How to teach second conditional Conditionals scare students to death. They seem complicated and difficult to understand. But as I explain, they only seem to be like this. In this post I will try to keep things as simple as possible. Second conditional – song First, ask your students to listen and complete the following lyrics. Second conditional song lyrics ADVERT: Second conditional song: Second conditional – infographic Display the following mind map and ask the students to read the sentences. Draw the students’ attention to the pictures at the bottom of the page and explain the usage of the second conditional. Second conditionals – games You can play the following games in class or you can tell your students to do the exercises at home. Second conditional – En garde game The second game is called Fling the Teacher. Second conditionals – links You can find some excellent materials for teaching the second conditional at the British Council site.
Conditionals We use conditional sentences to say one thing depends on another. They can be used to talk about real or imaginary situations. One of the clauses starts with if (or a similar word) – this is the conditional clause. Don’t worry, it’s a lot easier than it sounds. If you don’t tell me, I’ll just keep asking.If I promise to travel less, will you forgive me? I know that one. That’s right. And can you change the order of the clauses round? Yes, and we leave out the comma in the middle of the sentence if the order is changed round. I’ll just keep asking if you don’t tell me. OK. Right again! If you travelled less because of me, I’d feel worse.If I had the opportunity to visit places like that, I wouldn’t complain! So, in the second example, Oliver doesn’t think he will have the opportunity to travel a lot. Can you use any other verbs, apart from would, in this kind of conditional? Yes, we sometimes use other modal verbs like might or could in the result clause (not the if clause). I see. Yes. Phew!
Games for learning English Hangman Go to our hangman page where you will find different categories of the classic favorite game. Different levels of difficulty. Save the man from being hanged! Crosswords Different levels of crosswords to complete here. Categories ranging from verbs to public transport. StoryBoard - Text Reconstruction Great way to test your knowledge of grammar and sentence structure. Wordsearch Puzzles Find the words to complete the puzzle. Logic Puzzles These logic puzzles will really get you thinking - and you'll be reading and thinking in English!
How to Form and Use the Third Conditional The third conditional is the most feared grammar point I know. Students of English think that it’s hard to form and understand. Therefore, when they start learning the grammar they are paralysed with fear. And as a result, they fail to learn it. Thus the third conditional keeps its reputation. But the truth is that the third conditional is not difficult at all. Here is a short worksheet that will help you introduce the grammar: Third conditional song lyrics Third conditional – infographic Display the following infographic or print out copies and hand them out. You can download the full image here: Third conditional infographic – full image Next, explain the meaning of the third conditional. Now, ask your students to form three third conditional sentences using the clues in the infographic and to describe the situations in which they might be used. The following quiz can help your students practise the third conditional either at school or at home.
Passive voice - board game I love playing games with my students. They lower students’ anxiety and they give them a chance to practise the language. Moreover, in a game mistakes are welcome, and students find it easier to concentrate and perservere. In this post, I would like to share a board game which I created for my students to practise the passive voice. Printing the game, you will need to print three times as many pages two as pages one. My students usually play the game in groups of three or four. The student who gets to the end first is the winner. I hope your students will enjoy the game as much as my students did. G is for Guided Discovery A colleague in the Czech Republic emailed me this week, asking about guided discovery – a term he felt was being used rather too freely by his graduate students: “I’ve had a bit of a hunt round looking for some empirical work on guided discovery. Know you of anything? I emailed back: “Can I clarify – is it the ‘guided’ or the ‘discovery’ that concerns you? My friend responded: “In answer to your question, I guess it’s the whole notion of discovery learning – where’s the evidence?” First of all: What is discovery learning – and guided discovery, in particular? Discovery learning, according to Richards & Schmidt (2002) is where “learners develop processes associated with discovery and inquiry by observing, inferring, formulating hypotheses, predicting and communicating” (p. 162). The actual degree of guidance can vary a lot. Guidance is typically mediated by questions, each question challenging learners to advance their understanding one further step. Does guided discovery work? References:
Use six different tenses in English | Games to learn English Students often learn just one piece of grammar in a lesson. Most of them master that day’s subject and move on to the next. But, when the time for revision comes, they often don’t remember what they’ve learnt. For example, two weeks ago my class encountered an exercise in which several tenses were revised. First, they demanded that I re-explain the grammar and then they seemed really confused about what form they should use. ADVERT: That was why I decided to stop there and prepare several exercises and a clear mind map. The second infographic is much more detailed. Now that your students understand the grammar, they have to use it as soon as possible. If you cannot do the exercise online, you can try the following paper version of the quiz. six tenses worksheet You can find more exercises to practise different tenses at Five Tenses and Five Tenses additional exercises.
English grammar + Exercises + PDF Timelines in EFL | Recipes for the EFL Classroom This is my second post in a series of posts going ‘Back to Basics‘, re-examining techniques and ideas introduced on teacher training courses. What is a timeline? A timeline is a visual representation of the relationships that exist between tense and time. They are simple drawings which can illustrate the meaning of these sometimes, let’s face it, rather complex relationships. Why use a timeline? Timelines can illustrate meaning in a much simpler way than using metalanguage to describe tenses (e.g. What can timelines be used for? An example By the end of the year, Sophie will have been living in Paris for 4 years. I’ve deliberately chosen a difficult tense to exemplify how a timeline can illustrate a complex idea much more simply. The nuts and bolts of timelines A basic timeline is labelled with ‘past’, ‘now’, and ‘future’, as appropriate. Specific points in time can be added using a X. This example could visualise ‘The film started before I arrived’. Tweaking your timelines Like this:
Formación de palabras para el Use of English del First de Cambridge Rox| 7 min de lectura Boring? Bored? Boredom? Una de las pesadillas para muchos que se presentan al First del Cambridge (nivel B2) es la tercera parte del Use of English, el que consiste en formación de palabras en inglés. Por ejemplo en éste texto tenemos la raíz PRODUCT a partir de la cual habría que rellenar el texto con PRODUCTION. Hoy vamos a ver a) los trucos para formar la palabra y b) una fórmula para aprenderla mediante la intuición. Use of English -ejercicio formación de palabras- Trucos para formar las palabras Las palabras se forman de varias maneras como la derivación (la que se aplica a ésta prueba: ejemplo la palabra “aburrir” Bore -verbo- y “aburrimiento” Boredom -sustantivo-) o la composición, otra técnica muy común (como el adjetivo “desagrabale”, off-putting, o “niño de 10 años” que en inglés se combina en una sola palabra a 10-year-old). Como en la prueba nos concierne el primer método, vamos a analizar las diferentes formas de derivación en inglés. ¡Cuidado! 4) Lee.
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Teaching approaches: task-based learning What is TBL? How often do we as teachers ask our students to do something in class which they would do in everyday life using their own language? Probably not often enough. If we can make language in the classroom meaningful therefore memorable, students can process language which is being learned or recycled more naturally. Task-based learning offers the student an opportunity to do exactly this. In the task-based lessons included below our aim is to create a need to learn and use language. How can I use TBL in the classroom? Most of the task-based lessons in this section are what Scrivener** classifies as authentic and follow the task structure proposed by Willis and Willis***. Each task will be organized in the following way: Pre-task activity an introduction to topic and taskTask cycle: Task > Planning > ReportLanguage Focus and Feedback A balance should be kept between fluency, which is what the task provides, and accuracy, which is provided by task feedback. What was her name? References
Lanternfish ESL: Lesson for Adult Classes The Odd One Out Game: Students look at a list of four items and decide which is different. They must give a reason. Everybody holds their answer up at the same time. If their reason is unique they get a point. Example: Eagle, Owl, Bat, Penguin. Penguins can't fly. Bats are mammals. Bats have teeth. Bats have poor eyesight. Penguins can swim. Peguins only live in the Southern Hemisphere. Remember they only need to give a unique reason to get a point. Dislikes: Simple worksheet highlighting useful language for discussing dislikes. Classroom English: Highlights the essential language for getting information when you don't understand something. For and Against: A simple worksheet for practising expressing opinions. Chores, Errands, and Favors: Students discuss what chores they do and what errands they run ESL Surveys: This section contains several sets of survey questions. Love and Relationships: A collection of worksheets and activities for teaching vocabulary used to describe relationships.