Level: High Beginning and Up
Pair with the Songs: 
“As Long As You Love Me” (Backstreet Boys, 1997)
“Wonderful World” (Sam Cooke, 1960)
Recommended Videos:
“As Long As You Love Me”: the live 2016 performance
“Wonderful World”: the official lyric video

The topic of noun clauses is usually not addressed until the intermediate or advanced level. Yet the reality is that lower-level students encounter noun clauses regularly in everyday speech, in sentences such as Do you know what time it is? The three worksheets below give students practice using noun clauses without making it necessary to go into lengthy explanations or even using the words noun clause. For more activities to go with these songs, please see the Lesson Plan for “As Long As You Love Me” and the Lesson Plan for “Wonderful World.” Both lesson plans include lyrics.

Worksheet #1, levels high beginning and up. Students form sentences beginning I don’t know when talking about a Martian who shows up at a party. Permission granted to duplicate for classroom use.

noun clauses, I don’t know.docx          noun clauses, I don’t know.pdf

noun clauses, I don’t know (webpage)

Worksheet #2, levels high beginning and up. Students form questions beginning Do you know where…? when looking for items in a living room. Permission granted to duplicate for classroom use.

noun clauses, do you know, Level 1.docx          noun clauses, do you know, Level 1.pdf

noun clauses, do you know, Level 1 (webpage)

Worksheet #3, levels low intermediate and up. Students form trivia questions beginning Do you know…? Permission granted to duplicate for classroom use.

noun clauses, do you know, Level 2.pdf

noun clauses, do you know, Level 2 (webpage)

For additional practice with noun clauses, the following no-prep activity is recommended. In this activity, students practice forming questions beginning Does anybody know where…

1. Scatter some of your personal items around the classroom–for example, put your pen on a bookcase, your briefcase on the floor, etc.
2. Ask students, “Where is my pen?” Students answer, “It’s on the bookcase.”
3. Rephrase the question this way: “Does anybody know where my pen is?” Point out the new position of the word is. Explain that the words where my pen is no longer form a question—the words are now part of a question—so question word order is not used. Find all your misplaced items by asking the class questions beginning Does anybody know where.
4. Next, move students’ personal items around the room—put one student’s pen on another’s desk, one student’s jacket on the back of another student’s chair, etc. Students reclaim their items by asking, “Does anybody know where my _______ is?” The student who has the missing item says, “I have it” and returns it to its owner.

Note: If you choose to explain what a noun clause is, you might find this definition from the website of the British Council helpful:

A noun clause is a clause that is used in the same way as a noun or a pronoun. A noun clause contains a subject and a verb. Example: I know what he was doing there.