Created by Higor Cavalcante – www.friendsintheclassroom.wordpress.com – Season 1, Episode 11 – Grammar/Discourse – Making predictions
006
Before watching: What’s a pick-‐up line? Complete some funny ones below by matching the column of the left to the column of the right. a. If beauty were time… ( ) Want to use me as a blanket? b. You look cold! ( ) …because God blessed me with you. c. Excuse me, you’ve dropped something! ( ) ...you’d be McGorgeous! d. I sneezed… ( ) …you’d be eternity. e. If you were a burger at McDonald’s… ( ) My jaw! While watching: 1) Phoebe and Monica meet a handsome man at a newsstand. What does Monica do to catch his attention? 2) What happens next? With a partner, think of three possible alternatives to what will happen next. Write your ideas down. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
3) Watch what happens and check if you were right. -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ Fold here -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐
4) Monica and Phoebe take care of the man during his hospital stay. Check on the list below the things you think they’ll do for him, then watch and check: ( ) read the news to him ( ) bring him flowers ( ) bring him a tree ( ) write him a get-‐well card ( ) cut his hair ( ) knit him a sweater ( ) sing to him
( ) do his nails ( ) shave him ( ) make up names for him ( ) kiss him ( ) fight over him ( ) change his pajamas ( ) bring him balloons
5) If you were the man, what would you do when you woke up? What do you think the man actually does? Tell a partner and watch to check if you were right. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Created by Higor Cavalcante – www.friendsintheclassroom.wordpress.com – Season 1, Episode 11 – Grammar/Discourse – Making predictions
006
Teacher’s notes
Will vs. Going to Futurity is certainly one of the most controversial areas of the English grammar. In the fourth edition of his Advanced Grammar in Use, Martin Hewings says we use ‘will’ rather than ‘be going to’ to make a prediction based on our opinion or experience. We use ‘be going to’ rather than ‘will’ when we make a prediction based on some present evidence. He also says, a few lines down in the same book, that to predict the future we often use ‘will’ with ‘I bet’ (informal), ‘I expect’, ‘I hope’, ‘I imagine’, ‘I reckon’ (informal), ‘I think’, ‘I wonder’ and ‘I’m sure’, and in questions with ‘think’ and ‘reckon’. OK. Bafflingly, however, he says right below that ‘be going to’ can also be used with these phrases, particularly in informal contexts. Got it? Neither did he, I guess. Or I. In a great article on onestopenglish.com, Scott Thornbury gives us a few (great!) tips on how to approach the difference between will and going to with our students. My favorite is:
-‐ ‘Ignore it completely, especially at lower levels’, after all ‘the difference between will and going to (not to mention other ways of expressing futurity) is so subtle that it cannot be easily conveyed through rules or isolated examples’. (!)
On the specific topic of using will and going to for making predictions, he says:
-‐ When you’re making predictions, you can use will or going to more or less interchangeably.
You can read the whole article here: http://www.onestopenglish.com/support/ask-‐the-‐experts/grammar-‐questions/grammar-‐contrasts-‐3-‐will-‐vs-‐going-‐to/146346.article
Having read both the grammar bit from Advanced English in Use, Thornbury’s article, and a whole lot of other grammarians’ opinions on the issue, I can tell you all I just happily go along with Thornbury and tell my students they can use will and going to for predictions, and that’s it.
May the gods of grammar forgive me if I have sinned.
(On Luiz Otávio Barros’s blog, there’s a great activity on futurity as well, using The Big Bang Theory. You can check it out here: http://www.luizotaviobarros.com/2011/01/will-‐and-‐going-‐to.html)
Created by Higor Cavalcante – www.friendsintheclassroom.wordpress.com – Season 1, Episode 11 – Grammar/Discourse – Making predictions
006
Assumption: Learners can already make predictions using going to and will. This is an opportunity for them to practice making predictions.
Suggestion: Make sure you’ve folded the worksheet where indicated, so as not to give students any spoilers while working on the first part of the lesson.
Before watching:
Discuss pick-‐up lines with students and elicit a few from them. Have them do the first activity and check it in pairs before you correct it with them. You might want to discuss how effective they think these lines would be in real life with the whole group. (key: b; d; e; a; c.)
While watching:
Tell students Monica and Phoebe meet a very handsome man at a newsstand, and want to catch his attention. Elicit from them what they think the girls will do, and then have them watch first part of the video and do activity 1.
Discuss what she did with the whole group.
In pairs, students now try to predict what will happen after Monica’s shout. Have students discuss possibilities and write their predictions down in the lines provided.
Pairs read their sentences to the whole class. Carry out a brief discussion on their ideas.
Students watch the second part of the video and check.
Check with students whether anyone guessed it right. Elicit from them what actually happened. (The man stopped in the middle of the street, looked back and was run over by an ambulance.)
Students unfold worksheet and discuss activity 4. They must check the items they think correspond to what the girls will do for the man while he’s in a coma.
Students watch the passage and check. (Key: They do everything, except for cutting his hair, doing his nails and kissing him). As you discuss this activity, make sure you have students use will or going to, not just read the sentence bits from the exercise.
In the last activity, ask students what they would do if they were in the man’s shoes. Then have them discuss in pairs what they think the man will do when he wakes up, and write three sentences about it in the lines provided (similarly to activity 2).
Students watch last part of the video and check.
Thank you for downloading this activity! J Please let me know how it worked for you if you end up using it! [email protected] (www.higorcavalcante.com)