Chapter 17: Exploring More Important Verb Structures 259
- ‘If I Were a Sailboat’ written and performed by Katie Melua
- ‘If I Were a Rich Man’ written by Zero Mostel and sung in the musi-
cal ‘Fiddler on the Roof’.
Blank out some words and get students to fill them in while listening to
the song. However, the most important thing is to have a good old sing
along. That’s what they’ll find most memorable.
✓ Lead a jazz chant. You may not have access to music, so how about a
jazz chant, which is just words or phrases repeated in a rhythm? You’ve
probably seen footage of army drill sergeants getting the chant in time
with the soldiers’ marching, often through repetition. Jazz chants are
similar. You simply get students to repeat sentences after you in whole
or in part and to a beat (everyone should clap their hands). In this way
they can more easily remember the structure, and pick up the rhythm
of the language while they’re at it. Here’s an example of an easy second
conditional chant:
Teacher: If
Students: If
Teacher: If I
Students: If I
Teacher: If I were you
Students: If I were you
Teacher: And you were me
Students: And you were me
Teacher: If I were you and you were me
Students: If I were you and you were me
Teacher: We’d be different
Students: We’d be different
Teacher: But still happy
Students: But still happy
✓ Play a game of moral dilemmas. You can prepare cards with the dilem-
mas – some are shown in Figure 17-3 – in one pile and cards for the
names of each student individually in another pile. For each round of the
game you pick up a card from each pile and ask everyone in the class to
write a sentence in the second conditional suggesting what the named
student would do about the problem. After everyone has a minute to
write something down, have a feedback session when you encourage the
named student to confirm or deny what was said.