Stephen Jones wrote:
You're picking an argument here, lolwhites, where there isn't one.
What I am saying is that the first-third conditionals are the uses that need explaining, rather than the others, since it is they and not the so-called exceptions tnat are more removed from normal usage.
They can of course be adequately explained
The present simple is the unmarked tense used in English for non-past. Accrodingly the present is used after 'if' for a future contingency, since the future is non-past.
One of the uses of the past simple is to describe events that are not true (that is to say distant in factuality). Accordingly we use it in the second conditional for things that are not true now, and we used the past perfect aspect for things that were not completed now.
Not exceptions at all, only apparent exceptions. However more apparently exceptions than the uses which are commonly considered to be the exceptions.
It is one thing to look at language from a purely analytical viewpoint, and quite another to look at it from the point of view of what the students (or even the teacher) finds difficult.
Now I do teach the numbered conditionals. I always tell the students that where it says "present simple" it should be "any present tense", and where it says "past simple" it should be "any past tense". I do know why some teachers don't like numbered conditionals, and I think I understand their arguments. The trouble is, simplistic as the numbered conditional model is, it does not teach any incorrect use and gets the students understanding explanations using conditional arguments. Try explaining other grammar without conditionals. You may say that the 1st and mixed need special explanation, OK, it is the 3rd and mixed that students generally have difficulty with (students generally don't find the 1st as difficult, though), but the 1st is best understood in relation to the 2nd using the idea of remoteness. In the zero conditional, remoteness isn't addressed, in the third, just elicit asking what tense is used to talk about sth else that happened in the past. Then they'll understand why the past perfect is used.
I do a presentation for the conditionals starting with:
All conditional sentences [with if] have the form:
If+condition,result [Important comma!]
Result+if+condition [No comma!]
a)
2nd - two men talking rubbish in a pub, one saying,
"If you jumped off [
name of the highest building in the city], you would die";
b)
1st - we learn that one of them has real problems and is standing on said building and threatening to jump.
If he jumps, he will die;
c)
3rd and mixed - man lying dead on the ground.
If he hadn't jumped off the building, he wouldn't have died/be dead.
He died in the past, but the present consequences are that he is dead.
d)
Zero - generally, if people jump off large buildings, they die.
OK, it's a bit morbid but it works for me and I don't really feel like changing the way I do it.
