Read this aloud, have the students repeat once. If I won a million dollars, I would buy a BMW.
Present and drill the vocabulary words in the way we have learned.įor the grammar part of the class, start the class off by writing this on the board: In this case, a class on If - could, if - might etc. Note: This lesson plan is for lower-intermediate students and introduces only "If - would" forms. Students will learn the vocabulary: a disaster, a superpower, to take a job, to break, angry. Students will learn second conditional usage in both a personal and business context.
#SECOND CONDITIONAL EXERCISES TEACH THIS HOW TO#
This classroom lesson will show you how to present both "If I were you" and "If I was you" in the context of the second conditional. Since this course on teaching grammar stresses the value of communicative lessons (lessons that focus on teaching the students to actually communicate rather than just being able to, for example, pass a test), English as it is really spoken is valued over technically correct English that may sound stilted or antiquated. Yet another obstacle to overcome is the fact that in the sentence "If I were you, I would do it," "were" is the correct form of the verb to be, but saying "If I was you, I would." has become so common in spoken English among native speakers that it's now accepted as an alternate form. It is used with "wish," in such sentences as "I wish you would help me." It's also used in polite requests ("Would you help me?") It's a kind of synonym for "used to" in sentences like "We would go to the beach every weekend when I was a child." We use it in reported speech, sentences like "I said I would go." It's a kind of past tense of "will" and "going to" in sentences like "I canceled the picnic because I thought it would rain." It's also used in other radically different ways in English. The other big bump in the road in terms of teaching the second conditional is the word "would." It's a modal, which many students find difficult. Since the students already know the first conditionals, that can be used in your class on second conditionals.įor example, since they know "If we go to a restaurant, I will pay," you can show them the next step of "If we went to a restaurant, I would pay." (But we are not going to a restaurant.) It is based on a condition that is not happening (in the above example, they are not going to a restaurant, at least not yet) or a condition that is very unlikely, as in "if I won the lottery." It also can follow an introductory class on modals, focusing on would, could, should, must, might etc. That's why it's best to go through a class on second conditional first by using a lot of exercises that get across the meaning of the sentences and then by having fun discussion activities so the students start using the grammar in a way they enjoy.Ī class on the second conditional comes sometime after the zero and first conditionals (although in an advanced class you might review all the conditionals in one class).
That is one big bump in the road you will have to get over with your students. In English, tense changes can mean something other than signifying past, present or future, and the same tense can mean past, present or future. In other words, tense does not always equate to time. In fact it's not the past tense, it's just a change in tense that means something different in this case. Think about the sentence "If I won a million dollars, I would buy a house." Why do we use the (apparent) past tense of the verb "to win" in that sentence? Because.we just do.Įven though we are talking theoretically about the future, we use the this tense form in that part of the sentence. In this article you will get tips for teaching this conditional form, learn some background info that you need to know before approaching the subject, review of the uses of "would," and explore a classroom lesson plan that include ideas for different activities. Yes, that one question, and others like it, is enough to spark the kind of interest that can make students forget the seemingly bizarre rules of the second conditional.
Teaching the second conditional can be quite a challenge except for one thing that helps a lot, which is this question: "What would you do if you won a million dollars?
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