[etni] although, however

Dear David:
I usually give my students a chart with three columns:

column 1 - prepositions. (despite, because of, )always followed by a noun
phrase (or gerund)   

column 2 - conjunctions. (although, because, since, if, etc.)always followed
by a  subject - verb. I also explain that sentences with conjunctions will
contain TWO "sets" of Subject Verb   

column 3 - conjunctive adverbs. (however, therefore, firstly, luckily,
finally, etc.) (I don't use this term with the kids, I call them
"connectors".)  These are actually used to connect two independent sentences
- each of which could have "stood" alone. In practical terms, I tell them
that the main difference between the words in column 2 and the words in
column 3 are that the former are NEVER followed by a comma, and the later
are ALWAYS followed by a comma.. Also, when a connector comes in the middle
of the sentence, should be preceded by a semi colon (hope I spelled that
correctly.)  

It's important to provide examples as you explain.

She came to school despite her illness.
Although she was ill, she came to school. 
She was ill; however, she came to school.

These can be practiced with cloze technique, with rewrites, and finally with
sentence completions.
A fun activity would be to do a sentence completion as a "match game" - You
provide half a sentence and then let them make completions. See how many
"matches" you can come up with. 

or, give a sentence and ask students to come up with as many different
completions as they can... invite them to come up with humorous completions.

The class favorites usually involve him/her
She married him despite his _____________ bad temper / his long nose / his
empty bank account 
She married him although ___________  he had no hair / had a ring in his
nose...
He _____________ ; nevertheless, she married him.




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