What if a snake bit you?

In this Upper-Intermediate ESL lesson, students will watch a video about “Snake Island”, revise the conditionals forms, learn ways to express conditionals more formally, and give alternatives to “if” when using conditionals. 

Warm-up

The lesson starts with introductory questions about visiting dangerous places.

Video: What if you spent a month on Snake Island?

Prior to watching a video, the student learns new vocabulary through a matching exercise and then uses it in sentences (venom, infested, fatal, etc.).

Then, they watch the video What if you spent a month on Snake Island? and answer three sets of video comprehension questions. They also complete sentences from the video with the missing words (adrenaline, endangered, dweller, etc.). New words and expressions are extracted from the video for the student to match them with their meanings.

Conditionals: First, Second and Third

First, second and third conditionals are explained, compared, and contrasted. The student revises their knowledge by completing sentences with appropriate verb forms and identifying types of conditionals based on verb forms.

Mixed conditionals

The two types of mixed conditionals are presented, explained, and exemplified. The student identifies these two types of mixed conditionals based on sentence structure and verb forms. Next, they complete the sentences with the right verb forms.

Inversion

The student learns about the inversion of conditional sentences and how to make them more formal. They also learn how to use alternatives to if with a slightly different meaning (even if, when, suppose, unless, if only).  

Finally, they answer wrap-up questions using inversion and alternatives to if.