Last check, at speed
Ten sentences, five seconds each. Do not check your notes. Whatever stalls is what you watch for in ten minutes’ time.
1. There is ___ river at the bottom of the valley. (first mention)
2. ___ river floods every February.
3. ___ people who live there are used to it. (those particular people)
4. ___ people are used to a lot of things. (people in general)
5. I grew up in ___ Netherlands.
6. She is at ___ university in Coimbra. (she is a student)
7. He cut ___ hand on the gate.
8. It is ___ only bridge for twelve miles.
9. ___ life there was slower than I remembered.
10. We climbed ___ Serra da Estrela in April.
What is being assessed
Three parts. Five minutes describing a place to somebody who will draw it, three minutes of their questions, and the written piece with a short reflection.
The criteria are below, and they are the criteria.
Six criteria. Match each to what it looks like when somebody is doing it.
The whole unit on one card
Hold these three
| Hold this | Because |
|---|---|
| The four routes | Mentioned before · present · unique in the world you share · made unique by what follows. Every correct the is one of these. |
| The plain plural generalises | People are friendly. Life is hard. Tourism changed it. The + plural is never general — it means these ones here. |
| Two refusals | No article before a possessive; a possessive, not the, with body parts. |
Fast. No discussion.
1. You want to say that people in general value privacy. Which?
2. First mention of a shop in a description. Which?
3. Which is correct?
4. Which is correct?
The unit task
How the thirty minutes run. Two to set up, then rounds of eight: five minutes describing while your partner draws, three minutes of questions. Pairs work in parallel and swap. Four minutes at the end for the written reflection.
Part 1 · Spoken description · 5 minutes · No notes
Describe a place to somebody who has never been there. They draw while you speak and may not ask anything.
Five minutes, four moves, everything introduced before it is identified.
- Place the listener and face them before you describe anything.
- Introduce each thing once, with a, then use the freely afterwards.
- Give one detail that could only be true of this place.
- Finish with what the place is like, as opposed to what it contains.
Part 2 · Questions · 3 minutes · You do not choose these
Your partner now has the drawing, the question marks and three questions.
Three minutes. Repair on the spot.
- Question 1 — point at each question mark: which one did you mean?
- Question 2 — what has changed there since you knew it?
- Question 3 — the listener’s own: the thing that did not fit the drawing.
- For every repair, say the corrected sentence, not the rule.
Part 3 · Written · 4 minutes at the end
Hand in the 270-word piece from Lesson 7 with a short reflection underneath.
Sixty words. Three sentences will do.
- Your ratio today — thes used against thes with a route — beside your Lesson 6 numbers.
- Which question mark on the drawing surprised you most?
- Which of the two questions — "which one?" or "all of them, or these?" — will you actually keep asking?
Where the unit landed
Self-assessment · tick honestly, this is not collected
| Not yet | Getting there | Yes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| I introduce with a before I identify with the | |||
| I can name the route behind any the I use | |||
| I generalise with a plain plural, not with the | |||
| I use no article with abstract nouns meant generally | |||
| I know which places take the and which take nothing | |||
| I never put an article before a possessive, and I use possessives with body parts |
Three questions. Answer for yourself.
1. Compared with Lesson 6, what happened to your ratio?
2. Which errors survived?
3. Why will nobody outside this room ever correct these?
What you can do now
Since Lesson 1 you have added: the four routes to identifiability; the three ways English generalises and the one that only looks like a generalisation; abstract nouns general and narrowed; the geography of the; the institution pattern — at school against at the school; the two places English refuses an article outright; and the conventions of describing a place to somebody who has never been.
And one habit that is not grammar: asking the question your listener will never ask you.
Two questions. Twenty seconds.
1. What is an article a claim about?
2. What does the + plural mean?
Next unit — Looking Back, Looking Forward. The last unit of B1. You have described where you are from; next you place yourself in time, at both ends: this time next year I’ll be living somewhere else, by June I’ll have been here ten years. Two new futures, and a look back at everything since Unit 13.