1. Straw Peter Conditionals

2. I was first traumatised by these stories at the age of 4 when I read them at my German grandmother’s house!
The full stories are available from the Gutenberg Project in English and German.
The PowerPoint here gives the 4 stories I usually use in class, chopped up into screens. You would do well to check out the originals though. The names of the characters change across the two versions.

3. Steps:
Tell the stories.
Board up new vocab. (can the students remember it?)
Have students retell the stories to each other.
Divide board into 4 and title sections (Fred/Konrad/Pauline/Ksapar)
Model one 1st conditional from story 1.
Have students work in pairs to formulate the others.
Some students come to the board and write these up.
Compare with other students’ versions, correct etc.
Repeat steps 4-8 for a couple of lessons.
Model 3rd conditional from story.
11. Repeat with students over various lessons until they can produce the sentences themselves.

4. Each teacher’s storytelling style is different. Here, I try to:
Concept check new vocab as we go.
Make sure that I model the 1st Conditional somewhere in the story.
Here’s an example of my own rambled version to an adult group:
Fred
Okay class so here we’ve got Fred, bit of a nasty lad, he abuses animals. Abuse? Yeah, can you hear the ‘Z’ sound – that’s the verb. The noun? It’s abuse with an ‘s’ sound. Repeat that. Got it, right, so you can see some of the damage he’s done here – he’s killed the birds. There’s a … what d’you call that? Yeah, a cage lying on its side. So Fred’s mum’s crying, she’s in tears. Fred says “Don’t worry Ma!” I’ll behave from now on.” But Fred’s Mum’s not so sure. “Why have you got that…” What’s that thing? No? It’s a whip. Yeah. So Fred's got a whip, and you can see some of the damage he’s done – the cat’s dead, and he’s pulling the erm… wings yeah, he’s pulling the wings off a fly. So anyway, Fred leaves his old dear and goes off for a walk about. So what have we got here? This dog’s having a quiet drink. We’ve got some of these water fountain things in Barcelona yeah? And here comes trouble. Fred’s coming up the stairs and look, he’s still got that thing in his hand… what was it? Yeah, a whip. The dog says: “Eh listen up son IF YOU TOUCH ME WITH THAT WHIP, I’M GOING TO BITE YOU! It’s not a threat it’s a warning. But I’m serious.” Does Fred listen? Does he ‘eck. He whips the dog – see, we can use ‘whip’ as a verb as well as a noun. Now did he want to do that?

5. He did not – ‘cos the dog bites him
He did not – ‘cos the dog bites him. It gets infected and Fred has to call out the doctor. That’s a ‘house call’. There are various other professions that do house calls but out of all of them the medical profession is probably the most prestigious. Costs more though. So the doctor prescribes him some medication and tells him to stay in bed. He says: “IF YOU DON’T STAY IN BED, IT’LL GET WORSE.” And so whilst old Fred’s laid up, what’s the dog doing? Yep, he’s downstairs eating Fred’s supper. There’s justice for you!
Obviously I modify the story for my teenagers a little.
I then tell them the next story, and after that get them to retell the stories to each other in pairs. We do the same for the next two stories, either in the same lesson or in the next one.

6. Fred Konrad Pauline Kaspar Fred Konrad Pauline Kaspar
After that, something like this goes up on the board:
Fred
Konrad
Pauline
Kaspar
So what did the dog say to Fred?
If you touch me with that whip, I’ll bite you.
What did Konrad’s mum say to him?
What did the cat’s say to Pauline?
What did Kaspar’s parents tell him?
And we’re working towards…
Fred
Konrad
Pauline
Kaspar
So what did the dog say to Fred?
If you touch me with that whip, I’ll bite you.
What did Konrad’s mum say to him?
If you suck your thumb, the tailor will chop it off.
What did the cat’s say to Pauline?
If you strike that match, you’ll set something on fire.
What did Kaspar’s parents tell him?
If you don’t eat your supper you’ll get thinner and thinner.

7. Over the course of a number of lessons I begin by assigning a pair of students a character name and telling them to go to the board and write what the character was warned.
After various classes the students should be getting better at reproducing these sentences – obviously with the teacher pointing out the common pattern they share.
Depending on the level, the 3rd conditional can also be introduced:
If Fred hadn’t whipped the dog, it wouldn’t have bitten him etc. and the students can add a second row to the column each time they write up the sentences, so there’s one for the warning and one for the regret.
Having students reproduce these over time really gives the teacher a chance to stand back and look at what is going onto the board and what, if anything is being remembered and acquired linguistically. It also takes into consideration that language is acquired over time and requires repeated practice if it is to be produced accurately.
Students can then look at the other stories in Struwwelpeter and make their own conditionals up.

8. Fred

15. Konrad

19. Pauline

23. Kaspar

27. The Project Gutenberg EBook of Der Struwwelpeter, by Heinrich Hoffmann