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Textbook writers write titles such as “identifying adjective clause” and give one example of a sentence containing an identifying adjective clause without even underlining the clause in question. Then they ask both teachers and students to combine some pairs of sentences, taking for granted that all teachers realize the concept of identifying adjective clauses. Is that true?

The problem is that these authors do not explain, at least, to the teachers what an identifying adjective clause is and how it is introduced. They do the same in the secondary stage textbooks. Throughout my long experience with a large number of teachers, I have found out that a substantial number of them do not have a clear concept of what it is. The questions that can be raised at this point of discussion are the following: “What is a clause?” “What is a phrase?” “What is the basic difference between a clause and a phrase?” and “how many types of clauses and phrases are there in English?” As a teacher, how can I convince my students of my explanation, How can I render my explanation logical to the brilliant ones when presenting adjectives clauses without simplifying and telling them about the nature and some other types of clauses and phrases in English?

Our students always read these two concepts (a clause–a phrase) in their textbooks without paying much heed to them. I wish my dear colleagues to be patient with me because I want to give them somewhat a prolonged detail of these two concepts. Their role is to internalize and digest these two concepts, and then they can, in simple terms, convey them to their students.

What is a clause? The answer of this question is very simple. To put it in a nutshell, a clause is a unit of speech that must have a verb of any kind. Now, what is a phrase? The answer is also very simple. It is a unit of speech that mustn’t have a verb of any kind, except the verb phrase whose main head is the verb. Then, the basic difference between a clause and phrase is quite clear. The former must contain a verb and the latter must not.

Since we have understood the basic difference between these two concepts, we can continue with the types of clauses in English. As most of you know, there are several types of clauses in English:

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