Justine McCullough Justine McCullough

I wish / If only
Upper intermediate level

Description

This lesson revolves around learning to use the structures "I wish" and "If only". It is a grammar lesson with a writing practice.

Materials

Main Aims

  • To provide practice of I wish / If only in the context of regrets about the past

Subsidiary Aims

  • • To present students with new grammar.
  • • To give students practice at using the new grammar in a written assignment.

Procedure

Warmer/Lead-in (2-3 minutes) • To set lesson context and engage students

• Tell students that we’ll be talking about regrets. Tell Ss story about a past regret of my own.

Exposure and clarification (8-10 minutes) • To provide context for the target language through a text or situation / To clarify the meaning, form and pronunciation of the target language

• Ask Ss which words can be used to express regret. • Elicit: I wish, If only and Should have done. • Write up the form for all three in the WB. • Ask CCQ’s. • Check that Ss know which tense (past perfect) is used to express regrets about the past. • Check that Ss know when the past perfect is used. Ask CCQ’s. • Highlight which part of the form on WB is past perfect.

Controlled Practice (20-25 minutes) • To concept check and prepare students for more meaningful practice

• Ss receive a hand-out and, in pairs, will fill in the blanks that appear in the sentences. • Discuss a couple of the answers in open class. • Drill sentences from exercise (choral drilling, back- chaining, individual drilling). Switch up pairs (the other neighbour) and have students compare the answers they gave.

Semi-Controlled Practice + Pair check + Feedback (15-20 minutes) • To give Ss practice at using the new grammar in a semi-controlled context. To check Ss are able to use the new grammar. To correct mistakes the Ss made with the new grammar and to drill the new grammar if necessary.

• Divide Ss into groups of four. (>Have them sit with their groups before explaining the next exercise!) • Show Ss timeline of the story I told in the beginning. • Introduce next exercise, about writing a story. • Ss will write a short (fictional) story about regret, using the newly learned grammar. • Check meaning of ‘fictional’. • Ask one or two groups to tell the class and teacher about their story and show they’ve integrated the newly learned grammar. • Do any error correction, if necessary. • Drill certain sentences that the previous exercise revealed need drilling.

Review (8-10 minutes) • To review the difference between the present perfect and present perfect continuous.

• Review last week’s question about the difference between present perfect and present perfect continuous. • Hand Ss sheet with timelines that illustrate the difference between the two.

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