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Teaching I Wish/If Only Through Music and Visuals
Teaching I Wish/If Only Through Music and Visuals
Aim: to teach students how to express regrets using the structures I wish/if only
Level: B2
Lead in: Play this 45-second audio clip and ask students to try to identify the next
structure you are going to teach them.
Audio Player
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Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume.
Introducing: display the picture below and draw students’ attention to the reflection
of the man in the mirror. Ask: What does the old man see in the mirror? What is he
thinking?
Listen to the students’ suggestions and use each of them to introduce
Explaining the grammar: we use this structure to express a desire for a situation
that does not exist right now in the present. A wish is a desire to change a real
situation into an unreal one. This unreal situation is expressed in the simple past. In
a wish sentence, the simple past does not indicate past time; it only indicates that
the situation is unreal.
That is optional.
Were is used for both singular and plural subjects in a formal context
1. Pictures.
Students look at the pictures and make a sentence using “wish”. Flip them to see a
possible answer.
Audio Player
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Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume.
Students in pairs talk about their anwers to the questions above. Let them choose
the ones they want to talk about as some answers could be a bit personal.
Introducing: display the picture below and ask students to describe what they see.
Now, ask students to provide a sentence with “wish” about the picture. At this stage,
students will probably suggest “She wishes he didn’t see so much TV”.
Draw students’ attention to the girl’s mood and offer this alternative sentence
Explaining grammar: the structure wish+ (that)/if only +would is used to talk about
what other people do that annoys or irritates us and that we wish was different.
Play the video and ask students to make sentences based on the pictures using I
wish+would.
Introducing. Display the picture below and ask: do you think he has any regrets?
We use ‘wish’ + past perfect to talk about regrets from the past. These are things that
have already happened but we wish they had happened in a different way.
Introduce the activity by asking students to think back to the time when they were
teenagers. Ask them if they have any regrets.
Tell students they are going to watch a video of a song Mistakes of my Youth by the
American rock band Eels. In this video, the singer thinks back on his childhood and
all the things he did wrong. Ask them to watch the video and write down as many I
wish/if only + past perfect sentences they can think of based on the video.
Freer practice.
What are your regrets when you think back on your life? Make a list of three regrets
and tell the story to your partner.
Grammar pdf
ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES