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CHAPTER !3

CHAPTER !3

a mobile phone clamped to his car and looks realiy happy. The other is listening to him with a look of resignation on his face. If we can’t get hołd of a picture, we simply draw two faces on the board (see Figurę 6) and minie what follows.

We give the young mail on the phone a naine (Jack). We ask the students who Jack is talking to and we elicit ihe fact that he’s talking to a young woman he met in the school canteen.

Thafs why he’s looking so happy. We ask the ^{F,GURli 6:} Wappointment: Board drawing i

students what the young woman is saying to Jack and elicit sentences like Youre realiy nice, HI see you this evening, I likeyour jacket, Yourfriendgave meyour rtumber, J’vegot two tickets to a concert, you can corne with me.

We now ask the students what Jack tells his friend as the conversation goes on (we point to the picture which shows him cowering the mouthpiece of the phone), and we elicit and model sentences like She says Vtn realiy nice, She says she’ll see me this evening, She says she likes my jacket, etc. We make surę the students understand that Jack uses the present (says) because he’s reporting the conversation as it happens. We make surę they understand howyou changes to /.

We can get sonie students to suggest morę of the girl’s sentences and have their classmates pretend to be Jack and report the cowersation.

figurę 7: Disappoimment: Board drawing 2

We now tell the students that it is a few hours later. Jack is back at his house looldng realiy glum (see Figurę 7). W'e explain that he went to the concert to meet the girl bul she never turned up. His mother asks him, What did she say again? We now elicit and model sentences sucli as She said I was realiy nice, She said she would see me this evening, She said she liked my jacket, etc. We ask tiie students why the verb say is in the past (because Jack is talking about a past conversation) and what effect that lias (is beconies was, will becomes would, like becomes liked, etc.). We can write this up on the board to help students (see Figurę 8).

is-* was    you-> I

will—>wou\d    your-> my

like-Hik ed

figurę S: Board expIanation

Students can now pretend to be having conversations with other people and report what they say in the same way, and then later they can report the cowersation in the past.

Example 4: Light in space    Language:    should/shouldnt have done

Age:    any

Level:    intermediate/upper intermedia!®

In Example 2 above, the language which the students were going lo siady (past tense forms) was cmbedded in the texts which they read. This next sequence, however, uses the story of the text as a situation to proyoke a nuntber of statemcnts using the target structure.

The scąuence starts when the students are asked if they ever read science fiction, making surę that they understand what genre of fiction we are talking about. This might develop into a quick discussion of what they read and why. The point is to get them engaged and interested in what is coming. Students can be prompted to say what they would expect to find in a science fiction text.

We now ask ihe students to read the text in Figurę 9. While they do this, they rnust find out information sucli as how many people are in the space station at the beginning and end of the text, whether they are men or women, and how Iong they’ve been therc.

They aad been up here for (ive years. Five years for five people, cut off from Earth sińce World War IV. True the Moonshuttle came every six months with a supply of food, but it was pilotless. They had not been able to make contact with Moonbase for two years. Cathy said it was weird.

You say that three times a day,' Rosie answered.

'Weil, it's true. It's weird and I don't think I can stand it much longer.'

‘Oh for Jupitefs sake, shut up! Go and play eight-dimensional death-chess and !eave me alone. You drive me crazy!'

'Thanks,' Cathy said quietly, 'I can see I'm not wanted.' She left the cabin. The door hissed behind her.

When she got to the exit chamber, she didnl look at the record book where Mitch had written 'nine - motor malfunction. Do not use'. She got into suit number nine and pressed the exit key. The outside door hissed open and she saiied out into space. She hadn't told the others where she was going (spacestation rutę 345/2/Z3). It qave her a good sense of freedom.

Back in the station Rosie saw the red warning iight above the exit control but she ignored it.

They'd had trouble with the lights recentiy. Nothing serious. Captain Ciarkę sawit, though. She got on her personai people communicator and called Tim Hotzenfop, the station engineer.

'I think we've got a problem. Youd better eonie up quick.' But Tim was deep in conversation with Leila so he said 'Surę. ITl be up,' and then switched off the radio. Leila was nicer to iisten to than old Ciarkę.

Mitch was in the repair shop next to the exit chamber when the audio-alarm went off. But he was wearing his spacewalk-man. He didn't hear a thing.

200 metres away from the station, Cathy suddeniy realised that she had forgotten to close the station exit door. She must go back. She pressed the motor control on the front of her suit. There was no response. She pressed it again. Nothing. At that moment, iooking back, she saw the space station she had just left roli over and she thought she heard a screani echeing out into the darkness. Her eyes widened in horror. And then she saw the iight.'

figurę 9: iight in space

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