Real English series: What would you do if...?

In our Real English video series this week passers-by answer the question What would you do if you won 10 millions dollars?

We use the second conditional to express hypothesis about the present and the future. There are two parts in each conditional sentence, the if-clause and the main clause.

The if-clause is usually followed by a verb in the past simple tense and introduces the hypothetical situation.
(1) If I won the lottery...
(2) If I lived in a different country...
(3) If I passed the exam...

The main clause expresses the result of the situation. We use the conditional auxiliary would to do so.
(1) I would buy another car.
(2) I would probably speak another language.
(3) I would be the happiest person in the world.

We use the second conditional to talk about hypothetical, unreal situations about the present and/or the future:
If I knew her name, I would tell you. (I don't know her name.)
She would be happy if she had a car. (But she doesn't have one.)

We often use were instead of was in both formal and informal styles with this structure.
If I were rich, I would spend all my life travelling.
If my nose were a bit shorter, I'd be quite pretty.



You can read the transcript for the video on the Real English site here.

For further listening practice, you can also watch this Real English video, where two girls, Christina and Karen, are interviewed. The two-minute video is good practice to revise some of the tenses we have been studying throughout the Real English series (personal information questions, present perfect, past simple, used to, and so on) but at one stage the interviewer asks Christina and Karen a question in the second conditional: What would you say to people, if you knew somebody from France was coming over, what phrases should they learn?



You can read the transcript for the video on the Real English site here.

For other activities on the second conditional on this blog, just type in 'second conditional' in the search box, but Kindness Boomerang, and Miss Universe to learn English spring to mind.

Miss Universe to learn English

It may sound a bit banal at first but the contest of Miss Universe offers English learners a good opportunity to practise English in several ways.

In Miss Universe 2011 the participants had to do a video in which they answered three questions:
Do you believe in life on other planets?
What advantages do women have over men?
If you were an animal, what would you be and why?

The videos give us the opportunity to listen to a variety of English accents, both native and non-native, and they are not too hard to understand.  Besides, they can be used as an introduction if we are studying or revising the second conditional, or if the topic of stereotypes, women vs men, has come up in class. Finally, students can answer the questions for themselves after they have seen the videos.

Self study activity:
Watch the  videos and complete the blanks in the transcripts with the missing words.

Great Britain

Do you believe in life on other planets?
I actually do believe in life on other planets or I’d like to think that there is life on other planets, to think that we are only one in the whole solar system, it feels pretty (1) ..., so I would definitely like to think that there is life on other planets, even if it is as tiny as an ameba or something, just something is there.

What advantages do women have over men?
I think that women and men are pretty much equal even if they are not treated as such. But I think one advantage is maybe that they can (2) ... better than men. A man would probably disagree, but I think that women have to do so many things, and also they have the advantage of being able to carry life, which is something a man is unable to do, and I think that’s a (3) ..., so that’s a definite advantage.

If you were an animal, what would you be and why?
If I was an animal I would probably be a (4) ..., because (4) ... get to reinvent themselves into a (5) ..., which I have just here. So, yeah, I’d probably be a (4) ... that turns into a big beautiful (5) ... and then they get to fly whenever they want to go, so it’s free-travel, so I’d be a (4) ... into a (5) ... .

Australia

Do you believe in life on other planets?
I do believe it’s very possible and I’m not sure whether I’d like to meet them.

What advantages do women have over men?
Maybe (6) ... , I think women are a lot more (6) ... than men. Obviously this is a big assumption about men, but I think, yeah, men could be a little bit more (6) ... especially at (7) ... .

If you were an animal, what would you be and why?
Probably a (8) ... . I definitely think if I were an animal I would be a (8) ... , because it just would be amazing to fly wherever you had to go.

US

Do you believe in life on other planets?
I do believe in life on other planets. I don’t think that we are the only ones. Well so are science geeks, of course. I'm reading about (9) ... from outer space and if there’s really life on other planets.

What advantages do women have over men?
I think the advantage that women have over men is, the (10) ... about being a woman is that we can create life and they are here because we are here.

If you were an animal, what would you be and why?
If I could be an animal I’m pretty sure I would be a (11) ... and that’s because I feel I’d walk in (12) ... miles per hour, and that’s how fast they go, so I think I would definitely be a (11) ... .

Key:
1 lonely 2 multitask 3 gift 4 caterpillar 5 butterfly 6 patience 7 airports 8 bird 9 aliens 10 beauty 11 cheetah 12 eighty-six

Kindness Boomerang

I came across Kindness Boomerang through Larry Ferlazzo in late December. Larry already warned us of the oversentimentality of the video, but he considered it was full of learning opportunities for the English student. He suggested two: Describing the everyday actions the clip portraits, something which language students of all levels find really demanding, and discussing the message in the video.



I think Kindness Boomerang gives us the chance of revising/learning conditional sentences of all kinds.

I would suggest the following steps in the lesson:

• Students watch the video and make a note of the chain of actions in it: the builder helps the skateboarder to get up > the skateboarder helps the old woman cross the street > the old woman gives the girl change for the parking meter > The girl picks up the envelope the man in the suit has inadvertently dropped > The man in the suit helps a man unload the luggage from the car boot > The car man buys a hot dog for the beggar > The vendor gives the beggar water > The beggar gives the girl the mobile she had forgotten > The mobile phone girl buys some flowers for the woman sitting at the cafe > The woman at the flower stall gives a flower to the mobile phone girl > The woman sitting at the cafe leaves a generous tip > The waitress gives a drink of water to the builder.

From here, students repeat the chain of events

• First conditional: If the builder helps the skateboarder to get up, the skateboarder will help the old woman cross the street > If the skateboarder helps the old woman, she will give the girl change for the parking meter > ...

• Second conditional: If the parking meter girl picked up the envelope, the man in a suit would help the man unload the car > If the man in a suit helped the man unload, the car man would buy a hotdog for the beggar > ...

• Third conditional: If the beggar had given the mobile to the girl, she would have bought flowers for the woman > If the mobile phone girl had bought flowers for the woman at the cafe, the woman would have left a generous tip > ...

Talking point: Time to run

What would you put in your emergency go-bag? is a  question The Learning Network posted in early December in their section Student Opinion.

A “go-bag” is defined by the New York City Office of Emergency Management as “a collection of items you can use in the event of an evacuation,” but in a recent Styles article, a reporter asked some well-known New Yorkers what other items they’d put in their bags besides basic emergency provisions.

If you were leaving your home in a hurry in the event of a disaster, what items — irreplaceable because of their practical, sentimental or monetary value — would you make sure to include in your bag?

Get together with your English-speaking friends or relatives and discuss this question.

You can also use Stephanie Rosenbloom's article to gain some background information about the topic.

For further ideas, you can also visit The Burning House, a project for which people submitted a picture with the objects they would take with them in case of fire in their house. There are lists naming the objects on each picture, so The Burning House can prove invaluable to develop our grasp of everyday vocabulary items.

From a linguistic point of view, the activity can help us revise and practise the second conditional to express hypothesis:

If I had to leave my house in an emergency, I would take...

The Burning House

The Burning House is a beautiful webpage I learn about today through the blog ESL Activities.

The idea behind the webpage is presented in just one paragraph:

"If your house was burning, what would you take with you? It's a conflict between what's practical, valuable and sentimental. What you would take reflects your interests, background and priorities. Think of it as an interview condensed into one question."

From here tens of people have posted entries with their list of the objects they would save together with a short explanation and a photograph showing them.


So what's in The Burning House for the English student? First of all, the sheer feast of prying into so many life stories summarised in just one photograph and a list of objects. Then the opportunity to develop our reading and vocabulary skills while going over the posts.


Finally, and if we have the opportunity to get together with some other English students, the chance to develop our speaking ability by answering the question "what would you take with you if your house was burning?". We don't need to gather all the objects together. Drawing them or just naming them would be enough, but going over the objects would allow us to have lots of speaking time while we go over personal stories.

A World of 100

A World of 100 is an interactive slideshow from Portland Free School which gives us an insight of what the world is like in terms of welfare distribution by showing statistics which correlate all data to 100. That way it is far easier for everyone to fathom out the way resources and well-being are distributed around the world.

Self-study activity:
Use the slideshow to practise second conditional sentences.
Example:
If the world were a village of 100, 52% of the population would be women and 48% would be men.

You may like to vist this blog entry about the 100 people project.
H/T to DDeubel.

If it were my home

If it were my home is an interactive that compares our standard of living with other parts of the world. You can choose the country in the world you want to compare Spain with.

The parameters the site compares are employment, oil consume, electricity use, chance of dying in infancy, number of babies, money spent on health care, experience of class divide, likelihood of having AIDS, life expectancy, number of hours worked per day, and salary.

The site also gives us some background information about the country we are comparing Spain with, and we can also read users' posts commenting on the question 'Does XXXX seem like a nice place to live?

Self-study activity:
Get together with an English speaking friend or relative and before choosing a country, make predictions about the way Spain compares to that country bearing in mind the parameters above.

Do not forget to use a second conditional to make your hypothesis about what your life would be like if you lived in that country.
Example: If I lived in the UK my life would be shorter than in Spain.

The exercise can also help us revise comparatives and how to say some figures in English.

H/T to Larry Ferlazzo.

Conditional sentences revisited

Beatiful presentation of the three types of conditional sentences by IES teacher Agusti Lloberas. All the types of conditional sentences are clearly explained at the same time.

Agusti's Place is also worth a visit as he has lots of interesting resources for everybody.

Conditionals

View more presentations from Agusti’s Place.