🌡️ Grammar A2-29: Zero conditional

The twenty-ninth material of the Fleydo A2 grammar series, and the first one in the level to join two halves with if. It treats the zero conditional as a statement about always rather than a guess about one day: heat water and it boils, cover a candle and it goes out, ring the doorbell and Pepper barks. The meaning is taught before the form, because the meaning is what decides the form. The centrepiece is a swap test the learner can run on any sentence — take out if, drop in when, and see whether anything changes. If nothing changes, the sentence is a general truth and both halves stay in the present simple, which is exactly why will has no place in either of them. A four-question procedure and two worked examples walk whole sentences through that reasoning, one ending in salt on ice and one in a dog and a doorbell. A compare-and-verdict pair puts the if version beside the when version of the same sentence and resolves them. Both orders are covered with the comma rule that follows from them — a comma when the if half comes first, no comma at all when the result leads — and ten comma-stripped sentences are sorted into two boxes to drill it. Practice is spread over four sets of eight, seven, eight and eight items, every one explaining its own answer, plus six reveal cards, six real errors to repair and three traps aimed at a stray will, a missing third-person -s and a comma in the wrong order. A tap-and-explain text set in a science room, a corridor vending machine and a dog’s daily routine shows the pattern working in natural writing. Teacher notes give a 45-minute sequence, the four-front-words board move, what to do with a learner who reads if as maybe one day, and the Cambridge A2 Key relevance.