Prediction or wish
Read out your three rewritten predictions and your one question. Your partner answers the question with a full sentence — modal and adverb, correct order.
Six sentences. Match each to whether it predicts, hopes, or worries.
A public meeting
Four people, three minutes each, about the same street
Yusuf: My worry is the traffic. If they close the bridge, everything comes through here, and it is already bad at eight in the morning.
Elena: There is a good chance the new housing goes ahead. What concerns me is that none of it will be affordable — that has been the pattern everywhere else in the city.
Bram: I would love a proper cycle lane. I do not expect one. The council will probably paint a line on the road and call it a lane.
Chika: The population here is getting older, and nobody is planning for that. In ten years we will need more of everything — buses, doctors, ground-floor flats — and we are building none of it.
Four questions about how these four speakers commit — or avoid committing.
1. Yusuf says If they close the bridge, everything comes through here. What does the present tense tell you?
2. Elena separates a good chance the housing goes ahead from none of it will be affordable. How sure is she about each?
3. Bram says I would love a proper cycle lane. I do not expect one. Why put the two side by side?
4. Chika gives evidence before her prediction. What does that buy her?
Words, hopes and worries
Talking about what has not happened yet
Tap each. These are the nouns predictions are made of — without them every prediction is about traffic or rent.
Hope and concern
| You want to say | You say |
|---|---|
| You want something to happen | I hope… · I would love… · Ideally… |
| You want it and do not expect it | I would love X, but I do not expect it. |
| You are worried about something | My worry is… · What concerns me is… · I am worried that… |
| You are worried and want to sound measured | I am not sure the plan deals with… · The question nobody is asking is… |
| Something good, stated carefully | The good news is… · If it works, it will… |
| A warning | If nothing changes, … · Unless they act, … |
Six predictions with the key word missing from the definition. Match each to the thing it is about.
Two to four words per gap. Each gap wants a phrase from the table — used once each.
the buses. There are three routes now and there were seven when I was at school. they are building a new depot, and if that opens, some of them come back. a proper night service, but one. nothing changes, the people who need the buses most will be the ones who cannot get them.
Building a real prediction
Eight sentences. Errors of modal, adverb, time clause, question and vocabulary — all of them from this unit.
1. I hope that the rents will not to rise.
2. If the bridge will close, the traffic comes here.
3. It won’t probably be affordable.
4. What do you think will happen with the automation?
5. My worry is that will be no green space left.
6. Do you know whether will they build the depot?
7. When the survey will come back, we will know more.
8. I am worried the cost of the living.
Five parts of a single well-built prediction. Put them in order.
One to four words per gap. The whole shape, in one paragraph.
The thing I keep thinking about is . Half the people on my street are over seventy, and there is no lift in any of these buildings. So in ten years I think the council have to build differently — ground floors, wider doors, all of it. they will not do it in time. would change my mind is if they started now, and they started.
The public meeting
Task card · Speaking · Groups of four · 2 minutes each
A meeting about your street, your town, or your workplace. Everybody speaks; nobody chairs.
Two minutes each, in the five-part shape, on a different subject from everybody else in your group.
- Name your subject and use at least two words from the vocabulary list.
- Give your evidence before your prediction, not after.
- One modal and one adverb, in the right order.
- Say what worries you, and say what would change your mind.
- After each speaker, one other person asks one correctly formed question.
From the meeting
Four sentences from the meeting. Fix each.
1. I am worried that the young people will leaving.
2. If they will not build it, nothing changes.
3. What concerns me is the automations.
4. Do you think will be affordable?
Prediction, hope, worry
Three questions.
1. I hope the rents come down. Is that a prediction?
2. Which order does a well-built prediction use?
3. What concerns me is… — what does this phrase do?
Before next lesson. Choose the one prediction of your three that you can say most about, and find two pieces of real evidence for it.
Next lesson you speak for three minutes on it. Evidence is what makes three minutes possible; opinion runs out after forty seconds.