Teaching Conditional Clauses

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Introduction
It has been well documented that there are three main kinds of conditional sentence. The first one is the verb in the main clause is “will” or “shall” and the verb in the conditional clause is in the simple present tense. Secondly, in the main clause the verb is “should” or “would” and in the conditional clause the verb is in the simple past tense. Last but not the least, the verb in the principle clause is “should have” or “would have” while in the conditional clause is in the past perfect tense (Sinclair, 2011). The statement is largely correct, however, it can not conclude some normal patterns which still popular in the utterance.

There are many variations in the conditional clauses, which can be inserted into many parts in the whole sentence. It can exist at the beginning of the sentence, in the middle of the sentence and at the end of the sentence (Hewing, 2002), which increases the difficulty for students to understand. Also, Chinese do not have conditional sentences, so it might be difficult for learners to understand. In fact, there are some points which can help student have a comprehensive overview to the conditional sentence, as long as students master those learning skills, they would have better understanding of it.

This paper will discuss the essential components of grammar in conditional clauses not only in sentence but also in discourse level. The paper mainly contains two parts within six sections. The first part of this paper intends to evaluate Miss Wong’s teaching approach of the conditional clauses, which indicate the merits and demerits for her teaching method. Then the impact of Miss Wong’s approach on student learning would be included. Another part of the paper is more important, it would c...

... middle of paper ...

...d guide the students know their merits and demerits.

Works Cited

Burgess, J., & Etherington, S. (2002). Focus on grammatical form explicit or implicit? System, 30, 433-458.
Ellis, R. (2001). Introduction: Investigating Form-Focused Instruction. Language Learning. 51, 1–46.
Hewing, M. (2002). Advanced Grammar in Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nunan, D. (1998). Teaching grammar in context. ELT Journal, 52, 101-109.
Sinclair, J, M. (2011). Collins Cobuild English Grammar (3rd ed.). London: HarperCollins Publishers Limited.

Budden, J. (2008). Teaching English Error Correction. British Council. Retrieved October 20, 2010 from http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/language-assistant/teaching-tips/error-correction
Kenneth, B. (2013). How to Teach Conditions. Retrieved May 15, 2013 from http://esl.about.com/od/teaching_tenses/a/How-To-Teach-Conditionals.htm

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