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In this unit, I learned about conditionals, reported speech, direct speech, and strategies for teaching these concepts to EFL students. There are five main conditionals: the zero conditional, the first conditional, the second conditional, the third conditional, and the mixed conditional. While each of the conditionals has a unique grammatical structure, EFL students are susceptible to confusing the first and second conditionals as well as the mixed and third conditionals. As the structures of these conditionals are quite complex and therefore daunting for students to practice, it may be useful to include an interesting and creative role play (such as the nuclear bunker role play described in the unit) in the activate stage of an ESA lesson plan in order to ensure that students are not too intimidated to practice using the conditionals creatively. While direct speech is actual speech, reported speech (or indirect speech) is actual speech that has undergone changes (in verb tense, pronouns, time expressions, etc.) when repeated. When reporting questions, questions words do not change but the pronouns, time expressions, verb form, and verb tense do. Time expressions, verb tenses, and pronouns typically undergo backshifting in reported speech, which can be very confusing for students. Therefore, it is important to encourage students to work through reported speech slowly and to encourage them to employ reported speech through interesting activate stage activities such as fake and creative news broadcasts.
