Form: If + present simple + present simple
Games:
| Rub out and replace | Eyes | If you had the chance |
| IF + Present Perfect | Memorising Structures |
Training exercises - Internet resources
" Zero"
Conditional - Constant truths
(something that always happens)
Form: If + present simple + present simple |
|
|
| Example: If you heat ice, it melts. | ||
| Meaning: This is always or generally true. |
First Conditional - Future
probability
(something that might happen)
Form: If + present simple + future simple |
 |
Example: If you help me, I'll do it. |
|
Meaning: Will you help me? |
Second Conditional -
Present or future supposition
(something that isn't true, but we imagine it is)
Form: If + past simple + would + infinitive |
 |
Example: If I knew the answer, I would tell you. |
|
Meaning: I don't know |
Third Conditional - Past
supposition (hypothesis)
(something that didn't happen, but we imagine
it did)
Form: If + past perfect + would + present perfect |
 |
Example: If I had gone to New York, I would have brought you some presents. |
|
Meaning: I didn't go. |
Games
1st
and 2nd conditional game
Level:
lower- intermediate
Time:
5-15 minutes
1. Ask someone to create a picture on the board of a
man, a woman and a volcano. Be no more specific than that. Don’t draw the
picture yourself.
2.
Ask a student secretary to write up this sentence (which presumes the
class need practice on if sentences)
in a speech balloon coming out of the mouth of the man or the woman:
If the volcano
goes on erupting, we’d really better move away.
3. From now on you, the teacher, can work completely silently. Rub out one of the words or phrases in the sentence and mime the need for a replacement word. As soon as a student volunteers one, write it in, even if it doesn’t fit. Get the student to read the sentence with the new word in it to see how it sounds to him or her. Silently enquire if (a) the volunteer, (b) the group is/are happy with the new word. If they are not, and they are right not to be, rub the new word out and some one to volunteer a new word. If everybody is happy with the word then rub out another word/phrase elsewhere in the sentence and so on. The aim is to end up with a completely new sentence, e.g. When a boss stops under-paying, he’d maybe hope to make a profit. Through all this process you can enjoy your own silence which creates a vacuum for the students to fill in; it will also afford you to observe students in a way you can’t if you are chatting away.
2nd
conditional Game1
Level:
lower to upper intermediate
Time:
30-45 minutes
1.
Ask a student to draw a head in profile on the board. Ask the student to
add eyes in the back of this head.
2 .
Give the students this sentence beginning on the board and ask them to
complete it using the grammar suggested:
If
people had eyes in the backs of their heads, then they …would/’d/
could/would have to …(+ infinitive).
For
example:
If
people had eyes in the backs of their heads, they could read two books at once.
3.
Tell the students to write the above sentence stem at the top of their
paper and then complete it with fifteen separate ideas. Encourage the use of
dictionaries. Help students all you can with vocabulary and go round checking
and correcting.
4
.
Once students all have written a good number of sentences (at least ten)
ask them to form teams of four. In fours they read each other’s sentences and
pick the four most interesting ones.
5
.
Each team puts their four best sentences on the board.
6. The students come to the board and tick the two sentences they find the most interesting. The team that gets the most ticks wins.
2nd
conditional Game2
Level:
intermediate
Time
: 25 minutes
1.
Get all the class sitting on chairs in a big circle, you sitting with
them.
2.
Select a structure to practice or introduce; this time “Would you …
if you had the chance?” for an intermediate class, but this activity can be
used with a variety of grammatical structures at different levels.
3.
Give students the model, e.g.:
Anyone
who’d go bungee-jumping if they had the chance, move two to the right.
All
those who would, get up and move to the right and sit down on a seat or
someone’s lap, if the seat is occupied. (as the game proceeds, several people
may end up sitting stacked up on top of each other.)
4.
Give another four or five sentences:
Anyone
who’d fill their house with pets if they had the chance move four to the left.
Anyone
who’d go to live on a small island for a couple of years if they had the
chance move three to the right.
Anyone
who’d have more than one boy or girlfriend if they had the chance move seven
to the right.
Anyone
who’d never read another book in their life…
Etc.
By
now you should have various people sitting in twos or threes or fours on each
other’s laps and some with chairs to themselves.
5 .
Hand over the calling-out of the pattern sentences to the students. Any
student can chip in a sentence if they feel like it. (You correct when they
stray from the structure you’ve introduced.)
6.
When the students have got on top of the structure, slip in fresh similar
structures:
Anyone
who’d jump at the chance of …, move…
Anyone who does… if they have the chance, move…
Grammar: If +
present perfect
I’d like you to + infinitive
Past Interrogative
Level:
elementary – intermediate
Time:
15-20 minutes
1.
Have the group sit in a circle. Have an empty chair next to where
you’re sitting in the circle.
2.
Write on the board:
If you’ve
been to (country/town/region), I’d like you to sit here.
You
get the exercise going by sitting next to the empty seat and saying the
sentence. Once a person who has been to the place you mentioned is sitting next
to you, ask them these two questions:
When
did you visit X?
Where
did you go in X?
3.
There will be now an empty chair somewhere else in the circle. Ask one of
the two people either side of it to invite someone sit next to them, by asking
the same question you did but changing the place/country. They also ask the two
past tense questions. Carry on to 15-20 chair changes.
4.
Change the sentence into circulation to:
If you’ve
ever eaten …, I’d like you to sit here.
Tell
the group to use this sentence the same way as the first one with these two
follow-up questions:
When
did you last eat X?
Mixed
conditionals
Level:
intermediate
Time:
15 minutes
1.
Write the first two verses of the poem (by Langston Hughes) on the board:
Cross
My
old man’s a white man
And
my old mother’s black.
If
I ever cursed my white old man
I
take my curses back.
If
I ever cursed my black old mother
And
wished she were in hell,
I’m
sorry for that evil wish
And
now I wish her well.
2.
Read the poem to the class and explain any unknown words.
3.
Rub out a couple of words from any of the eight lines and ask someone to
read the full eight lines.
Rub out one or two more words, and after each rubbing
out ask someone to read the full eight lines. Little by little the students are
“reading” more and more words that aren’t there, in other words committing
the poem and structures to memory.
If a word is forgotten, point to the exact place it was
before- this spatial cueing often brings it back to mind.
Finally the students should be able to “read” the
two verses from a completely blank board.
4.
Now write the last verse, below
the space where the first two no longer are:
My
old man died in a fine big house,
My
ma died in a shack.
I
winder where I’m gonna die,
Being
neither white nor black?
Ask
someone to “read” the whole poem.
The
technique can be used with any memorable piece of writing.
www.hio.ft.hanze.nl/thar/grcond.htm - grammar theory on forms of conditionals and their use
www.english-zone.com (Grammar Zone - Conditionals)- some interactive exercises can be used for free
web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/index.htm - grammar theory and interactive exercises (zero and 1st conditional)
web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/410/grammar/index.htm - grammar theory and interactive exercises (2nd and 3rd conditional)
www.englishpage.com - (Conditionals) grammar theory on present, past, futures, continuous and mixed conditionals and non-interactive worksheets
www.better-english.com - (250 free exercises - Grammar exercises - Conditionals) 1st conditional (2 exercises), 2nd conditional (4 exercises), 3rd conditional (1 exercise), mixed conditionals (2 exercises), wish (3 exercises)
www.english.com.br/classroom/grammar/index.htm - (Conditionals) theory on zero, 1st, 2nd, 3rd condotionals and non-interactive exercise
www.alu.ua.es/m/msq1/gramm_frame1.htm - (Conditional sentences) theory on possible, probable, imposible, zero conditionals
www.englishoutlook.com/Focus/grammar/grammar.html - (Clauses / Conditionals) 2 interactive exercises, the same exercises under the both sub-headings
iteslj.org/quizzes/vm/if-clauses.html - Match the two columns so that each sentence is a meaningful sentence. Then click on the answer button to see if your answer is correct.