Chain reaction

Objective & content

By the end, B1+ pupils can build and link imaginary situations with if + past simple and would: If there were no school tomorrow, I'd stay in bed. If I stayed in bed, I'd miss breakfast. The bank is 13 projectable slides: a how-to slide, then 12 starting lines (If dogs could talk..., If I could fly..., If it snowed in July..., If I woke up invisible...), each with a picture and the phrases to keep the chain going.

Pedagogical guide

Use it as a five-minute warm-up that drills the structure without feeling like a drill. Each pupil must turn the last ending into a new if sentence (I'd stay in bed becomes If I stayed in bed, ...), so everyone uses both halves of the structure and has to listen to the person before them. The starting lines are imaginary and a little silly, so chains quickly become funny, which keeps the class listening. The slides are interchangeable: one chain per lesson.

Suggested procedure

1. (1 min) Show the how-to slide and read the example together.
2. (3 min) Show one starting line. The first pupil finishes it, the next pupil starts with that ending, and the chain goes round the class.
3. (1 min) Stop when the chain breaks or comes back to the start. Which link was the funniest?

Adaptations

• [S] Pupils work in pairs and take turns, with the starters as help, and count how many links they make in two minutes.
• [A] Each new link must be the opposite of the last one (a good thing, then a bad thing), or pupils write their own chain of five sentences.

Materials & prerequisites

A projector or screen; the bank is a 16:9 PDF, one slide per page, with no printing needed. Assumes the past simple of common verbs and would.