Mobina Chitchian Mobina Chitchian

First Conditionals
B1 level

Description

Students are introduced to the first conditional through familiar and humorous examples related to Murphy's Law. After a contextualized reading task, they analyze target sentences, clarifying meaning, form, and pronunciation, and then practice through controlled and freer activities.

Materials

Abc Student book
Abc Whiteboard

Main Aims

  • To clarify and practice the first conditional (if + present, will + base form) so students can talk about possible future situations and their likely results.

Subsidiary Aims

  • 1. To provide reading for gist / detail to expose students to the target structure in context. 2. To develop accuracy through controlled grammar practice. 3. To develop fluency through a freer speaking task about real-life or hypothetical situations.

Procedure

Lead-in (2-3 minutes) • To set context and activate students' knowledge of Murphy's Law.

I will start the session by sharing a personal anecdote: "Exactly yesterday when it rained, I had just washed my car the night before." I explain that this is an example of Murphy's Law (when something can go wrong, it will). Then I ask students "Do you know Murphy's Law?", "Can anyone give an example for Murphy's Law?"

Highlighting (4-5 minutes) • To expose students to the target language in context and draw their attention to it.

At the beginning of this stage I ask students to read the text of page 64 in 2 minutes. Then, I will ask them to complete section C (the last four sentences) in 3 minutes. After they finished, I will check the answers with the whole class.

Clarification (MFPA: Meaning, Form, Pronunciation & Appropriacy) (8-10 minutes) • To ensure students fully understand the meaning, form, and pronunciation of the first conditional, so they can accurately recognize and produce it.

I will write down the last four sentences from the previous practice on the board and ask CCQs about it: "If I lose my old gloves and buy a new pai, will the old ones suddenly appear?" = yes. "If I order something online, will it probably be delivered when I'm not home?" = yes. "If I wait for the bus and decide to walk because it's late, will three buses arrive together?" = yes "If I'm late and in a taxi, will I get stopped by many red lights?" = yes. Then, I explain these sentences that I wrote down before on the board describe possible future situations and their likely results. After explaining the meaning, I will write down the form or the structure of the sentence on the board: "if + present simple, will + base form". I point again to the examples which are already on the board and elicit the structure from students for the remaining sentences. Then, I explain the if-clause can come first or second, and if the if-clause comes first we should put a comma after it. After I finished focusing on the structure of the first conditional, I will start practicing on the pronunciation. I will write down these words on the board and ask each student to read one pair: Wear / Where, Know / No, Meat / Meet, Weight / Wait, Write / Right, One / Won, See/ Sea, War/ Wore. After that, I explain we call the words that sound the same, but are spelled differently, Homophones.

Controlled Practice (4-5 minutes) • To give students the opportunity to practice the first conditional accurately in a guided, structured task where the focus is om correct form rather than fluency.

In this stage, I will ask students to do section B on page 141. They will have 5 minutes to do it individually then I will check the answers with the whole class.

Free Practice (2-4 minutes) • To give students the opportunity to use the target structure meaningfully and fluently.

At this stage, I ask student to discuss with their pair about this question: "if you could go back to the past, what things would you do or do not do?" After they finished their discussion, I will ask them to share their opinion with the class.

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