Explain your answer. [Is 'because' unnecessary in the answer given?]

[learning54]

Hi teachers,
This is for a listening exercise. Felix is an Inspector.
Context:
Chief,’ Felix began. ‘How did Dinon escape from prison?’
‘That’s not important now,’ the Chief said.
‘But perhaps he had friends in prison,’ Felix said. ‘Perhaps they know something. I need to talk to people at the prison.’
‘Well, you can’t,’ the Chief said.

Two possible questions:
1. What did Felix want to investigate in the prison?
If Dinon had friends in prison and if they knew something.
2. Was the Chief going to let Felix do that? Explain your answer.
No, she wasn’t. She said that he couldn’t.

My question and opinion:
One of my students asked me if he could write ‘because’ before ‘she said that ...’, My opinion is that it is completely unnecessary, but I don’t really know if it is wrong.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Mr_Ben]

It seems that "Explain your answer" is semantically pretty close to "Why" so I can understand why the student wrote "because." However, "she said that..." doesn't really give the reason why, as the answer "Because she had something to hide" would.

I don't really understand the purpose of "Explain your answer." Are you trying to force them to use reported speech? If you're trying to just check the information, "How do you know?" might be better. As it is, I find it a bit confusing.

 

[learning54]

I don't really understand the purpose of "Explain your answer." Are you trying to force them to use reported speech? If you're trying to just check the information, "How do you know?" might be better. As it is, I find it a bit confusing.

Hi,
Thanks for your reply. So it would be much better to say "How do you know?" than "Explain your answer".
Yes, I'm trying to force them to use reported speech. Is it a bad idea?

L.

 

[Mr_Ben]

In my opinion, you'll be more likely to get the target grammar with the new question (and the student can use "because" too!).

I think it's a good idea! If the students are not used to this kind of activity, maybe you can give them the sentence heads and ask them to complete them:

He wanted to investigate ________

Because she said _______

 

[learning54]

Hi,
Thanks a lot for your suggestions.:up:

L.