Activities to produce complex sentences
Some ways of scaffolding sentence complexity are: combining, substituting and repeating.
Sentence combining
Give your students sets of two or three simple sentences and ask them to combine each set into one sentence. (You may find it helpful to raise your own awareness of the structure of the language your students need, by rewriting some complex sentences into several simple sentences, and then putting them back together again.)
Sentence combining is an activity that has more of a focus on language form than on meaning. However, as the students work (preferably in pairs or groups) to combine the sentences, they do need to focus on meaning to make sure the combined sentence means the same as the separate sentences and that nothing has been left out. Because they have produced the combined sentence themselves from parts they understand, students also understand the longer, more complex sentence.
Combine these three sentences into one longer sentence. There are many possible sentences. Find as many as you can.
- This plant might be a fern.
- The young leaves can help you to decide.
- The young leaves have a special form.
Repetition and substitution
If you draw your students' attention to a useful sentence pattern that is quite complex for them, they can use the same pattern many times just by changing one or two words. In this way, they create important sentences that are a little more complex than they would say or write on their own.
It’s better to do this activity orally, because the repetition can be boring in writing but is a challenge when speaking. Two techniques for promoting fluency through repetition are described below.
The 4/3/2 activity
This activity is described on ESOL Online . To adapt it for regular use to support speaking about curriculum topics, students could have a few seconds to prepare to speak about a topic (for example, fern leaves). Then they speak for about 60 seconds to the first partner. They move to another partner and give the same talk for 45 seconds, then move to a third partner and speak for 30 seconds. When students do this, what they say changes slightly each time and they speak more correctly and more fluently.
Rhythm and repetition
If you and your students are interested in rhythms and beats, you can use this interest to support their language development. In this activity, you choose a complex sentence that is useful for your students’ curriculum learning and make them comfortable with it by using repetition and rhythm. You set the beat and then the students have to try not to lose the beat when they say the sentences. You can start off with the whole class together, then choose individuals or pairs of students to speak, and then another student, and so on around the class or group. You can go on to make small changes in the sentence, keeping the same rhythm.
Example
Ferns are usually very easy to identify from their leaves.
This is an academic sentence. Although it is written for students working up to level 4 in the curriculum (see Measuring readability ), students are not likely to use such a sentence in everyday conversation. However, they do need to be able to say sentences like this in learning contexts, and to feel easy and confident in doing so.
Some students, whether English is their first language or not, will find it quite hard to say this sentence fluently. You should give them a chance to practise until they are quite confident with it. Then they can start changing some parts of the sentence.
To begin with, you can supply the words:
grasses: Grasses are usually very easy to identify from their leaves.
flaxes: Flaxes are usually very easy to identify from their leaves.
Next you can ask your students to change two items:
flowers: Flowers are usually very easy to identify from their petals.
conifers: Conifers are usually very easy to identify from their needles.
trees: Trees are usually very easy to identify from their trunk and bark.
Finally, the students may be able to supply their own words for the slots in the sentence pattern without losing the beat:
spiders:
spiders: Spiders are usually very easy to identify from their eight legs.
Activities like these can form part of an oral language programme.
