Séquence - What if - Feuilles élèves

What if?
Predictions, Imagination & Regrets
English 6LM1 4h/week
Fanny Geuzaine

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About the sequence
Group: 6LM1 4h/week (22 students) – Lycée Martin V
Lexical themes: predictions, hopes, regrets
Main grammatical focus: conditionals (0, 1, 2, 3, mixed)
Length: 6 periods (sequence) + 1 period (final task)
Objectives: at the end of the sequence, you will be able to:
- understand the communicative intention beyond the use of
conditional forms in speech and texts
- use the appropriate conditional form when talking about predictions,
hopes and/or regrets
Sources:
- Videos “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZj1Yeb-tVg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dhAnobJjSA
- Video songs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKeGLlIVCl4
- Ex. Conditionals:
https://www.englishpage.com/conditional/conditional3.htm
https://www.englishpage.com/conditional/conditional6.htm
https://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/conditional-sentences/
https://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises_list/if.htm
- Games and activities:
https://www.teach-this.com/grammar-activities-worksheets/
https://tefltastic.wordpress.com/worksheets/grammar/conditionals/
- Articles and texts:
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/whats-behind-these-common-
superstitions-174203195.html
- Superstitions infographics:
https://www.winkslots.com/superstitions-from-around-the-world/

3
1. Warm-up exercise : what if?
I. predictions
If I
have a lot of time in the evening, I...
If I have a lot of time THIS evening, I...

4
2. Grammar point: the 0 and 1st conditionals
What can you express with these structures?
0 conditional:
If I wake up early, I go jogging.
If you don’t eat, you die.
If they are scared, snakes bite.
 In these cases, “IF” can be replaced by ……………………………. .
1st conditional:
If I am not too tired, I will go to the party.
If you don’t leave her alone, you’ll be sorry!
If you’re hurt, I’ll help you.
If you help me, I’ll give you a gift.
If we keep on polluting the ocean, many species will disappear.
If I find a
solution, I’ll be rich!
If you cross a black cat, you’ll have bad luck.
Compare: “If it rains, the grass gets wet”  “If it rains, the grass will get wet”
Instead of
will
, we can use
modals
in the main clause
of a sentence in the 1st conditional:
If these clouds do not disappear, it might rain this afternoon. (possibility)
If she doesn’t help us, it may become harder to reach our goal. (possibility)
Possible & likely
In the FUTURE
“
Certain
”
ALWAYS

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3. America’s Top Superstitions
If you knock on wood when you say something presumptuous or freak out when you see a broken mirror,
you’re not alone — Americans are still very superstitious. Here’s why.
They may seem old-fashioned, but superstitions are still alive and well, according to a new survey.
Crowdsourcing website Ranker.com polled 18,000 people on the superstitions they believe in and found that, as
a whole, people are still very superstitious.
Here are the top 10 most widely believed superstitions, per the survey:
1. Knocking on wood
2. Wishing on a star
3. Breaking a mirror
4. Four-leaf clover
5. Bad news come in threes
6. Don’t open an umbrella inside
7. Lucky penny
8. Beginner’s luck
9. Saying “bless you” when someone sneezes
10. Wishing on a wishbone
Psychologist Stuart Vyse, author of Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition, tells Yahoo Health that
superstitions are more common than we think. “Some polls have found that over 50 percent of Americans consider
themselves at least a little superstitious,” he says.
Many people believe in superstitions because life is uncertain. “When we really want something to happen yet
we can’t make it happen for certain, we grasp for things that seem unlikely,” Vyse says. “Superstitions offer a
feeling of control where control isn’t possible.”
Superstitions are also learned and spread around societies, Donald A. Saucier, a professor of psychological
sciences at Kansas State University, tells Yahoo Health. “If we knock on wood, and then something bad doesn’t
happen, we may think that we stopped a bad event by knocking on wood,” he says. “As we learn these
associations, we may discuss them with others, and over time, may embed them in our culture.”
4. Superstitions around the world
a. Match the “IF clause” and the “MAIN clause” of these superstitions together, and try to guess the
appropriate missing word.
If you break a mirror,   it will ………………… you from bad spirits.
If you make a wish on a ………………… star,   it will keep ………………… away.
If you put …………… on the doorstep of a house,   you will have good luck.
If you catch a falling leaf on the first day of ……….,   it will come true.
If you carry a rabbit’s foot in your …………………,   you will stay ………………… .
if you eat an apple every day,   you will have bad luck.
if you ………………… a ladybug,   you will not catch a ………………… all winter.
if you find a four-leafed clover,   you will have ………………… years of bad luck.
If you want to check a really nice video on superstitions and where they come from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quOdF1CAPXs