The line somebody said
Say the line somebody said in your story — just the line, in their words, with no explanation. Your partner guesses who said it and why it mattered.
Six ways of reporting what was said. Match each to what it does over five minutes.
Where the extra minutes come from
The same story at two minutes and at five
Two minutes: I got locked out of my flat in February. I waited on the stairs for four hours until my flatmate came home. We had a long conversation on those stairs and it changed how we lived together.
Five minutes adds: what the stairwell smelled of; the neighbour who came past twice and did not ask; the exact thing I was about to do before I realised my keys were inside; the phone battery going from eleven per cent to nothing; the noise from the flat below, which I had never noticed before; the sentence my flatmate said when she arrived; the fact that we had not spoken properly in about five months; what I thought at the time about whose fault that was; and what I think now.
Four questions about the list of additions.
1. How many new events did the five-minute version add?
2. Several additions are things that were already true rather than things that happened. Which tense do those want?
3. The list ends with what the speaker thought then and thinks now. Why both?
4. The exact thing I was about to do before I realised my keys were inside. Which of Lesson 3’s four jobs is that?
Six ways to make a minute
Where the extra time comes from, and which tense it wants
| Add | Question | Tense |
|---|---|---|
| A sense | What could you smell or hear? | Continuous, or simple with was |
| A person passing through | Who else was there, and what were they doing? | Continuous |
| A plan that failed | What were you about to do? | was about to · was going to |
| A process running down | What was getting worse while you waited? | Continuous |
| A line of speech | What did somebody actually say? | Past simple + exact words |
| Then and now | What did you think then? What do you think now? | Past simple, then present |
Six additions. Put them into the order they would naturally fall across five minutes.
Build the five minutes
Task card · Planning · Individual · 6 minutes
Five minutes from a page of notes. Words and phrases only — a written sentence will be read aloud and everybody hears it.
A page with six headings and three or four words under each.
- Opening background — five things: time, situation, conditions, other people, a problem already running.
- A plan you were about to carry out.
- The event that broke it.
- A process running down during the middle — a battery, a queue, the light going.
- The line somebody said, in their exact words.
- What you thought at the time, and what you think now.
One to four words per gap. This is what the long middle of a five-minute story should sound like.
By half past seven it properly dark and the stairwell light every ninety seconds, so I up and wave my arm at it. My phone from eleven per cent to four. Somewhere below me a television — the same programme, I think, for about two hours. I knock on the door of the flat below, and twice I decided not to.
Five minutes, twice
Task card · Speaking · Round one · 5 minutes each
Your partner has not heard this. Notes on the table; you may glance at the six headings only.
Five minutes. Not four, and not six.
- Forty seconds of background before anything happens. Your partner is timing it.
- One plan that failed, marked with was about to or was going to.
- A process running down through the middle.
- One line of direct speech, in the person’s exact words.
- Close on what you thought then and what you think now. If you run out at four minutes, add background, not events.
Listener’s job. Three columns, all three filled:
1. A tally of continuous verbs against past simple events, minute by minute.
2. Every place where an event went into the background, or a background clause came out in the simple.
3. The one sentence you would repeat to somebody else tomorrow.
Column one is the interesting one. Most tellers run out of background after minute two.
Between the rounds — three minutes, silent. Read column one. Which minute has the fewest continuous verbs?
That is the minute where your story turned into a list. Write down the one background thing you will add there. Nothing else changes.
Task card · Speaking · Round two · New partner · 5 minutes
Same story, new listener, same clock, notes face down.
Five minutes with background restored to the minute that ran out of it.
- No notes at all.
- The thin minute is the one to watch. Slow down there rather than speeding up.
- Your new listener keeps the same three columns.
- Compare the two pages. Column one should be flatter across the five minutes.
Where the layers collapsed
Five sentences from round one. Fix each.
1. The light went out every ninety seconds and I stood up and waved my arm.
2. I was knocking on the door twice and nobody was answering.
3. While she said that, I was realising she was right.
4. I was about to leaving when I heard the lift.
5. At the time I am thinking it was her fault.
The thin minute
Two questions about your own two rounds.
1. You ran out at four minutes. What is the fix?
2. One minute of your tally had almost no continuous verbs. What happened in that minute?
Before next lesson. Keep both listeners’ pages. Circle every place a background clause came out in the simple, and every place an event went into the continuous.
Those two directions are what next lesson is built out of, and almost everybody does one of them far more than the other.