It is relatively easy to create good, purposeful controlled activities to practice a given structure or lexical area (check out this book if you have the time), but it is very hard to devise communicative tasks that naturally “trap” the language you want to focus on. So what’s plan B?
Here’s a 10-minute video containing eight song excerpts filled with second conditional examples. If you want to use them, just Google the song title + lyrics and have fun. YouTube will have all the original clips, of course. Have fun! Be warned, though, that some of the songs are pretty cringe-inducing, especially Bonnie Tyler’s 1986 …
Teaching grammar is, indeed, a juggling act. Give students a drill or a very controlled practice activity and, in the end, they might not be able to say what they wanted to say. Give them an open-ended task and they probably won’t use the language you wanted them to practice. That’s where input-oriented activities that …
