 In this session we are going to be looking at conditionals. What are conditionals? Well, in simplest terms, we are looking at things we are talking about. If this happens, then that happens. The common we refer to as if-sentence structures. Because they often contain the word if. There are a wide variety of patterns that are used, depending on the situations that you are talking about. Depending on whether the situation is factual or completely impossible and anything in between those two situations. The patterns we are going to be looking at in this unit are the five typical patterns that are most commonly taught when teaching English as a foreign language. They are the zero conditional, first conditional, second conditional, third conditional and mixed conditional. Let's start by having a look at the zero conditional. The zero conditional is used to talk about situations that are generally or always true, such as scientific facts. What's the result of heating ice? It melts. How can we put this in a sentence? A sentence could be, if you heat ice, it melts. Let's have a look at the structure of these sentences. The first part of the sentence, the first clause, if you heat ice, is using the tense present simple. The second clause is also using the tense present simple. And we have the if at the beginning of the sentence. If could be substituted by the word when to indicate the total certainty of the thing happening. Let's have a look at another example using the zero conditional with a slightly different situation. The result of me getting up early in the morning could be to go for a walk as a typical activity that I do. How could we put this into a sentence? This would be the typical sentence. If I get up early, I usually go for a walk. Again, we could substitute if with when to indicate the certainty of this happening. So the usages for the zero conditional are scientific facts, general truths and issues or situations that are certain to happen or almost certain to happen. The use of when indicates that the situation is certain to happen. Let's have a look at a teaching idea for the zero conditional. A lot of teaching ideas that we're going to be looking at for conditionals can be used all the other conditionals as well. One of the beauties of conditionals is that they are interchangeable as far as teaching ideas goes. Let's have a look at a card game commonly known as pulmonism and often known as memory game. You very well know some other name as well. You have sentences cut into two. For example, when you cut yourself, you bleed. When you sleep, you dream. When you heat ice, it melts. When you boil water, you get steam. When you don't drink enough, you get thirsty. The way the game works is the students at first put the cards together in the correct manner. Then they are turned over, mixed up. The students work in pairs or threes and take turns at trying to match the cards from memory. So, for example, I would turn over first that says, when you don't drink enough, then the student has to remember how the sentence would finish or make up their own finish. So, when you don't drink enough, you get thirsty. Then, if I remember where the correct card was, you dream, that doesn't match. Turn cards back over again. The next student has a go. When you cut yourself, you bleed. When you cut yourself, you bleed, they match, so the student keeps that pair. And so it goes on and the student with the most matches at the end of the game is the winner. Let's now take a look at another conditional, the first conditional. Let's have a look at a typical situation that the first conditional would be used for. Win in the lottery, the result of which might be to take something on a cruise. So, a sentence for this would be, if I win the lottery, I will take you on a cruise. What other words could we use instead of will? I might take you on a cruise. I could take you on a cruise. I may take you on a cruise. So, let's first have a look at the structure of this. As with a zero conditional, we have the if plus a present simple clause. And in the second clause, we have will or another suitable modal auxiliary verb, followed by the base form of the verb. Why do we refer to this as the base form rather than present simple? Consider changing the pronoun I will take you on a cruise to she or he. She will take you on a cruise. Notice with the present simple, taking away the will, it would be she takes you on a cruise. But in fact, we don't conjugate the verb as we would do in a normal present simple sentence. Let's have a look at the usage for the first conditional. In this situation, we're looking at a likely result of a possible future situation. Note that the word when would be inappropriate in this sentence, because it would be an inappropriate level of confidence for winning the lottery. When really is only used for the zero conditional. We're also looking at a promise. It's a promise to take somebody on the cruise if you win the lottery. It could also be used for threats or warnings. If you don't leave me alone, I will call the police. And backup plans is another typical use. If it rains tomorrow, I'll go to the cinema. Let's have a look at the next conditional, the second conditional. Very similar in many ways to the first conditional as far as usage goes. So let's take the same situation as we did with the first conditional. The result of winning the lottery take you on a cruise. But having a little bit less confidence in the situation actually occurring. So let's have a look at this sentence. If I won the lottery, I might take you on a cruise. Comparing that with the first conditional, if I win the lottery, I will take you on a cruise. One way you might find helpful to remember these patterns is by taking one situation such as this and then putting it in the pattern of each conditional such as we did here. If I win the lottery, I might take you on a cruise. And this one, if I won the lottery, I might take you on a cruise. A little less likelihood of the situation happening. Let's have a look at the structure of the second conditional. Here we have if in the first conditional. Plus the past simple might, which we should substitute with other modals. And the base form again, similar to the first conditional. There are a couple of changes that can be made to the structure with this particular conditional. For you, I wouldn't do that. Notice again, still in the past simple, with the pronoun I in the past simple, you would normally use the word was rather than were, but with the second conditional, were is more typically used. Another teaching point. If I wasn't sitting here now, I could be on a beach. Rather than past simple here, we're looking at past continuous. So the structure for the 0 of the second conditional plus past simple or past continuous may, might, could and the base form of a verb. Let's have a look at the usages for the second conditional. We're looking at dreams if I won the lottery, looking at fantasies, and we're also looking at hypothetical situations. Let's have a look at a teaching idea that's appropriate for the second conditional. A typical teaching idea that is used is for students to work in groups of 2-4 and discuss situations such as this. What would you do if you won the lottery? What would we do if you were president? What would you do if you were living on a desert island? Typical situations like that that can be used to create second conditional sentences. We're now going to look at the third conditional. Consider the same situation that we've been using for the first and second conditionals, but putting it into the past. We're looking at a past result of an imaginary situation that occurred in the past. So, with that in mind, the sentence that we would produce from this, if I'd won in the past, what would be in the result in the past? If I had won, I would have taken you on a cruise. So it's a completely hypothetical situation in the past that didn't occur, and this would have been the result if it had occurred in the past. So let's have a look at the structure of this conditional. If I had won, we're looking at a past perfect clause, would have taken you on a cruise. Would could be substituted could. Also might have taken is a past participle. Students often ask, why is this not the present perfect? I have taken you. It would be a typical present perfect sentence. However, referring back to one of the previous conditionals, if we change the pronoun from I to she, in the absence of the modal would, could or might, present perfect, she has taken you. By introducing the modal, have is always used, regardless of the pronoun that is used in the sentence. Let's have a look at the usages. We're looking at regrets. They're also used for excuses. If I'd known it was your birthday, I would have bought you a present. Let's have a look at a teaching idea that could be used for the third conditional. A nice one that can be used, can be used for other conditionals as well, is tennis. For example, two students or three can work in a group and they try to use the endings of the previous sentence for the start of another example. If I'd known it was your birthday, I would have taken you for a meal. If I had taken you for a meal, we could have gone for a walk afterwards. If we had gone for a walk afterwards, we might have seen the sunset and so on and so on until one of the students is unable to complete the sentence and then the other student is the winner and set up different situations that are appropriate for third conditional. The final conditional we're going to look at in this unit is called the mixed conditional. This conditional is dealing with the present results of imaginary situations in the past. So the imaginary situation of winning a lottery in the past, the present result might be that we are on a cruise ship now. If I had won the lottery, we could be on a ship now. Let's have a look at the structure of this particular conditional if plus the past perfect followed by could plus the base form, would or might. If we look at the structure of this, we can see that the first clause is a third conditional and the second clause is the same as the second conditional. That is why it's known as the mixed conditional. It's a mix of the second and the third conditionals. What's the typical usage for this? The present result of an imaginary situation that occurred in the past. Let's have a look at a teaching idea that's appropriate for this particular conditional. A nice one is mill drill bingo using excuses. Students each have a sheet like this. They mill drill around speaking to various people in the class and try to get different names in each one of the squares. In the middle of each square, there is a situation such as why are you in prison. This particular person, they've spoken to Ron who said if I hadn't stolen the car, I wouldn't be in prison now. They're making up possible starts in the mixed conditional pattern. If they can get a line of different names, then that's a bingo. Of course you can play it so that students try and get a full house to keep the activity going. Finally, let's have a look at one situation and change the sentence structure depending on what we are trying to say. So there's zero. When I have spare money, I buy lottery tickets. That's what's generally true. That's what usually happens. If I win the lottery, I might take you on a cruise. If I won the lottery, I could take you on a cruise. This use of pass simple here is indicating a reduced degree of certainty over the first conditional. If I had won the lottery, I would have taken you on a cruise. That's the pass result of an imaginary situation in the past. If I had won the lottery, we could be on a cruise now. That's the present situation of an imaginary situation in the past. OK, let's briefly review the conditionals that we've learned. In our first example sentence, if you don't eat, you get hungry. This is what we call the zero conditional. Both clauses of the sentence if you don't eat and you get hungry both are in the present tense. Zero conditional is used to express facts or general truths. If you don't eat, you get hungry. Not on any one particular occasion, but generally. Our second example sentence, if it rains, I will stay at home. This is the first conditional. In the if clause, we use the present tense. And in the other clause, we use the future tense. If it rains, present tense, I will stay at home. Future tense. The first conditional is used for real and possible situations. It's quite possible or likely that it could rain tomorrow. Therefore, I would use the first conditional here. However, if we look at the next example, if I won the lottery, I would buy a new house. This is the second conditional. In the if clause, we have the past tense. If I won the lottery. In the other clause, we use the modal verb would. I would buy a new house. This modal verb could be replaced by other modal verbs, such as may or might. The second conditional is used to express unreal or hypothetical situations. Unlike the first conditional, which was used to express real situations. Often, it's a matter of perception whether you see the situation as being real or hypothetical. Our next example sentence. If I had studied harder, I would have passed the exam. This is an example of the third conditional. In the if clause here, we have the past perfect tense. If I had studied harder. In the other clause, we're using the modal verb would again with the perfect form after it. Have passed. I would have passed the exam. This is what we call the past hypothetical conditional. Both of these clauses are talking about the past. If I had studied harder in the past, I would have passed the exam in the past. They're both hypothetical because they didn't happen. If I had studied harder, but I didn't. I would have passed the exam, but I didn't. Our final conditional example. If I had passed the exam, I would be a doctor. This is an example of the mixed conditional. In the if clause, like the third conditional, we have the past perfect. If I had passed. But in the other clause, we have the modal verb would plus the base form of the verb. As in the second conditional. This is why it's called the mixed conditional. It's taken elements of the third conditional and also the second conditional. Whereas with the third conditional, we said both situations related to the past and were hypothetical with the mixed conditional, only the situation in the if clause relates to the past. If I had passed my exams. The other clause relates to the present. I would be a doctor now. Again, both are hypothetical. I didn't pass my exams because I'm not a doctor. In English, we often have a need to quote people. We can do so through what's called direct speech. Written form, it would look like, Corey said we're moving house next week. I've used quotes and I've quoted him directly. The words that he used. However, there's another way we can quote people and it's through reported speech. We don't quote their exact words. We simply let people know what's been said. Again, this is reported speech and that's what we'll be looking at in this unit. Alright, now let's see how you did. The resulting reported speech would be Corey said that they were moving house the following week. Now, there's a very good chance this doesn't match up with what you had. This is because in spoken English we don't often follow the official rules of what we call switchback with reported speech. We have to switch back, A, the tense because we're reporting what something was said in the past. So, again, we backshift the tense from we are moving which is the present continuous. We have to put that into the past continuous so now R becomes were. Again, present continuous to past continuous. Because we're talking about different people we also have to change the subject of the sentence here. We, because Corey said it and he's included himself, however we're reporting what he said so I have to change we to they. Then we have to change our time expression. Next week needs to change to something that would indicate next week because there's a very good chance that next week is an entirely different week at the time that we're reporting what Corey said. Let's begin our examination of backshifting our words by looking at our places. Imagine for a moment I have a friend named Mike and Mike has moved to London. I've asked Mike what he thinks of London and his direct quote is I love it here. However, I'm going to report Mike's speech to a mutual friend in New York. It wouldn't make much sense to say Mike loved it here. I'm in New York, but we're talking about London. So we change here to there. The result is Mike told me that he loved it there. Another of the changes that need to be made in reported speech have to do with the pronouns used. Again, let's look at our sentence. Mike said I love it here. If I'm reporting what Mike said, it wouldn't make much sense for me to keep I as I as I'm reporting my friend's speech. So I make the appropriate pronoun change from I to he. Other common pronoun changes would be we to they. So on and so forth. One of the main issues that we have to keep in consideration when reporting speech is that we want to indicate that the original speech was said in the past. The way we do that is to backshift the tense. So take again our original statement. Mike said I love it here. Not only do I need to switch here to there because now I'm in New York. I also have to indicate that it was said in the past. So I changed love to loved. Now it ends up with a sentence being Mike told me he loved it there. I can no longer assume that it's true because I don't know whether Mike still loves London or not. I simply want to report what he said in the past. Here's a full list of the tense changes that we need to make for reported speech. We have our present simple to the past simple such as in the example you just saw where Mike said I love it here and we changed it to he loved it there. Now we have our present continuous change to the past continuous. We would make the same exact type of change. So if somebody in the past said I'm playing football I would have to report that quote in reported speech as he said he was playing football. The following changes are made so on and so forth until we get to the past perfect and the past perfect continuous. We don't change these. We don't back shift them into another tense because they're as far back as they need to be put. When we move into the future tenses always indicated by the word will we simply change will to the past tense form resulting in would. Now one note to make is that these changes are never incorrect to make no matter what the situation is. However, sometimes it can be okay to not make that change. We do this when we know the statement is absolutely true. For instance, if I'm on a phone conversation and I repeat what has just been said to another person in the room asking about what's just been said then it's okay to leave the tense as it was originally stated. Also we can do this with facts. Facts that we know are always going to be true. If a student is reporting what a teacher said and the teacher said the earth revolves around the sun of course that's always going to be true and it would be okay for that student to report it as such not back shifting the tense. Let's examine this a bit further and pretend that I want to report a friend of mine's speech from January 1st. Directly quoted, Jack said, I have stopped smoking today. Again that's back on January 1st. Now let's fast forward to February 1st. Incorrectly reported speech would be Jack said that he has stopped smoking today. Now this would indicate that he has stopped smoking today, February 1st. But Jack said it back on January 1st. Let's see how you did. The sentence should read Jack said that he had stopped smoking that day. Why are these changes necessary? Because as we said if we leave it as today that would indicate that Jack stopped smoking on February 1st when it was on January 1st. We can't leave has as has because we have to back shift the tense to indicate that it was said in the past as well it's a month later. We don't know if it's still true. Therefore the present perfect changes to the past perfect resulting in Jack has said that he had stopped smoking that day. Here now is a list of the additional time changes. We have today going to that day. Now to then. Yesterday to the day before. X days ago to X days before. Last week, last month, last year. Going to the previous week, month or year. Tomorrow to the next day. And this week, this month, this year. Going to that week, month or year. Now these changes aren't absolute. They can vary so long as the time change to indicate when something was said. So yesterday doesn't need to be the day before. It could be the previous day. Now if we go back to the example we use with Mike and stop smoking we could also say that Mike said that he had stopped smoking on New Year's Day because we remember the specific date on which it was said. Having gone through these time changes and explaining them to our students then have to let them know that it's sometimes okay that we don't make these time changes and that's only in the instances when reporting a speech as what was originally said does not cause confusion for the listener. So for instance, if today was said and today hasn't finished I can go ahead and leave today as today. We can also look at yesterday. If yesterday when it's in the direct speech is still yesterday when it's in the reported speech again we don't have to make the change to the day before. Let's see how we did. In the original question Jody asked me do you smoke? We would report that question as a statement. Jody asked me if I smoked. In the second question Jody asked Adam where do you live? Again we changed the question to a statement. Jody asked Adam where he lived. What we've done here is added if and dropped a do to the question do you smoke? There are a limited number of responses to that question. Typically yes or no. Something very simple. So we add if, drop do change our pronouns and shift the tense back to the past. Here where do you live is a much more open-ended question. Rather than adding if and dropping do we still drop do and we make our pronoun change and we backshift our tense resulting in Jody asked Adam where he lived. We have another type of statement that can be made and reported. Those are commands or imperatives. Now these two examples here a teacher might tell a student sit down and somebody might say don't smoke. These are special instances. How do we change these into reported speech? The reported speech for these commands would be the teacher told me to sit down and the doctor told me not to smoke. Here what we've done is added the infinitive form of to sit rather than just sit and as well we've also added it here in front of smoke. Now resulting in the infinitive form of the verb to smoke. In the negative form as do not again we've dropped our do kept not. The result is the doctor told me not to smoke. What we can do is change this word told into warned or ordered. In the examples we've just looked at we use the words said, asked and told to indicate the reported speech. Of course there are more here's just a few. Advised, suggested, warned, ordered, proclaimed and explained. We could use any old word so long as it does indicate that we're reporting somebody's speech. Let's have a look now at some teaching ideas for reported speech. In this teaching idea we'll have students going around asking their classmates for various bits of information. Of course the questions and the answers will be in direct speech. At the end of the activity the key point here will be having the students report back the answers of what they previously got. In this situation we have the question find someone who is going away next weekend. Of course the question would have been in direct speech as well as the answer. Now we'll report back the answer such as something like Pablo told me that he was going to London next weekend. Here's another teaching idea for the reported speech. This time we'll have a series of domino cards. The teacher will have cut out the cards before class to begin the activity. The teacher will distribute the cards to the students. Here each card is half direct speech and half reported speech with gaps. What we'll ask the students to do is match the direct speech to the reported speech and add in the critical bits of the sentence. If the card here says I waited for you almost two hours we'll ask the students to identify the right card. Here it would of course be this and they'll add in the bits that finish the sentence. She told me that she had waited quite a long time. The activity will continue so on and so forth until all of the cards are laid down. Here's an additional teaching idea for the reported speech. This time the activity will be done in two phases. The first phase will challenge the students to match a statement with a certain character in a picture. The students will see the statement. I can't see the board and have to assign it to the most logical person probably being the short girl sitting behind the big man. They'll continue to match these statements with the correct caption and only then will we ask our students to report the speech using another card seen here. The idea here will be to challenge the students to A. Remember what the students said and B. To report that statement in reported speech. Using the same example of the girl before pictured here as E. The students will be challenged to report her speech hopefully coming up with Helma said that she couldn't see the board. This will continue so on and so forth for each person in the picture. Now let's just quickly review reported speech. Let's look at the example here. John said I am happy. In reported speech this would change to John told me he was happy. Many people ask why we make these changes. But let's look at this example. If we said John said he is happy it would indicate that he's happy now at the time I'm reporting what he said. Rather than at the time he actually said it. So the general rule is we move the verb one tense back. Here we can see I am happy is the present tense. Therefore moving it one tense back would change it to the past tense. As we see John told me he was happy. Just as the tense needs to be changed so do other words relating to time and place. Let's look at some of the time and place words that change. Today becomes that day. Meaning that day when he said it. Now becomes then. Yesterday the day before. The day previous. Last week the week before. The week previous. The previous week. Next year the following year the year after. Tomorrow the next day. Here there. This would change to that as in this week to that week. That year. And these would change to those. The usage of the reported speeches as its name suggests to report what somebody else has said. The main problem is in backshifting these tenses and also changing the time and place words. There are occasions when changes don't need to be made. If we know the time and the place hasn't changed for example. However it's never wrong to make the changes and so usually we'll encourage our students to make the changes in all cases until they gradually learn the exceptions. Here are some tips for completing your conditional and reported speech units. Again we need to focus on the sentence of structure. If you're able to do this you'll be able to identify which conditional has been used as how to backshift the components of the reported speech. When as to create reported speech sentences remember that the point of the exercise is to practice on the backshifting. We're not concerned here about the exceptions for when backshifting isn't necessary. Remember that it's never wrong to backshift and this is what we're looking for. When as to create both direct and reported speech for certain expressions remember that those expressions only need to be in the direct speech and that they should accurately be backshifted for the reported speech.