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This unit dealt with the grammar of conditionals. About 3 months ago, I taught a lesson about conditionals. Obviously, that was before reading this unit. That time, I placed emphasis on imagining how the sentences worked. To supplement the textbook (which had a dialog using the grammar, exercises, and explanation in the native language) I made a PowerPoint that encouraged students to try visualizing what was being conveyed by such sentences. My students (2nd year junior high) were highly amused and engaged by the animation and images I used in the PowerPoint. The main goal of the exercise was to make the students generate the main clause as spoken pair work. It was well received by the students and definitely more engaging than the highly technical explanation in the textbook. Next time I teach this unit I will use my PowerPoint as an introduction to an activity, then use pair work or small groups to generate multiple example sentences that they then split in half, exchange with another group, and try to reform sentences. I want to use a combination of split sentences and completing sentences, but encourage the students to generate sentences instead of merely completing my sentences. Reporting and direct speech is also covered frequently by the textbook. In years past, I would generate activities that focused on keeping pronouns straight or drills to help my students recognize how to change the pronouns from the direct to reported. The most exciting exercise would be one where students interviewed a friend, then had to tell another student about their friend. This unit pointed out to me that tenses can change. As a native speaker, I can change these sentences from direct to reported with no problem, I always thought that the only real change was pronoun. As with the above, I will try to remember this next year when we reach this lesson in the textbook.
