
So of course, as I have said, getting the little bastards to speak is priority one. The text books aren’t much help usually.
Typical point: The second conditional. What would you do if . . .? If plus past tense, and would plus infinitive, for all you grammar buffs out there. To describe an unreal or unlikely hypothetical situation.
For some reason most text books are fond of offering nothing much other than the following for the conversation portion of this lesson:
“What would you do if you won $1,000,000 in the lottery? Discuss with your partner.”
Ostensibly not a bad thing to talk about but it will basically get you nothing other than this:
“Well, I guess I’d buy a nice car and maybe a house, and probably I’d take a long holiday and travel around the world, but I’d save about half of it and give some to my family.”
Okay. Conversation finished. That took, what, maybe a minute?
Then the book might say something like: “Ask your partner a few questions in the second conditional! What would you do if . . .?”
Basically it is a bad idea to assume your students have any imagination whatsoever. So with that in mind I offer the following second conditional questions to be given to students to discuss in pairs.
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INTERESTING CONDITIONALS
What would you do if you saw a UFO?
What would you do if a very small man (180 cm tall) approached you on the street, pointed a knife at you, and asked for all of your money?
If you could know the exact time and date of your death, would you want to?
If you could have any super power – for example, the ability to fly, or to be very strong, or to become invisible – which super power would you choose? Why? What would you do with this power?
If you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you?
If someone offered you $10,000 to take naked pictures of you and put them on the Internet, would you do it?
If you could save one hundred monkeys by killing one person, would you do it?
If you could meet any three famous people, which three people would it be, and why?
If you could end world hunger by cutting off one of your arms, would you do it?
If you had a time machine and could travel to any three times in history, which three times would you want to visit, and why?
If you had $5000 and you had to spend it within 24 hours, what would you do?
If you could kill people only by thinking about it, do you think you would use this power? Who would you kill, and why?
Would you work for a company that you knew polluted the environment with toxic waste if they offered you a salary of $20,000 a month?
If you could live a very comfortable life in a country of your choice, but never return to your home country or see your family or friends again, would you go?
If you could live to be 100 years old but stay young and healthy in appearance, would you want to? 200? 500?
If you could change three things about the world today, what would you change?
If you could change one thing about your body, what would it be?
What would you do if you knew that the world was going to be hit by a comet and destroyed in one week?
What would you do if your teacher came to class drunk?
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You can leave the last one out if you happen to be coming to class drunk. . .