Words for remembering
Think of one thing that happened to you that you have told other people about more than once. Do not tell it yet. Just hold it.
Then match the eight expressions below. You will need most of them in twenty minutes.
Eight expressions people use when they talk about the past. Match each to what it actually says.
The same event, twice
Version one · Nadia reports what happened
In 2019 I went to Istanbul with my sister. We lost our passports on the second day. We went to the consulate. It took four days. We came home a week late.
Version two · Nadia tells the story
This was about six years ago now. My sister and I were in Istanbul — her idea, not mine.
We were eating breakfast on the third morning, and she was going through her bag looking for the ferry tickets, and she went very quiet. Both passports. Gone.
So we spent four days in a corridor at the consulate. Four days. And the strange thing is, that is the part I remember. Not the city. The corridor, and a man from Leeds who told us his entire life story while we waited.
We got home a week late and I have never once been able to tell that story without laughing.
Both versions contain the same facts. Four questions about why only one of them is a story.
1. Version two opens with This was about six years ago now. What does that sentence do?
2. Version two uses We were eating… she was going through her bag… before the event. Why?
3. The three words Both passports. Gone. are not a full sentence. Is that a problem?
4. Version two ends on the man from Leeds and on laughing. What is the last move of a spoken story?
The shape underneath
What version two has that version one does not
| Move | What it does | Nadia |
|---|---|---|
| Opening | Places the story in time and warns the listener | This was about six years ago now. |
| Scene | Sets a background that is already running | We were eating breakfast… |
| Event | Interrupts the scene. Usually short | She went very quiet. |
| Consequence | What the event forced you to do | So we spent four days in a corridor. |
| The odd detail | The thing that makes it hers and not anybody’s | a man from Leeds… |
| Closing | What it means to you now, not what happened last | I have never been able to tell it without laughing. |
Six moves of a spoken story, shuffled. Put them into the order Nadia used.
The verbs a story runs on
One word per gap. All past simple, and most of them irregular — these are the verbs stories are made of.
I the bus by about thirty seconds. I to the corner and I it pull away. So I there for twenty minutes in the rain, and then a woman I from work up beside me and me a lift.
Six sentences from real baseline narratives. One error each.
1. I didn’t saw him for three years.
2. We was living in a small flat then.
3. She telled me the whole story.
4. What did happen after that?
5. I go to the hospital and they say it was nothing.
6. He was knowing my brother from school.
Tell it, ninety seconds
Task card · Speaking · Diagnostic · 90 seconds each
The story you were holding at the start of the lesson. Tell it to a partner who has never heard it.
Ninety seconds. Not a report — a story, with a scene, an event, and an ending that is not the last thing that happened.
- Start by placing it in time: This was about ___ years ago.
- Set the scene before the event. Something has to be going on when it happens.
- Include one strange detail that only you would remember.
- Finish with what it means to you now, not with the last event.
Listener’s job — and it is a real job. A story told to a silent face dies in about forty seconds. You have three things to do:
1. React out loud at least four times. Really? No! You’re joking. What happened then?
2. Ask one question in the middle, not at the end.
3. Write down the one detail you will still remember tomorrow.
What ninety seconds produced
Five sentences of the kind this task always produces. Fix each one.
1. So I am walking home and suddenly this dog come out.
2. We didn’t went back after that.
3. My parents was very angry.
4. I was seeing my old teacher in the street.
5. And then it was finish.
What this unit is for
Three questions.
1. Which tense sets the scene a story happens against?
2. A spoken story should end with —
3. Your listener says nothing for ninety seconds. What has gone wrong?
Before next lesson. Listen to one story from The Moth — any episode, ten minutes. You will not understand all of it and you are not meant to.
Write down the first sentence of the story and the last one. Those two are what we start with next lesson.