Your three from the podcast
Read out the three "there is / there are" sentences you copied from 6 Minute English. Your teacher will say whether each one is exactly right — copied, not remembered.
You are about to hear a route described once. Predict what will be hard.
1. What usually goes wrong when you follow spoken directions in a second language?
Nadia walks to work
Read it once at normal speed. Then draw the route on paper — a line and six boxes is enough.
The walk
I come out of my building and turn right. There is a bakery immediately on my left — I stop there about twice a week, not more, because it is expensive.
I walk to the end of that road, maybe two minutes, and cross at the lights. There is a small park opposite, and I cut through it. There are always dogs in there in the morning.
On the far side of the park there is a road with the tram lines in it. I turn left, walk past a launderette and a hardware shop, and the office is the third building after that — between a chemist and an empty shop that used to be a bank.
The whole thing takes eleven minutes. Twelve if the lights are against me.
Draw it now. One line for the route, a box for each place she names, and a mark at every turn. Do not write sentences — you are making a map, not a translation.
Check your map. Put the six stages of Nadia's walk in the order she does them.
Answer from your map, not from the text.
1. Which side is the bakery on?
2. What is the office between?
3. She says I cut through it. What does cut through mean here?
4. How does she describe the length of the walk?
Movement, not position
Lesson 1 was about where things are. This is about how you move past them.
Prepositions of movement
| Phrase | Means | Example |
|---|---|---|
go past | move by it, without stopping | Walk past the launderette. |
go through | in one side, out the other | Cut through the park. |
go along | follow the length of it | Go along the main road. |
cross | from one side to the other | Cross at the lights. |
turn into | leave one road for another | Turn into Green Street. |
come out of | exit a building | Come out of the station. |
Match each verb phrase to the movement it describes. Two of them are easy to confuse.
Pronunciation — the epenthesis trap, first treatment. Portuguese does not end words in a hard consonant cluster, so stopped, worked and liked grow a vowel: stoppy-ed, worky-ed.
Say these three, and stop your mouth dead at the end. No vowel after the /t/:
stopped · worked · liked
All three end in the sound /t/, not /ɪd/ and not /i/. You will meet the full rule in Unit 3; today you only have to stop the vowel.
Follow, then give
One word per gap. These are directions to the office from the station — a different route from Nadia's.
Come of the station and turn left. Go the main road for about four minutes. You will go a big supermarket on your right — keep going. at the second set of lights, then turn Field Street. Go the small park, and the office is on the far side, a chemist and an empty shop.
Five sets of directions, five errors. Some are prepositions; some are the Lesson 1 structure coming back. Rewrite each in full.
1. Go straight and pass for the bank.
2. Cross the road in the lights.
3. Turn in Green Street.
4. In the corner have a chemist.
5. Walk through the main road.
Talk them along a route they cannot see
Task card · Speaking
Your teacher has a blank sheet of paper and a pen. You have a route in your head.
Describe a real route you walk — home to somewhere, ten minutes maximum — while they draw it. At the end, compare their drawing with what you meant.
- Give the time first: It takes about ten minutes. That sets their expectation.
- Use at least four movement phrases from Phase 03 and three prepositions of place.
- They may only ask Sorry, where? — no other question. So say it precisely the first time.
Landmarks that make a route drawable
Tap to hear each one. A route without landmarks is unfollowable — "turn left, then right" gets nobody anywhere.
Compare the drawings
Put your teacher's drawing next to the route you meant.
1. Is the drawing right?
2. Where did it go wrong?
One sound to take home
Say all three aloud first, then answer.
1. How many syllables in stopped?
Informal input, before Lesson 3. One episode of Bluey with subtitles. It is a children's programme and it is full of prepositions — under the table, behind the shed, through the gate. Note five of them.