Which place, and why that one
Say which of your four places you chose, and why that one, in two sentences. No more.
One prediction before you start.
1. In a three-minute turn with no notes, what breaks first?
What three minutes sounds like
Model — Teresa, on a house
What and where. It was my grandmother's house, in a village about ninety kilometres inland from the coast. Two rooms downstairs, two upstairs, and a yard at the back with a fig tree that was older than the house.
When I was there. Every July and August until I was sixteen. My parents drove us up on the first day of the holidays and collected us six weeks later. My brother and I slept in the same room for eleven summers and we did not argue once, which I still find strange.
One thing that happened. In 1994 the river flooded and the water came up to the second step. We spent two days on the upstairs floor eating whatever was in the house. I was nine and I thought it was the best thing that had ever happened. My grandmother did not speak for a week afterwards.
What it means now. They sold it in 2006. I drove past it four years ago and stopped for about ten minutes. The fig tree is still there. I did not knock.
Teresa's three minutes has four sections. Put them in the order she uses them.
Work from the model.
1. How many of the four sections contain a specific date or number?
2. Why does the flood section work?
3. Her last four words are I did not knock. Why end there?
4. How many irregular past verbs can you find in the model?
Signposting a long turn
Section openers
Four phrases that mark a new section. They buy thinking time and stop three minutes becoming a list. Tap each to hear the rhythm.
The rule for a long turn. Decide your sections before you start, and say the opener out loud when you get to each one. The opener is not decoration — it is the thing that tells you, mid-sentence, where you are and what comes next.
A three-minute turn with no sections runs out at about ninety seconds and then repeats itself.
Match each opener to the section it belongs to.
One section, properly
One word per gap. This is Teresa's flood section, gapped — all past-tense verbs and connectors.
In 1994 the river and the water up to the second step. We two days on the upstairs floor. I nine, and I it was the best thing that had ever happened. my grandmother did not speak for a week. that summer she never mentioned it again.
Six fragments make one specific-event section. Put them in the order a listener could follow.
Three minutes, no notes
The longest speaking stretch of the unit.
Task card · Speaking
The place you chose, told to someone who has never heard of it.
Three minutes, four sections, no notes and no restarting. At least eight irregular past verbs and three chronological connectors.
- Say your four section openers to yourself before you begin. Do not write them down.
- If you dry up, use the next opener. It is a bridge, not a decoration.
- Then swap. Your partner takes their three minutes, and you listen without interrupting.
- Then ask. Three questions each, all in the past simple, all requiring did.
Stop at ninety seconds and answer. Then carry on.
1. Which section are you in?
2. What is hardest so far?
What the log says
Answer before your teacher reads the log.
1. Did you fill all three minutes?
2. How many past forms do you think you got wrong?
3. Which kind of error was most common?
Carry the log
One question.
1. What stops three minutes becoming a list?
Before Lesson 6. Write down the two past-tense errors you are most sure you made — from memory, without asking.
Lesson 6 compares your two with the log. What you can already name, you can already fix.