similar conditionals

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metal56
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Post by metal56 » Fri Mar 25, 2005 12:22 pm

fluffyhamster wrote: I just mentioned those as examples. However, there are some teachers who might say that teaching those exams would help me to develop as a teacher in some ways - there's an interesting thought! :?
Reading deeply into how conditionals are used in standard English and beyond the ESL classroom might help more. Teaching students how to use verb clauses and observing how they behave in the same way both inside and outside conditional structures is another way of developing yourself.

:twisted:

metal56
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Post by metal56 » Fri Mar 25, 2005 12:28 pm

fluffyhamster wrote:
I think we all know what "satisfactory" is - it describes the sort of student who'd be managing fine until they got into an "advanced class" where all they knew was undermined aand thrown open to doubt and possible confusion.
If you teach from a Structuralist doctrine, where conditional structures are avoided until late into learning, then you will end up with the unfortunate situation above. If you try to, introduce such qualified structures as conditionals early on and you help your students understand the behaviour of verb clauses, they should fare much better in later study.

Who invented the stupid idea that low level students will not want to qualify their statements? They need to use qualification as soon as possible.

metal56
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Post by metal56 » Fri Mar 25, 2005 12:31 pm

fluffyhamster wrote:'Just get hold of a copy of Innovations and use it to create similar material for all levels' - easier said than done. Did he do even that himself, I wonder?
You don't have bookshops where you live?

metal56
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Post by metal56 » Fri Mar 25, 2005 12:34 pm

fluffyhamster wrote:Valid points there SJ,

I get excited that there might be some ready-made applications to be had from whatever insights he is having.
quote]


Most of our trainee teachers pay a lot of money for that information. More importantly they spend a few weeks trying to grapple with "newer" concepts. Why don't you take a course somewhere?

metal56
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Post by metal56 » Fri Mar 25, 2005 12:40 pm

fluffyhamster wrote:Of course, if metal just isn't in the business of writing materials or textbooks, or even sharing something rough and ready on Dave's then that's his decision, but it seems a shame that "we" are left wondering quite what to make of half of what he says, is all.
I am actually writing a course book. It's called "Lexis for Luvvies and Other Thespian Types".


Sharing something rough and ready is not the way forward. Do you think you can squeeze a one week training course on conditionals into this small space and also do it justice? My post was meant both as a catalyst and a despairing cry to those who are still living in the Land of ESL Nod to remove their native thinking heads from their own a*ses.

:P

fluffyhamster
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Post by fluffyhamster » Fri Mar 25, 2005 12:53 pm

Sorry, I was waiting for Even more innovative: Innovations, Second Edition to come out. Was the original edition really good? I was going to look at it but a huge crowd of teachers pushed me out of the way in a sudden mad stampede to get to the last few available copies... :(

:lol:

Seriously, though, I'm going to search my COBUILD CD-ROM in a bit and see what it has to say about the potential variety of conditional structures. That'll be a good (re)start for this naughty trainee fluffyhamsterteacher, eh! :wink:

metal56
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Post by metal56 » Fri Mar 25, 2005 12:56 pm

fluffyhamster wrote: Seriously, though, I'm going to search my COBUILD CD-ROM in a bit and see what it has to say about the potential variety of conditional structures. That'll be a good (re)start for this naughty trainee fluffyhamsterteacher, eh! :wink:
Try Linguist List instead. Many people have the balls of Elephants there.

fluffyhamster
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Post by fluffyhamster » Fri Mar 25, 2005 1:11 pm

metal56 wrote:Most of our trainee teachers pay a lot of money for that information. More importantly they spend a few weeks trying to grapple with "newer" concepts. Why don't you take a course somewhere?
You offer training courses, metal? (I knew you'd said you lectured here and there).

Not trying to reingratiate myself or anything here when I state the obvious 'your courses would have* to be better' (= couldn't be or get any worse!) than most of the "training" that I imagine is available (and probably from trainers like the one at IH that SJ mentioned, who likely keep on peddling the same rubbish beyond the CELTA level too...or, if they do suddenly "tell it like it really is" to e.g. refresher or DELTA trainees, then why for G's sake was there the division set up between "basic" and "post-inititation, esoteric secret-handshake" knowledge in the first place?! That just makes it HARDER, rather than easier, for teachers to grow, adapt and change to the "new" knowledge).

*Hope you can understand the 'spectful thrust of what I'm trying to say here - I think your training couldn't be as bad as what I imagine a lot of the other stuff would be like. I guess people once-bitten by the mainstream training institutes have to shop around and find a better alternative.

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Post by fluffyhamster » Fri Mar 25, 2005 1:36 pm

Stephen Jones wrote:Fluffy, nobody objects to your choosing a rodent of insignificant size and indeterminate outline to be your moniker. It's when you start applying the above qualities to your arguments that we get annoyed.
That was actually pretty funny (and deserved)!

:P

Stephen Jones
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Post by Stephen Jones » Fri Mar 25, 2005 4:35 pm

One of the basic problems is that textbooks tend to cannibalize previous versions. So a flawed approach becomes embedded.

The other interesting thing I find is that we are teaching the first, second and third conditionals as the rule when in fact they are the exceptions
  • The first conditional uses the present simple for the future
    The second conditional uses the past simple to describe an unreal event in the present
    The third conditional uses the past perfect affirmative to describe a negative, adn the past perfect negative to describe an affirmative.
Yet we have become so brainwashed we think they are the norm and brush the normal uses under the carpet.

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Post by lolwhites » Fri Mar 25, 2005 4:57 pm

I know you and I will probably never agree on this, Stephen, but there are those who would argue that the uses of Present Simple in the "First" (and "Zero") Conditional, Past Simple in the "Second" and Past Perfect in the "Third" are not exceptional. The reasons for using those tenses/aspects make perfect sense when one forgets about time and adopts the immediate/remote distinction.

I know you won't agree and don't want to get drawn into yet another arugument about remoteness, but felt I should point it out for the benefit of others reading this thread.

Stephen Jones
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Post by Stephen Jones » Fri Mar 25, 2005 5:13 pm

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.

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Post by Andrew Patterson » Fri Mar 25, 2005 6:05 pm

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.

Stephen Jones
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Post by Stephen Jones » Fri Mar 25, 2005 6:24 pm

"past simple" it should be "any past tense"
So you merge the second and third conditionals?

lolwhites
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Post by lolwhites » Fri Mar 25, 2005 6:29 pm

My analysis would be this, concentrating on the if clause

If + Present Simple e.g. If England win the match tomorrow... If what you say is true...
A real possibility

If + Past Simple e.g. If the England team had someone who could play on the left...
Remote possiblity or unreal/unrealisable

If + Present Perfect e.g. If Tony Blair has decided to call the election on May 5th...
A real possibility but in the past

If + Past Perfect e.g. If John Kerry had been elected...
Remote/unreal, also in the past

Interesting how the If + Present Perfect form never seems to get much of a mention in most books, but if we include it the pattern becomes so much clearer.

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