120 hr. TEFL Course Module 4-Writing (Pt.4 Clauses)

Module 4: Writing

4.1.3 Clauses

Looking at the examples in the previous section, you may wonder what happens when sentences get more complex. That can certainly complicate things, but at its core a sentence still follows one of the previous patterns (or two of them if it is a complex sentence). Understanding the typical sentence patterns is helpful, but your students also need to understand the basic structures that dictate sentences in English. To understand these basic sentence structures, though, we need to first discuss clauses.

Clause: A clause is one of the basic units in English grammar and is a group of words that contains a subject and a verb. Every sentence has at least one clause in it (because the requirements for a sentence and a clause are the same). A clause, however, does not necessarily complete a thought and therefore work alone as a sentence. There are two types of clauses, and understanding both of them is important for students who are learning to write in English for the first time.

Dependent clause (subordinating clause): This is exactly what it sounds like: a clause (or group of words containing a subject and a verb) that is dependent on other clauses. In other words, a dependent clause would not work alone as a sentence because it needs another clause for it to make sense. An example of a dependent clause is “because the world is ending.” The only thing that makes this clause dependent is the word “because,” which adds the implication of cause and effect to the sentence. We see the cause, but we need the effect to complete the sentence. 

Independent clause: An independent clause is a clause (group of words containing a subject and a verb) that can exist by itself and be a complete thought and therefore a   complete sentence. Every sentence contains an independent clause, and all simple sentences are made up of one independent clause. An example of an independent clause is “They went down to the bomb shelter.” The absence of a subordinating word (“because” in the dependent clause) makes this sentence work as a complete thought. 

If we combine the two clauses, one dependent and one independent, in the previous example, we get a complex sentence, which looks like this: “Because the world is ending, they went down to the bomb shelter.” This is a complete sentence, with a dependent clause (“Because the world is ending”) marked by a subordinating word (“Because”) presenting a cause and an independent clause (“they went down to the bomb shelter”) completing the thought with the effect.