Relative Clauses / Adjective Clause: Mike, the luckiest guy I know. (English / ESL Video)
Relative Clauses / Adjective Clause: Mike, the luckiest guy I know. (English / ESL Video)
Synopsis of English / ESL Video
Follow the comical story of Mike, the luckiest guy in the world and teach relative clauses / adjective clause to upper-intermediate level learners.
Title of English / ESL Video
Mike – The Luckiest Guy I Know
Target English Grammar
Relative clauses (also known as adjective clause or adjectival clause):
– Defining clauses (also known as restrictive clauses or identifying clauses).
– Non-defining clauses (also known as non-restrictive clauses or non-identifying clauses).
– Relative pronouns.
– Relative adverbs.
– Reduced clauses.
Student Proficiency Level
Upper-intermediate level grammar
Suggested Courses
General English
Instructions
– Play the video in class after delivering a warm-up activity first.
– Pause the video whenever the narrator asks students a question to give students time to answer. For example, after elicitations and concept checking questions (CCQs).
Summary of English: Relative Clauses / Adjective Clause
Approximate chronological order:
Storyline:
– Starts at 0:00. Ends at 4:04
Grammar Rules and Explanation:
Function:
– To identify people and things or to give more information about them.
– They act as adjectives and are hence also called adjective clause or adjectival clause.
– They are subordinate or dependent clauses and cannot be stand alone sentences.
– They begin with a relative pronoun: who, whom, whose, which or that.
– Or a relative adverb: when, where, why.
Forms:
– Relative pronoun / relative adverb + subject + verb
– Relative pronoun / relative adverb (as subject) + verb
Relative Pronouns:
– which = things: He works at the top modelling agency in town, which he loves.
– who = people: Mike’s mother is a loving woman, who makes him breakfast in bed every morning.
– Who is a subject pronoun and refers to the subject of the clause (i.e. the doer of the action).
– whom = people: Jessica gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, whom grew up to be a handsome young lad.
– Whom is an object pronoun and refers to the object of the clause (i.e. the receiver of the action.)
– Whom is not used very often today as it sounds unusually formal. Instead, we just use who to refer to both subjects and objects of clauses.
– Example: Jessica gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, who grew up to be a handsome young lad. (This sentence is perfectly acceptable.)
– whose = people: Barbara, whose personality was fun and outgoing, was the perfect match.
– Whose is the possessive relative pronoun of who and which.
– Whose and who’s are completely different words.
– Who’s = who is
– that = who/whom/which: In informal language we can use that to replace who, whom and which.
– Example 1 (whom): Mike went out and asked out the first girl that he saw.
– Example 1 (whom): Mike went out and asked out the first girl whom he saw.
– Example 2 (which): He had spent all the money that he found.
– Example 2 (which): He had spent all the money which he found.
Relative Adverbs:
– where = places: We used to play together at the playground where we made friends with the older kids.
– when = time: He was my best friend when we were at school.
– why = reason: This is why I love Hawaii.
Subject and Object of the Clause:
– Adjectival clauses can be used as either the subject or the object of the clause.
– Example 1 (subject of the clause): Barbara, who was the lucky girl, immediately said “yes”.
– Example 2 (object of the clause): Jessica gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, whom grew up to be a handsome young lad.
Defining Clause:
Function:
– To identify or classify nouns.
– To tell us which person or thing, or which kind of person or thing, is referred to.
– To give us essential information about the person or thing.
Details:
– Also known as identifying or restrictive clause.
– Example: Mike is the luckiest guy whom I know.
– There is no comma before the relative pronoun / relative adverb in defining clauses.
– We can use that to replace who, whom or which in defining clauses.
– Example: Mike is the luckiest guy that I know.
Reduced Clause:
– We can leave out the relative pronoun if they are the object of a defining clause.
– Example: Mike is the luckiest guy I know.
– We cannot leave out the relative pronoun if they are the subject of a defining clause.
– Example: Barbara, who was the lucky girl, immediately said “yes”. (We cannot leave out the who.)
Non-Defining Clause:
Function:
– To give which is non-essential information about a person or thing which is already identified.
– They do not identify or classify nouns.
Details:
– Also known as non-identifying or non-restrictive clause.
– Example: When Mike was jogging in the park, which he does every morning, he came up with a great idea.
– There is a comma before the relative pronoun / relative adverb in non-defining clauses.
– We cannot use that to replace who, whom or which in non-defining clauses.
– We cannot leave out the relative pronoun to make reduced clauses in non-defining clauses.
*** English / ESL Video: No Music Version ***
(4795)
Good vid.. but I have to question the part where you explained “WHY” as a relative pronoun used to introduce relative clauses. In your example, “THIS IS WHY I LOVE HAWAII.” – why i love Hawaii- in this example is a noun clause. We can only use a relative clause if there is a noun / pronoun being modified. If your example were “This is the reason why I love Hawaii,” then the why clause there would be a relative clause. Very confusing to a lot especially when we start our sentence with THIS IS.. For instance, This is what I love.. This is where I saw her.. This is how i like it. The clauses after THIS IS are noun clauses due to the absence of noun/pronoun being modified. Please do correct me if I am wrong.
That’s a great question. In this case, “this” is actually the subject, so “why I love Hawaii” is defining “this”.
Hope this helps with your studies!
Cheers!
why mike’s son is black skinny ! hehehe
Why Mike’s son is black skinny