Lesson video

Hi there, I'm Ms Richards, and this is our fourth lesson on how we write non-fiction and include grammar elements to it.

So, can you make sure that you've got your work from the last three lessons 'cause you've worked so hard and each lesson builds up and add something new.

Try and make sure you're somewhere nice and quiet, you switched all notifications off on your devices and you've got your pen and paper ready, and we'll get started on our next section.

Hopefully you've got everything you need now.

You're in your nice quiet space, you've got your pen, paper.

You work from last time, you turned on your notifications off and we're ready to go.

If you haven't press pause, get all those things done now and press play when you're ready.

Let's have a look at what we're going to be covering in today's lesson.

We're going to recap from last lesson.

we're going to look at punctuating the emotive list primarily.

We're going to meet something called the conditional, which is a very fancy term for something that you're probably already thinking about and doing, but maybe it's a new technique.

We're going to think about arguing against that's our next layer, so last lesson was arguing for this one is arguing against.

You're going to get your turn to write and to build in that next step into your extended writing.

And you'll finish with your quiz to show off all the amazing knowledge that you've got.

This is where it's fitting in then.

So we've done our introduction, we've done our supporting paragraph, now we're going to do a counter paragraph.

We're going to argue against our task this time.

But don't worry, we'll come on to how to do that in a bit.

Let's start by recapping punctuated a list.

So remember we said that in non-fiction we could list nouns, we could list key actions to remember or we could list emotional adjectives or just descriptive adjectives.

So when we're listing nouns, the opportunity to hike mountains, kayak down rapids, explore glaciers, trip through the desert or even some merge yourself in an underwater adventure is just too tempting.

We've got all of these nouns here.

Mountains, rapids, glaciers, desert, underwater adventure, sounds very exciting, doesn't it? To punctuate them, 'cause that's a bit we need to focus on, we use our commas to separate each noun phrase, and then we use our conjunction of or to separate the final two.

So in mountains, kayak down rapids, explore glaciers, trek through the desert or even submerge yourself.

All of that is how we punctuate our list.

And it's the same in our key actions to remember.

So once you parked on the road, go to the gate on the left then through the side door, along the corridor and you'll see the entrance on your right.

To punctuate, we separate each key action with a comma and the final two we use our conjunction, in this case and.

I list the emotional adjectives or sometimes ordinary adjectives, descriptive adjectives.

First, the vibrant, exuberant and gregarious cast members will be on hand throughout the theme park.

It's a comma to separate within and the conjunction between the final two, in which case there are only three, so it's just the one comma.

Hopefully that's helped you recap.

There's a quick quiz to do now.

So, pause the video, copy these down and separate using commas.

Press play when you're ready and we'll go through answers.

Hopefully it looks something like this.

You can pause the video to mark yours and correct now.

So, the concept will include performances from the school choir comma, several teachers comma, some solo acts comma, a dance trip comma, the orchestra and a surprise guest appearance.

Sounds very exciting, I wonder who that guest appearance would be.

And number two, when going out in the snow, you should remember to wear warm clothing including gloves, scarf, hat, thick socks and waterproof shoes, that will keep you nice and warm.

Today's lesson is going to focus on an area of grammar called the conditional.

As with most areas of grammar, do not worry yourself about remembering what the term is.

It's really about making sure you're comfortable using it.

And it might be something that you already use already.

Something that you hear day to day, and the conditional is something that we all use.

And this is just drawing your awareness to it so that you can use it in your non-fiction writing.

And you don't forget about it as a technique.

Conditionals all focus around the word if.

But there are different variants and constructions that we can put together.

So all of these will focus around the idea or the word if.

So if one thing happens, then something else will happen.

But the variants mean kind of percentages and different outcomes.

So we're going to look at how we put those together.

We start with what's called the zero conditional.

Again, you don't need to remember these terms, you don't need to be able to identify them though it's great if you can particularly as you go into kind of A level English language, but it's more important that you're just confident using them, don't worry too much about the names.

The zero conditional is the permanent truth.

So these if statements are factual and 100% true and guaranteed.

Let's look at what that means.

Well, sentence is constructed as if something happens in the present simple, then there'll be a present simple outcome.

So if, and an action is going to give us 100% certain response.

So here's 100% certain, if I go to the cinema, I get popcorn.

So, it's not certain whether I'm going to the cinema, it's only if I go to a cinema, but it is 100% certain that if I am there, I am getting popcorn.

Preferably salted, please.

Here's another one.

If I heat water to 100 degrees Celsius, it boils.

That certain, it's not certain I'm definitely heating water, I'm just talking hypothetically about doing it, but if I do do it, it's 100% certain it boils.

Nice and easy, right? Zero conditional sounded like this really complicated thing but actually it's probably something you use all the time in your speaking, maybe in instructions you give other people or conversations.

It's just a case of saying, well, if this scenario happens them we definitely know the outcome.

The first conditional is the next stage on from that.

So these are realistic still, and they're quite truthful but they're about things in the future.

Let's look at that one then.

So it's still going to be if and the present simple.

But this is going to involve will and a verb or can and a verb, or must and a verb.

So it's, if an action happens, we still have 100% certainty of an outcome.

So, if you go to the supermarket, we can make brownies later.

So, if the first action happens then the second one is 100% certain but this time it's in the future.

There are really easy once you start to see these examples, and like I said you don't need to know if you're writing in the first conditional, second conditional, but you do need to make sure that your ideas match.

If you're talking about a hypothetical in the future, you need to make sure that that matches with the conditional.

So let's think about second conditional.

Then these are improbable or impossible situations in the present or the future.

Again, these examples make it nice and easy so let's have a look.

This is still our past simple.

If something happens in the past simple, we get a word and a verb or could on a verb.

So, this means that there's a bit of a low possibility of something happening, but we have 100% certainty in the response that would or could happen.

If I had more money, I'd buy a new car.

So, there's a low possibility of me having more money.

It's something that probably isn't going to change, but if it did, I'd buy a new car.

If I could give up work, I'd run a dog sanctuary.

I really would, that would be my dream.

I do love teaching though, it's fine.

But there's a really low possibility that I could give up work, but it's 100% certain and if I could, then I would run a dog sanctuary.

So, our second conditional works on the idea of something that is unlikely to ever happen but we know what the outcome would be, if it ever did.

Those examples sentences, just make it really simple, don't they? So the third conditional then, the last one we're going to look at, are impossible situations in which we regret the outcome.

So these are a little bit different.

It still if these are now in the present simple, and they use a would have, or could have with a verb.

So, the first bit is that there's absolutely no chance of this situation now happening.

But we're 100% know what the response would have been if we have known.

Well, that sounds very odd, doesn't it? How could we have not percent chance or something, but 100% certain response.

Let's look at our example to make this very clear.

If I'd known I was going to fail the test, I would have revised for it.

Suddenly, there's no chance that you would have known you were going to fail the test, and there's no chance that you can go back.

But if you could have, then you would have revised for it.

If I hadn't forgotten my lunch, I would have got to school on time.

There's no chance because that scenario has already happened, you've already forgotten your lunch or you've already failed that test.

But if we could time travel, then we know what we would have done differently.

This is our third conditional.

Okay, I've got some sentences for you that all work on if statements with the conditional.

You don't need to worry about whether it's first, whether it's zero conditional, first, second or third, I'm not going to ask you to be that specific, 'cause this is something really new, but our if statements are really important to non-fiction.

So I'd like you to pause the video and have a go at completing these please.

Press play when you're ready.

Here are my possible answers.

Now yours might look very different to mine because we've all got different if scenarios.

If we continue to spend too much time on our mobile phones we could risk damaging our eye sight.

If we'd all work together, we could have finished the project last week.

If I ever win the lottery I will buy my parents a new house, and maybe when my dog sanctuary as well.

If you mess around in class, you will get a detention that one's very certain, isn't it? If you do this, it's 100% certain.

If you'd known you have PE today you would washed your PE kit.

So that's one of those third conditionals where you had no way of changing the scenario.

If you could change it, your 100% know the outcome would change.

Now, yours will be different to mine and that's okay.

What you need to think about is have you stayed in the right tense? So for number two is you're definitely in past tense, we could have and something in the past tense.

Number three, is it in the future tense? So, that's the thing that's really important.

You don't need to identify which conditional we're in but we do need to make sure our tense match up in both halves of the condition.

Okay, we're going to re remember conditionals 'cause we're going to use them in our against paragraphs.

But now let's looking against.

So last lesson we did for, this time we're going against.

Here, we're going to consider the opposite point of view.

Remember it might not be your own perspective.

You're going to consider what other people might be against the task, probably your audience.

You really need to think carefully about who they are, 'cause you are going to think about the reasons why they might be against it.

Even if that's not your own perspective, it's about thinking of their ideas.

So, if this is a letter to a head teacher for or against students being given a longer half holiday, we'd want to think about all the reasons why the head teacher might be against that.

So that means we need to think about what's important to headteacher, and head teachers would be really focused on lost learning time for students, concerns over exam grades and also be concerned that if parents are at work, they might not be able to look after their children.

So our against ideas here, I thinking for all the reasons why our audience that headteacher, would be against students having a longer half term.

And when I've got those ideas, I can put them into a piece of writing or speech.

This is a ridiculous idea because it would involve students losing another day of learning.

Many students are concerned about being successful in their exams, so having more time without learning could make them anxious.

Also, if their parents worked full time, they will have to take more time of work to look after their child.

So it's got those three reasons in it.

Just put into fluent extended sentences to argue against having a longer halftime.

Here's another one then.

A letter to local residents persuading them to vote against planning permission for new houses.

So, we need to think about the reason why the residents would be persuaded to vote against this planning request.

And for local residents if there are more houses, it means more traffic so local residents might be really against the roads being busier.

They might be against the building work, being really noisy and disruptive, 'cause it's important for them to have a house they can relax and it's nice and quiet.

And it might be that the area that's being built on or requested to be built, one is really lovely for families to bring their children or their dogs.

So these would be the reasons that local residents wouldn't want the permission to plan in that area.

So this letter would persuade them and remind them of these things so that they would vote against it.

Here's what it would look like written up.

Building more houses would mean more traffic on our already busy roads.

That we've got a personal pronoun again from our earlier lesson.

Not only that, but the building work will be noisy and disruptive.

If the land is built on, then our village will lose a lovely place, has been a community space for families and dog walkers.

So here's a lot of reasons that we put in from this one.

All the reasons we came up with are now, and then I said fluently and you'll notice that we've got that if statement here.

If the land is built on, then something else will happen.

So this is why our conditionals are really, really helpful in non-fiction.

Okay, I've got three scenarios for you.

For each scenario, I would like you to come up with some against ideas, reasons that people would be against something.

So you're going to pause the video and have a go at working out why a company wanting to build a factory on the edge of a small village, why would people be against that? Your head teacher thinks your school should have shorter holidays so students spend more time in school, what are the against ideas for that? What are the reasons people would be against it? And a fast food restaurant wants to take over the school canteen and be the only food offered in your school.

Even if you think that's a fantastic idea, you've got to come up with the ideas why people might be against that.

Pause the video now and have a go.

All three scenarios, listing against ideas.

Okay, for number one then, the company wanting to build a factory on the edge of a small village, here's some possible ideas you might have come up with different against, but I thought about the extra traffic from the factory.

I thought how the noise might disturb the local residents and that the factory might be unsightly.

If it's in a really peaceful village, it might ruin their views.

You might have some different options and that's okay.

The second one for the shorter holidays, so that students spend more time in school, people might have listed some against ideas such as students and teachers wanting time to relax.

The fact that students already do lots of homework and revision outside of school, so they'd have no time and no break too.

And then it would cost money to pay for teachers to work longer hours.

They would all be the against ideas.

Again, if you've got different ones, that's absolutely fine.

And then the final one, I asked you to consider was a fast food restaurant, which you might've thought sounded fantastic to have fast food in your school canteen, but some people would still be against it, and they might be against it because of the obesity risk, if junk food and fast food was eating every day.

They might be against it for the lack of variety and the lack of nutrition and balance.

And I also might be against it because if students have eaten at five days a week at school, they wouldn't want to eat it at weekends and evenings with their family because they'd have had too much of a good thing.

So actually you could lose a lot of trade for the restaurant and that might be another reason against it.

Hopefully you got on really well with coming up with those ideas.

So now we're going to go back to our big overarching task for this whole unit, and you're going to have a go at coming up with the against ideas for that.

So remember, you should have this written down.

By now we'd done it for the last two lessons that we are thinking about there being more spaces and activities available for teenagers in the local community.

And this is a speech for the local council arguing that there should be more spaces, but we're going to consider the reasons why people might not agree with that now.

So, in our scheme, in our following on what we're doing, we now at that counter paragraph against.

So this is all building and helping you create one big piece of extended writing.

So, are you ready? You are going to have a go at coming up with those ideas.

So just like you saw me model earlier, you might want to list three or four ideas that counter argue and are against, think about why people might be against having there being more spaces and activities.

Why would local council be against that? You might want to think about money.

You might want to think about whether there are any buildings, people how they perceive teenagers.

They might worry that it would be vandalised or graffitied.

So come up with your list of counter reasons against and then have a go at putting that into a nice fluent paragraph.

Pause the video, take all the time that you need.

It can sometimes be really hard to come up with those ideas when they're not our point of view.

And we're having to think about why other people think it when we can only really imagine all the good scenarios and the good cases.

But it's still really important that we can 'cause it helps us see other people's perspectives.

And it's going to really help when we do our balanced paragraph in the next lesson.

Before we can do that though, you've got your quiz to do so you can show off all your knowledge from today.

I can't wait to see you in our next lesson, bye.