First and Second Conditional Activity

This is a downloadable ESL activity to highlight and practise the difference between first and second conditionals based on likely and unlikely situations.

First and second conditional activity

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Here’s some more info about the activity:

Aim To present the difference between the first and second conditionals.
Activity Students decide if situations are likely or unlikely to happen, and use these situations to form first and second conditional sentences.
Organisation Pair work
Preparation Make enough copies of the worksheet for the number of students in your class.
What do I do?
  1. Divide the board into three columns entitled SITUATION, RESULT and LIKELY/UNLIKELY. Write the situations in the SITUATION column.
  2. Divide students into pairs and ask them to decide if each situation is likely or unlikely to happen.
  3. Get feedback from different pairs and add likely or unlikely to the LIKELY/UNLIKELY column.
  4. Now ask pairs to imagine what they would do in each situation. Don’t worry about correct use of conditionals at this point.
  5. Get feedback from different pairs and add some examples to the RESULT column.
  6. Now ask if anyone can make a conditional sentence using one of the likely situations and its result and one of the unlikely situations and its result.
  7. When the student uses the wrong form, reveal the correct structures. The comparison on the board allows you to show students that the only difference between the two sentences is that one is likely and one is unlikely to happen.
  8. Ask pairs to make conditional sentences with the remaining examples.

A tiger walks into this room
I win the lottery
It rains this weekend
It snows tonight
This class finishes on time
My teacher gives me some homework

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