Conditionals - 10 Lesson Plans for Private Tutors

Use our 10 lesson plans to teach conditionals to your private students.

As ESL teachers, we all know that teaching conditionals to our students can be quite a difficult (yet important) learning concept. One of the problems we’ve found over the years, is that the usual textbook method of teaching each conditional in isolation is problematic. After teaching one type of conditional statement, it can be difficult for students to revisit the topic (sometimes months later) and add new conditional statements to their knowledge bank, while keeping all the learning straight.
For this reason, our 10 lessons covering conditionals are based on a building block approach. Each of our 10 conditionals lesson plans, focuses on one type of conditional statement (e.g. True in the Present and Future), but also revisits each of the conditionals presented in prior lessons.
If you haven’t yet taught your private ESL students using our conditionals lesson plans, they are filed under the Conditions & Wishes category on our Teacher Tab (set up your free account on our Home page). Here is a preview of what you’ll find in our 10 conditionals lesson plans:
C1.1 to C1.3 – Conditionals True in The Present and Future
Our first three lessons cover the first conditional, it’s form and usage (e.g. If you hurry, we will be on time). Since these are introductory lessons, we also introduce the idea of an if-clause and a result-clause. We also distinguish between particular (i.e. specific) and habitual activities, and the use of the present simple in the result clause for the latter. Finally, we provide practice with using modals in the result clauses (e.g. If you need help, you should ask your teacher):

C2.1 to C2.2 – Conditionals Untrue in The Present and Future
In our next series, we begin by revisiting the first conditional, to be sure that the student understands the most simple form of a conditional statement. After providing this review, we introduce the second conditional. We also introduce the common construction of “If I were you…” when giving advice. Of course, we also give ample practice of determining whether a first or second conditional is required based on the situational evidence provided:

C3.1 to C3.2 – Conditionals Untrue in the Past
In our third series we introduce the third conditional (to express untrue statements in the past). We also provide ample review practice of both the first and second conditional, and exercises that highlight all the distinction between each use case. We also highlight the use of the past participle (Verb 3), in third conditional statements. We also make special note of the use of the third conditional for complaints and unfortunate outcomes (e.g. If you wren’t late, we wouldn’t have missed the train):

C4.1 to C4.2 – Conditionals Mixed
In our fourth series, after providing a review of the first, second and third conditionals and we introduce the Zero conditional for a habitual activity or established fact. We highlight that when can be used in place of if (e.g. when water is heated, eventually it boils). We then introduce the concept of mixed conditionals in everyday speech. This is a great series to practice with students that have been exposed to each of the 1st/2nd/3rd conditionals, and need practice with each concept as a whole package of grammar:

C5.1 – Conditionals Continuous Tenses
We finalize our series by introducing conditional statements that use continuous tenses to highlight activities that were interrupted by other activities (e.g. while I was running, I fell over).