Grammar for Speaking & Listening
  • Time Clauses Part 2

    • Time Clauses Part 2

    Sentence variety is a strategy to enhance the flow of ideas, intensify points, and sustain the interest of your listeners. Varying the length, rhythm, and structure of sentences are three ways to create variety and interest in your speech.

    Objectives

    1. Identify independent and dependent clauses
    2. Explain the purpose of a time clause
    3. Identify a time clause
    4. Use time clauses to narrate and describe in the past

    Time Clauses

    When

    Use when to talk about something that happens either at the same time or directly after something else. The dependent clause is the first action, and the independent clause is the second action.

    When you are honest with yourself, you are sure to see your potential.

    Micah jumped when he heard the loud bang.

     

    When also has an additional meaning. Sometimes, it is used to signal a definition or to state that something happens every time something else happens. This use is especially common in academic writing.

    When scientists talk about GMOs, they are referring to thoroughly tested products.

    The piano teacher means flats and sharps when she talks about key signatures. 

     

    Whenever

    This subordinator is used when we want to indicate that something happens every time something else occurs.  The dependent clause is the first action, and the independent clause is the second action.

    Whenever I wash my car, it rains or snows.

    I like to jump in puddles whenever it rains.

    Exercise 1: Listen & Speak

    Here is a video about how sleep can impact our emotions. Listen to the video for examples of when and whenever.

     

    Transcript

    Now when we looked at those people who had had a full night of sleep, what we saw was a nice, appropriate moderate degree of reactivity from the amygdala. 

    And that seems to be the reason that we become so unbuckled in terms of our emotional integrity when we haven't been sleeping well. 

    But it turns out that there's something good that happens when you get your sleep back.  

    So that when we come back the next day, we're able to cope with those emotional memories. 

    Speaking Practice

    • Describe how you feel when you haven't slept well.
    • What are some other facts you know about sleep? Use when/whenever clauses to explain the cause and effect relationship.

    Exercise 2: Group Activity - Health Presentations

    Each group will choose one of the people below to research and present on. Your presentation will explain the life of that person and should focus on using time clauses to effectively narrate the story.

    • Jonas Salk (American virologist - penicillin) 
    • Louis Pasteur (French biologist and chemist - vaccinations and pasteurization) 
    • Florence Nightingale (English statistician and nurse - modern nursing)
    • Tu Youyou (Chinese chemist - artemisinin)
    • Virginia Apgar (American physician - Apgar score)
    • Carlos Juan Finlay (Cuban epidemiologist - yellow fever) 

    Excercise 3 : Class Activity

    • The teacher will assign each student a cause or effect. 
    • Talk with the other students in the class to find the matching cause/effect pair.
    • Connect the two ideas using when/whenever.

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