• Quick retrieval from earlier learning (Verb moods and shifts in voice or mood). Students answer on mini whiteboards.
• Show answers together and note who needs support in the main task.

1. What is the mood of the verb in this sentence? Have you seen my keys? (conditional / subjunctive / interrogative / imperative) → interrogativePrompt: Is it a statement, a command, a question, a hypothetical, or a wish/demand?
2. The team trained hard all winter, and the trophy was won in May. Which revision avoids the shift in voice? (Training was done hard all winter, and the team won the trophy in May. / The team trained hard all winter, and the trophy had been won in May. / The team trained hard all winter, and in May the trophy is won. / The team trained hard all winter and won the trophy in May.) → The team trained hard all winter and won the trophy in May.Prompt: Look at the first verb. Is it active or passive? A command or a statement?
3. What is the mood of the verb in this sentence? Close the door quietly. (conditional / imperative / indicative / interrogative) → imperativePrompt: Is it a statement, a command, a question, a hypothetical, or a wish/demand?

• Show a sentence with the grammar point used wrongly and ask what sounds odd.
• Share the objective: Conditionals (zero, first, second, third). Read the success criteria together.

• Work through the example out loud, saying why you do each step, not just what you do.
• Example: Choose the verb form that completes the conditional sentence. If they ___ earlier, they would have caught the train.
• Step 1: Zero: if + present, present. First: if + present, will. Second: if + past, would. Third: if + had + participle, would have + participle.
• Step 2: It imagines a different past: if + had + participle, would have + participle (third conditional).
• Step 3: Put it back into the sentence and read it aloud: "If they had left earlier, they would have caught the train."
• Step 4: So the answer is: had left
• Answer: had left
• Pause after each step and ask a student to say what comes next.

• Do these together. Students try each step on whiteboards before you reveal it.
• Use the hints as prompts rather than giving the answer.

1. Choose the verb form that completes the conditional sentence. If it rains tomorrow, we ___ the picnic. (will cancel / would have cancelled / would cancel / cancel) → will cancelPrompt: Is it always true, likely in the future, imagined now, or imagined about the past?
2. Choose the verb form that completes the conditional sentence. If I won a million dollars, I ___ a farm. (would buy / would have bought / buy / will buy) → would buyPrompt: Is it always true, likely in the future, imagined now, or imagined about the past?

• Students work on the student sheet. Circulate and check the first two answers of every student early.
• Students who finish: write a question of their own for a partner, with the answer.

The 6 questions are on the student sheet below, with answers in the key.

• Two questions on their own. Sort answers into got it / nearly / not yet to plan the next lesson.

1. Choose the verb form that completes the conditional sentence. If you mix blue and yellow, you ___ green. (would have got / would get / got / get) → getPrompt: Is it always true, likely in the future, imagined now, or imagined about the past?
2. Choose the verb form that completes the conditional sentence. If they ___ earlier, they would have caught the train. (had left / leave / left / would leave) → had leftPrompt: Is it always true, likely in the future, imagined now, or imagined about the past?

Free online practice with hints and printable worksheets for this skill: eurekami.com/english/grade-8.