Last check, at speed
Eight frames. Match each to what it marks.
What is being assessed
Three things somebody else has to be able to say
The assessment for this unit is not a test of imagination. After your discussion, somebody who was listening will be asked to state three things about your counterfactual: the one change, the mechanism, and the thing you refused to claim. If they can state all three, the unit has done its job.
The third one is the one people skip, and it is the one that carries the most credit. A counterfactual that claims everything is a mood; a counterfactual that names its own limit — whether that would have changed the outcome is the part I cannot settle — is an argument, and a listener can tell the difference immediately.
Underneath those sit the forms. Sorting: each wish takes the shape of the job it is doing — lament, regret, complaint or ability. Slots: would have appears only in a result clause; the if-clause and the wish-clause take the unreal past. Dates: a regret about a condition is fine when a condition is meant, and is not fine when there is a Thursday underneath it.
And sound: if ONly, with the stress on only and a fall-rise; contracted I’d for an ordinary regret, and a full stressed had only when you are contradicting somebody.
Three questions.
1. What three things must a listener be able to state?
2. Why does the refusal earn the most credit?
3. When is a regret about a condition acceptable?
The whole unit on one card
Everything from Unit 31, in the order you will need it
| Move | Frame | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Sort the wish | I wish I knew · I wish I had rung · I wish they would answer · I wish I could drive | Ask who could change it. State, moment, other person, ability — one question sorts all four. |
| Keep the slots apart | If I had known, I would have said something. | Unreal past in the if-clause and after wish. Would have in the result clause only. |
| Find the date | I wish I were braver → I wish I had spoken up in that meeting in March. | A regret with an occasion in it can be tested, and can therefore be finished with. |
| State the change | In September 2011 I get the 6.40. Nothing else moves. | Present tense for the premise, a date attached, and one change only. |
| Supply the mechanism | The mechanism is Dinah, on that train, on that Tuesday morning. | A person, a place, a time. No mechanism, no counterfactual. |
| Refuse what you cannot settle | Whether that would have changed the outcome is the part I cannot settle. | The limit is the most credible sentence in the piece. Say it out loud, not just in writing. |
Four questions. Fast.
1. I wish I ___ her that Sunday.
2. If I ___ earlier, none of this would have happened.
3. I suggest that she ___ him today.
4. Your counterfactual has no mechanism. What is it?
The unit task
How the thirty minutes run. Six alone to prepare, sixteen in fours for the assessed discussion, eight to finish the piece and record ninety seconds. Two portfolio pieces come out of this hour: the 340-word counterfactual from Lesson 7, finished, and a recorded spoken version.
Stage 1 · Alone · 6 minutes · Prepare
One counterfactual — from your own life, from public life, from history, or from a story you know well. One change, and a date on it.
Six lines. Lines two and six are the ones being marked.
- 1 · The change, in the present tense, with a date. In March 2018 I send the email.
- 2 · The mechanism: who does something different, where, and when.
- 3 · The narrow claim that follows, and only what is genuinely downstream.
- 4 · Three things that would not have changed at all.
- 5 · One regret from your own life with a date in it, and — if you have one — a lament that is honestly a lament.
- 6 · The thing you refuse to claim, written out as a sentence you will actually say.
Stage 2 · Fours · 16 minutes · The assessed discussion
Four counterfactuals, four minutes each. One speaker, three listeners, and each listener has a job.
Three minutes to present and argue, one minute for the three statements.
- Speaker (3 min): the change and what stays still, the mechanism, the narrow claim, the refusal. Then take one challenge and answer it.
- Listener A: states the one change back, in a sentence.
- Listener B: states the mechanism back — person, place, time.
- Listener C: states what the speaker refused to claim. If C cannot, the speaker did not say it, and that is the commonest miss in this task.
- Anybody may call "mood" or "second change" once each. Both are answered in one sentence or conceded.
Stage 3 · Pairs · 8 minutes · Piece and recording
The 340-word piece goes into the portfolio in this stage, and so does ninety seconds of you speaking.
Four minutes on the piece, four on the recording.
- Circle every would have in your partner’s piece and check each one is in a result clause. Write the count at the top.
- Check every wish for its date, and every lament for whether it is honestly a lament.
- Record ninety seconds: the change with its date, the mechanism, and the refusal. In that order, and end on the refusal.
- Play it back once and listen only to if only — the stress on only, and a contracted I’d unless you are contradicting somebody.
Where the unit landed
Four questions.
1. Could Listener C state what you refused to claim?
2. Was mood or second change called on you?
3. How did your wishes sort out?
4. Compared with Lesson 1, what has changed?
Worth two minutes in your four. Go round and say one regret each — with its date — that you now think can be retired: it failed its own test, or the thing it wanted was not available on the day. Nobody has to explain. Saying it aloud is the whole exercise, and it is the only part of this unit that does anything outside the classroom.
What you can do now
Three questions. Thirty seconds.
1. What are the three jobs wish does, and what sorts them?
2. What makes a counterfactual arguable?
3. What is the most credible sentence in a counterfactual?
Next unit — Careers in Flux. This unit was about wishing something had gone otherwise. The next one puts a modal into the same unreal past and gets three new jobs out of it: she must have missed the train is a deduction, I should have rung her is a regret, and you could have told me is an accusation. Same grammar you have been using all week, pointed at somebody else’s reasoning, your own conduct, and other people’s.