Lexis › Programme › Unit 02 › Lesson 05

Two maps, one street

A2 My City, My Day
About this lesson ▾

You have half the information and your partner has the other half. Neither of you may look at the other map. The only way through is to describe accurately enough to be understood.

XP 0 Streak 0 First-try —
Lesson progress0%
01
Warm-up · 4 min

The word you will need

Name five things you would find on any street in any city, in English, in twenty seconds. Go.

Predict

One prediction before you start.

1. In an information gap, what causes most of the failures?

Teacher note This is the point of the whole lesson. Loose precision is invisible from the inside, which is why an information gap teaches it better than any exercise: the failure is external and undeniable.
02
Input & Noticing · 8 min

How precise is precise enough

Two versions of the same description

Loose: There is a bank near the café. There are some shops by the square. The bus stop is around there too.

Precise: There is a bank two doors down from the café, on the same side. There are three shops on the north side of the square — a chemist, a baker and an empty unit. The bus stop is directly outside the chemist.

Discovery Check

Compare the two versions.

1. What does the precise version add that the loose one does not?

2. Could you draw the loose version?

3. Which three words do most of the work in the precise version?

Three ways to be precise. Any one of them turns a vague sentence into a drawable one:

  • Number — two doors down, the third building, about fifty metres
  • Side — on the same side, on the left, on the north side
  • Relation — directly outside, immediately opposite, right on the corner
03
Focus on Form · 8 min

The phrases that make it drawable

Precision phrases

Learn six. Use them all in the next twenty minutes. Tap each to hear where the stress falls.

Precision

Match each vague phrase to the precise phrase that replaces it. One of them cannot be fixed — it has to be replaced with a number.

two doors down from the café
on the north side of the square
directly outside the chemist
three shops
about fifty metres past the lights
on the same side as the bank
Error Correction

Four sentences that would fail an information gap. Rewrite each one so it could be drawn.

1. There is a bank near there.

2. There are some shops.

3. The stop is by the road.

4. Walk a bit and turn.

Teacher note The checker will mark almost every good answer red, because this activity is genuinely open. Say that before she starts and mark it yourself by one test only: could you draw it? If yes, it is right.
04
Controlled Practice · 10 min

One street, described twice

Open Cloze

One word per gap. This is a precise description — the kind that survives an information gap.

Coming from the station, there is a chemist right on the of Green Street. Two down from it, on the same , there is a bakery. Directly the bakery — you cross the road — there are cafés, not two. The bus stop is immediately the second café. About fifty past that, the road ends at a small square.

Build a precise sentence

Put the parts in order to make one drawable sentence.

1
2
3
4
5
6
05
Communicative Task · 20 min

The information gap

The longest speaking stretch of the unit. No looking at the other map.

Task card · Information gap

You and your partner each have a map of the same street. Each map has eight places marked. Five of them are on both maps; three are only on yours.

Working only by describing, find the five you both have and the three you do not. Twenty minutes, no looking.

  • In a group: Student A and Student B, back to back or with a screen between you.
  • One-to-one: your teacher takes the other map. They will be a difficult partner on purpose — they will accept near and then discover, two minutes later, that you meant different things.
  • Every claim needs a number, a side or a relation. There is a bank is not a claim; there is a bank two doors down from the café on the same side is.
  • When you disagree, do not give up and move on. Find out which of you is wrong.
Teacher note Draw the two maps before the lesson — eight places each, five shared. Keep them ugly and hand-drawn; a polished map invites reading rather than describing. Do not correct during the twenty minutes. Log preposition choices and there is/are agreement specifically: the syllabus makes those two Lesson 6's content.
Mid-task check

Stop at ten minutes and answer. Then carry on.

1. How many of the five have you confirmed?

2. What is slowing you down?

06
Feedback & Reflection · 7 min

Put the maps side by side

Now look at both maps. For every place you got wrong, find the exact sentence that caused it. Not "my prepositions were bad" — the sentence.

Diagnose

Five failures from information gaps like this one. Match each to what actually caused it.

One of us said near and the other assumed opposite
I heard on the left and did not check which way we were facing
Neither of us asked a checking question
We described whole streets instead of one place at a time
A missing word — and I did not describe it another way
Teacher note Push her to name one specific sentence per failure. "My prepositions were unclear" is not a finding; "I said the bank was near the café and it is actually opposite it" is, and it is fixable in Lesson 6.
07
Wrap-up & Bridge · 3 min

Before the repair

Exit check

One question.

1. What is the single most useful thing to add to a vague sentence?

Before Lesson 6. Write down the two sentences you now know were wrong, and next to each, the version that would have worked.

Bring both. Lesson 6 compares your two with your teacher's log.