coaching sports coaching which has been proven to reduce obesity needs more government funding. Notice it wouldn’t work the other way around. You wouldn’t be able to say sports coaching needs more government funding which has been proven to reduce obesity. It needs to go in the middle there because that makes it much clearer about which part of the sentence you are choosing to give more information about. Okay so really think about your sentence structure and your word order when you write these sentences Skype language lessons are becoming more common which may be due to their affordability slight plug for my website here of course so Skype language lessons are something that the idol’s teacher offers. They are becoming more common perhaps due to the fact that they are quite affordable. No. No course book fees no travel fees visa applications all that sort of stuff. But the important thing here the non defining relative clause we are giving more information about the whole expression Skype language lessons are becoming more common than before school uniforms which must be worn in most British schools can improve behaviour. Gadgets choosing to give more information about school uniforms. The government is cutting unemployment benefits which will make it harder for job searches to make ends meet. If you haven’t seen the expression make ends meet is just have enough money to survive to pay the bills. That sort of thing. Mobile phone screens which are becoming bigger and bigger are a big drain on battery life. Same thing here we are. We are adding more information about mobile phone screens not defining them which is giving more information about them. So how would we use these relative clauses in the example. Particularly in writing task to live very useful when writing supporting sentences in body paragraphs. They can be used to give more information about an example or to further justify a supporting point. Let’s look at some examples. First of all the subsidisation of sports facilities arguing for this. For example swimming pools which are available in motorsport centres give people the opportunity to work on their cardiovascular health here. Maybe we’re trying to support the argument that subsidizing sports facilities will improve public health so by arguing that swimming pools which are part of sports facilities as seen in the non defining relative clause can improve our cardiovascular health. We are then supporting that argument but about an argument against something arguing against single sex schools. This is because mix schools offer realistic environments which means that their students will find it easier to integrate into adult life. So this time we’re taking a whole expression and were giving more information about our whole expression. Maybe we were trying to support the argument that students from mixed schools have more success in working environments when they’re older. Perhaps So those are just a couple of other ways that we can use these non defining relative clauses to develop and justify our supporting points thus boosting our score in task achievement but also to expand our range of grammar thus boosting our score in grammatical range inaccuracy. You put those two together 25 per cent plus 25 percent you’ve got 50 percent of your score. So a really really good and actually really quick and relatively simple way to improve a major portion of your essay. I hope you found two days a lecture useful as well as always. If you want your rating checked by a professional you can always go to the eilts teacher website and check out the writing corrections service there. Thanks for listening and hope to see you in the next lecture.