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. -------------------------------------------- Visit the ETNI site - http://www.etni.org Send a message to the ETNI list: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Send queries and questions to: ask@xxxxxxxx --------------------------------------------