Twenty questions, standing up
Round the room, three seconds each. Your teacher points; you ask the person next to you one question beginning Have you ever… or How long have you… They answer in a full sentence.
No question may be repeated. Twice round.
Eight sentences. Match each to the reason it takes the tense it takes.
The page is not the interview
On the page
I have simply become someone who says no, which sounds like nothing and has cost me two friendships and gained me about six hours a week.
Out loud, answering a question about it
I say no now. That is the whole change, and it sounds like nothing when you say it out loud. But two people have basically stopped speaking to me since I started, and I have got about six hours a week back. I have not decided which of those matters more. Ask me in a year.
Three questions comparing the two.
1. The spoken version splits one sentence into six. Why?
2. The spoken version adds Ask me in a year. What does that do?
3. Which version should you give today?
Answering a question you did not plan for
Three moves for an unplanned answer
| Move | What you say | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Buy a moment, honestly | That is a good question. I have not thought about it that way. | Two seconds, and it is true |
| Answer the narrow version first | The short answer is yes. The longer one is more complicated. | Gives the listener something immediately |
| Anchor it | I have felt that since about 2019. | Turns an opinion into an experience |
| Admit the edge | I have never been asked that. Let me try. | Buys a sentence and costs nothing |
| Hand back | Does that answer it, or did you mean something else? | Ends your turn without trailing off |
Five moves of an unplanned answer. Put them into a sensible order.
The unit task, in three parts
Task card · Part one · Hand in · 4 minutes
Your clean rewrite of Who I’m Becoming goes into your portfolio today.
A final check against five things, then hand it over.
- Five paragraphs, about 200 words, count at the bottom.
- Exactly one paragraph in the past simple, and it is the one about who you used to be.
- At least one real date, and at least one for or since.
- Every claim about change followed by evidence or a cost.
- No very very, no three near-synonyms in a row.
Task card · Part two · The interview · 6 minutes each
A new partner who has not read your piece and will not. Your page stays face down.
Six minutes of questions about your own life, answered without notes.
- Your interviewer has eight questions and will ask at least six.
- Every answer must be anchored — for, since, a year, or a number of times.
- At least two answers should use the three-move shape: short answer, anchor, complication.
- If a question surprises you, say so and use one of the buying-time moves. Do not go silent.
- You may not recite your written piece. Your interviewer will notice.
Interviewer’s job, and it is assessed too. Eight questions, written down before you start. Two beginning Have you ever…, two How long have you…, two What has changed since…, and two of your own.
While they answer, note every anchorless answer and every tense that disagreed with its time expression. Hand the page over at the end.
Task card · Part three · The comparison · 5 minutes
You now have a marked written piece and an interviewer’s page from somebody who never saw it.
One sentence about the gap.
- Count the tense disagreements on the written piece. Count them on the interview page.
- They are almost never the same number. Which is higher, and by how much?
- Look at which direction the spoken ones went — simple for an open period, or perfect beside a date?
- Write one sentence: Under pressure I default to ___ , which is wrong when ___ .
Closing the unit
Eight errors, one from each lesson. Fix each and name the lesson it belongs to.
1. I live here since 2019.
2. How long you are living here?
3. Have you ever broke a bone?
4. I have seen him yesterday.
5. I have left home in 2006.
6. We have been married since eleven years.
7. I have became someone who says no.
8. They have gone to Greece three times.
One final paragraph, both tenses. One to four words per gap. Ask the question every time.
My aunt to England in 1974 and back. She in the same street in Manchester for fifty-one years. I her four times in my life and I properly to her since I was about twelve. Last summer my mother her a letter, the first in a decade, and she within a week. Nobody in my family what to do about it since.
What this unit was about
Four questions covering the whole unit.
1. What is the one question that decides between the two tenses?
2. Which is right?
3. You announce news, then give details. Which tenses, in which order?
4. Why is this the hardest error to shift at B1?
The unit in one line. The present perfect is not a past tense. It is a way of saying that something about the past is still true this morning, and English refuses to let you attach a finished date to it.
Portuguese has no equivalent, which is why the wrong version sounds fine from the inside. Nothing in your ear will catch it. The question has to be asked.
Next unit. You have described how you have changed. Next you tell what happened — longer narratives, with a background and a foreground, and the tense management that keeps five minutes of story straight.
Keep the sentence you wrote in part three. It names what you default to under pressure, and you will meet that default again in every unit of B1.