Hypothetically speaking


This is a short writing activity for intermediate students to revise the second conditional. The students answer the questions individually, read and match their classmate’s answers and further discuss the responses that caught their attention.

Level: B1

Time: 45 minutes


  1. To answer questions using the second conditional.
  2. To match their classmates’ responses to the questions.
  3. To discuss the questions that caught students’ attention using the second conditional.


  1. Hypothetically speaking worksheet, one per student


  1. Give each student a Hypothetically speaking worksheet and ask them to answer the questions in random order, e.g. write the answer to question 1 next to letter d etc.
  2. Put students in pairs, or groups of 3, and ask them to swap papers. The students now read each other’s answers and match the responses to the questions. Encourage students to correct any mistakes they might come across when they go through their classmate’s sentences and ask them to underline the responses that catch their attention.
  3. Monitor throughout the activity.
  4. Now ask the students to swap the papers and check if their classmates matched the responses correctly.
  5. Elicit some answers from the students. When I did this activity for the first time I couldn’t believe how many original responses the students came up with.
  6. In the same pairs or groups of 3 now ask the students to explain in detail the underlined answers using the second conditional.

Fast finishers

  1. Ask students to take 4 of their responses and use them as beginnings of new sentences, e.g. If everyone in the world was madly in love with me, I would be over the moon. I would be over the moon, if I could speak English with an Irish accent.

Related posts:

(Un)conditional love


Leave a Reply


WordPress.com Logo


Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s