Teaching English Conditionals

Teaching English conditionals can be difficult because the grammar is so challenging.  The activities below give you some ideas to implement speaking and conversation into your conditional lessons.  These allow students to practice the grammar in a more natural way.  


Unreal Conditionals Speaking Activity


2nd Conditional Speaking Activity


2nd Conditional Conversation Questions


Zero Conditional Speaking Activity

Speaking Activity for Unreal Conditionals

Here is a short activity to help students practice speaking with conditionals, especially speaking hypothetically.  This can be used after a lesson on conditionals, or any time you would like to give students a chance to practice.


1.  Each student writes some questions using the 2nd conditional (e.g. What would you do if you won the lottery?)


2.  Students choose one of their questions they like the best.


3.  Student mingle throughout the class asking their question to each person.


4.  Students record the answers in point form or short notes with the name of the person who gave that reply.


5.  Students individually choose the best and worst answers base don their own opinion.


6.  Students report the best and worst answer to the class without giving names.




Options


After reporting the best and worst answers, the other students can guess who said each answer.  To do this, it is important to have a group that is very comfortable with each other.  If not, some students may be offended by having their answers chosen as the worst.


Another option is to have students choose their best question with a partner.  This creates a little extra discussion as they can negotiate which of the questions would work best for the activity.


The 3rd conditional also works well (e.g.  What would you have done?)


I hope you enjoy this activity.  As I said, it is a simple exercise that should take about 10 minutes.  It is valuable because most students struggle using the conditionals in speaking.

Conditionals Conversation Questions

Conditionals in English are one of the most difficult topics to learn. They are also very common in conversation, and therefore important for ESL learners to practice and master. Below are some questions to practice conditionals.

• If you won the lottery what would you do?
• If you could try any extreme sport what would it be?
• If you had 24 hours to live, what would you do?
• If you could be any animal, what would you be?
• If you could be any superhero, which would you be?
• If you could eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
• If you could live anywhere, where would it be?
• If you could meet anybody, who would it be?
• If you could go back in time where would you go?
• If you could only have one book/CD/DVD, what would it be?
• Would you rather be blind or deaf?
• If your house was on fire what two things would you save first?
• If you could have any super power what would it be?
• What food would you never eat?
• Would you rather have no money or no friends?
• Would you rather be able to fly or swim under water?
• If a classmate asked you for an answer to a question on an exam and the teacher could not see, what would you do?
• If you crashed your car into a parked car and no one saw, what would you do?
• What would you do if you found a wallet?
• If you had one wish what would you wish for?
• If someone gave you a lottery ticket as a gift and you won a million dollars, would you share it with them?
• If you didn’t have to sleep like everyone else, what would you do at night?
• Would you rather live in a place with warm weather that is dark all the time, or cold weather and always sunny?
• When would you wake up if you didn't have school?

Zero Conditional Speaking Activity

The zero conditional is an important grammar topic. When teaching it, you want your students to speak. So here is a good zero conditional speaking activity.

A great way to practice the Zero Conditional is to have the students explain rules to a game.

This works best as a presentation, where students explain the rules to a game they enjoy or know. By using the rules, students need to speak with the zero conditional.

Here is an example:

Checkers

• If you jump over your opponents piece, that piece is eliminated.
• If you land in your opponents back row, your checker is "kinged".

Students enjoy teaching classmates about a game they are good at or that is unique to their country. It is a great way to encourage speaking with the zero conditional. The class should also ask questions about the rules, which gives everyone a chance to use proper grammar. For example, "If the ball goes out of bounds, do I kick it in or throw it in?"

This exercise also works well in writing.  In this format, students write a list of 5 key rules for their chosen game.  This allows the teacher to focus on issues when writing the zero conditional, for example comma use.