using RELATIVE CLAUSES for definitions

Pf, I was away for too long! Time to share some new exercises.

I like lessons that explore areas familiar to students. Their culture, traditions, everyday subject. One such lesson is on RELATIVE CLAUSES. After a detailed grammar introduction I usually ask the students to give some definitions to specific words. Here are 3 of such activities that seem like fun to me.

SPEAKING

Answer the following questions using relative clauses. Give several examples to each questions.

What is a/an/-
smartphone?                corkscrew?          key?            envelope?      tiger?                

canary?                        torch?                  emu?           bear?             summer?

St. Valentine’s Day?    September?         5 o’clock?     Monday?       evening?

Sacrifice Holiday?        Children’s Day?   childhood?   4^th of July?    New York?

Istanbul?                      Beijing?                Paris?

Who is/was 

Mick Jagger?        Charles Darwin?   Albert Einstein?      Barak Obama?     Napoleon

SPEAKING

Ask the students to make definitions to some words you are sure they don't know. They are suppose to use relative clauses as their answers (my examples require the use of which/that). Let them have some fun deducing the meaning. My top examples of the new words are as follows (of course you're free to choose any you like).

a straitjacket

a loony

a mongrel

a mitten

a see-saw

a shortbread

an onlooker 

SPEAKING

Prepare a pile of cards with words connected with the culture and traditions of the country your students are from. Put the cards with words face down. each student takes one card and tries to explain it to the rest of the class using relative clauses. My students are from Turkey so I use words such as:

simit
Atatürka

künefe

arabesk

Zeki Muren

Ramadan

şalgam

Anıtkabir etc.