Unit 1a Book

1. Introduction

Units 1abc share one topic: how technology can save someone´s life. This is demonstrated on the use of free-floating beacons linked to the Cospas-Sarsat satellite system. In Unit 1a, you will read a story on how this system helped to rescue two sailors whose boat quickly sank in the Indian Ocean. Units 1b and 1c will then give you an idea on how the system works.

As you may not be one of those sailing in the ocean very often, each of these units will also discuss some other similar systems that are more common in our everyday lives. They have the potential to prevent accidents or even save lives and are somehow linked to electrical engineering – either power engineering or electronics.

Contents:

• Past Simple Tense to talk about finished events:

At 9:30, the coastguard received a signal from the boat´s emergency beacon.

• Questions about finished past events:

When did the coastguard receive a signal from the boat´s emergency beacon?

2. Listening: A Diagram and Its Description

Find page 4 in your coursebook (Bonamy, D. (2011). Technical English Level 3 Coursebook. Pearson Longman). Look at the diagram in Task 1. It illustrates all the safety devices that were used to rescue the two sailors. Which of them are used to stop survivors from sinking? Which of them tell the rescuers where the survivors are? Which of them is used to rescue them from water? Answer these questions in this online task.

Now, you are going to listen to a news report giving details of the rescue. As you listen, do this task, i.e. put the six safety devices in the order the reporter mentions them. The recording comes on a CD accompanying the coursebook. If you happen not to have it, you can read Transcript 2 on p. 118 of your coursebook.

Now that you know what devices were used for the rescue and in which order, you are going to find out more about the rescue. In this task, the events are described in detail, but they are not in the correct order. Based on what you remember from Listening 1, put the statements in the order the events actually happened. Then listen again to the same recording to check your answers. Again, if you happen not to have the recording, you can read Transcript 2 on p. 118 of your coursebook.

Finally, notice that the events in Task 3 above were described in several isolated sentences. If you were asked to tell the story of the rescue, you would need to use suitable phrases to indicate the order of events.  Basically, there are two grammatical points that help listeners or readers to understand this order: the correct use of past tenses and phrases called sequencers. Typical sequencers sentences of a story are introduced with are: first, after that, next, then, finally.

3. Reading: The Newspaper Article

Imagine that the radio news on the two rescued sailors has been turned into a newspaper article. Read the article here and complete the gaps with the correct form of the verbs in brackets. As the story of the two sailors happened in a specified time in the past, and doesn´t continue up to now (i.e. it is finished), you need to use the Past Simple Tense. Read more about the use and form of this tense in the grammatical overview before you complete the gaps in the online task above. Some of the verbs used in the story have the irregular past form, so if you need to brush off English irregular verbs, go through this list. It lists irregular verbs in groups based on the simple past forms and past participle forms of the verbs: A-A-A, A-B-A, A-B-B, A-A-B and A-B-C. This division seems to be much more effective than listing the verbs in the alphabetical order. While going through the list, you will also notice that not all the verbs are translated into Czech. Only the verbs in bold are translated because those are the most frequent irregular verbs you should know by heart. You may learn the others later as you will need them.

Important: After you complete all the gaps in the rescue story, check your answers by clicking the Check button and leave the task open. Do not close it because you will need the information given in the text to complete this follow-up task. Again, after completing and checking the form, leave it open.

4. Reading: The Newspaper Article

Imagine that the radio news on the two rescued sailors has been turned into a newspaper article. Read the article here and complete the gaps with the correct form of the verbs in brackets. As the story of the two sailors happened in a specified time in the past, and doesn´t continue up to now (i.e. it is finished), you need to use the Past Simple Tense. Read more about the use and form of this tense in the grammatical overview before you complete the gaps in the online task above. Some of the verbs used in the story have the irregular past form, so if you need to brush off English irregular verbs, go through this list. It lists irregular verbs in groups based on the simple past forms and past participle forms of the verbs: A-A-A, A-B-A, A-B-B, A-A-B and A-B-C. This division seems to be much more effective than listing the verbs in the alphabetical order. While going through the list, you will also notice that not all the verbs are translated into Czech. Only the verbs in bold are translated because those are the most frequent irregular verbs you should know by heart. You may learn the others later as you will need them.

Important: After you complete all the gaps in the rescue story, check your answers by clicking the Check button and leave the task open. Do not close it because you will need the information given in the text to complete this follow-up task. Again, after completing and checking the form, leave it open.

5. Speaking: Interviewing the Rescue Pilot

After the two sailors were rescued, a safety officer was interviewing the rescue pilot on the incident. If you left the Incident Report Form from the previous task open, you can now see what the safety officer asked about and what the answers were. But what was the exact wording of the questions? Give the questions in this task. You can see that past simple affirmative questions are not enough. You should also be able to ask about every sentence element. If you had problems completing questions in the task above, study the Past Simple Tense overview again together with this explanation of questions.

After you have prepared the questions and answers in the two previous tasks, it´s time to role-play the interview with the rescue pilot. Work in pairs. Take turns to be the rescue pilot and a safety officer. The safety officer interviews the pilot and asks questions based on the form. Before you start the interview, come up with at least two extra questions that are not in the incident report form. After practicing the interview, record one of the versions and submit it here. Your recording should be in the mp3 format and should not be longer than 3 minutes (10 MB).

6. Specialist Reading and Listening

As stated in the introduction, since you may not be one of those sailing in the ocean very often, this unit will also discuss another system that is more common in our everyday lives, has the potential to prevent accidents or even save lives, and is somehow linked to electrical engineering. Read about one of those systems in this reading comprehension task.

Now you know the story behind the invention of a lightning rod. But how about the technical principle of a lightning rod? Find it out in the video.

As you watch the video, complete this listening comprehension task. Finally, watch the video.

You will see how lightning protection technology has advanced since the time of Ben Franklin. Although the idea of a laser lightning rod is still in the development stage, it may one day revolutionize the way we protect tall buildings and other tall structures. As you watch the video, complete another listening comprehension task here.

7. Forum: Laser Lightning Rods

The previous listening comprehension task gave you a chance to learn about a new type of lightning rod. In your opinion, what are possible advantages and disadvantages of a laser lightning rod? What do you think: will laser lightning rods be used frequently in the future? Will they replace conventional lightning rods? Answer these questions in this forum.

8. Word List

The key terms related to the topic of Unit 1a can be found:

• in the Excel format here.
• in the interactive flash card format here. This format is particularly good for drilling the new vocabulary.
• in a zip file here. This file is downloadable, so that after unpacking it, you can drill the new vocabulary on your desktop, laptop or any other portable device where you have a browser installed. The recommended one is Mozilla Firefox. Important: after unzipping the zip file, make sure to keep all the related files in the same directory at all times. Do not change any file names and do not transfer or delete anything.

Recommendation: Remember that the best way to learn new vocabulary is to see each new word in a context; that is, seeing it in the contexts provided in the tasks you complete in the unit.

9. A printer-friendly version of Unit 1a

A printer-friendly version of Unit 1a exercises and the keys to these exercises can be found here.