Unit 1bc Book

1. Introduction

In Unit 1a, you read about the Cospas-Sarsat system and how it helped to rescue two sailors. Unit 1bc will build on this topic, bringing more information, especially on the technical principle of the system as a whole as well as the beacon itself.

As a future professional engineer, you should be able to describe any system, not just those presented in your coursebook. Of particular importance to you are electrical systems, as your area of expertise is electrical engineering. Therefore, in the specialist reading and listening section of this Unit, you will learn about two electrical systems that prevent electrical injuries.

Contents:

• Revision: Past Simple Tense to talk about finished events:

The USA carried the SARSAT equipment built by Canada and France on their weather satellites in March 1983.

• Present Simple Tense to talk about actions the are repeated and/or always true:

The system operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

• Non-defining relative clauses used to combine clauses and to provide extra information:

The rescue centre contacts the helicopter pilot, who then carries out the rescue. 

2. Revision: Speed Reading

The rescue system you read about in Unit 1a is part of the international Cospas-Sarsat system, which helps save people´s lives. Read more about this system in this task.  The task is designed to practise scanning, which is one of the speed-reading methods. When you scan, you do not read texts in detail. Instead, you should first read the questions and then try to look up the answers in the text as quickly as possible while ignoring information which is not relevant. This technique of quick reading is very useful in some stressful situations, for example, in testing scenarios. Usually, it follows a method called skimming, in which you just read a text quickly to get a general idea on what it is about.

3. Explaining a Principle: How the Cospas-Sarsas System Works

Find page 6 in your coursebook (Bonamy, D. (2011). Technical English Level 3 Coursebook. Pearson Longman) and look at the diagram in Task 1. It illustrates how a satellite communication system works. Study the diagram and complete this task, which describes how the system works. Just use the verbs listed and put them in the correct form to complete the description. Notice that the text explains the technical principle of the system, i.e. something which remains the same over a period of time. Therefore, to describe a technical principle, the Present Simple tense is used. If you feel you cannot recall this grammar point from your previous study of English, read this grammar overview before doing the task. After you complete the task, you can check your answers by listening to two people discussing the system. The recording should be on the CD that comes with your coursebook. Alternatively, you can read Transcript 4 on p. 118 of your coursebook.

4. Grammar: Introduction to Relative Clauses

When completing the task on the principle of the Cospas-Sarsat system in Section 5 above, you might have noticed that the explanation was too general, not providing you with technical details. One way to add these details is to use relative clauses. Complete them in this task. While doing this task, you may find the illustration in Task 3 on p. 6 of your coursebook useful.

As you may have noticed in the previous task, using relative clauses is an elegant way to join two sentences together, for example:

Table adapted from: Bonamy, D. (2011). Technical English Level 3 Coursebook. Pearson Longman, p. 7.

If you study the table carefully, you will see the sentences can be broken into two parts: the main clauses (in italics) and the relative clause, which is a subordinate clause (in bold).  All the sentences have commas before their connectives (underlined and in bold). This is because the subordinate clauses are all non-defining relative clauses, which means that they just give some additional information which is not necessary for the meaning of the main clause. In other words, if you deleted the non-defining relative clauses, the meaning of the main clauses preceding them would remain the same. In addition to non-defining relative clauses, there are also defining relative clauses which are necessary to make the main clause logical and therefore cannot be omitted. For example:

The man who/that is operating the machine over there is my brother.

You can see the information given by the relative clause (in bold) is necessary because it defines the man. As this relative clause cannot be left out, there is no comma before the relative pronoun (who, that).

Maybe you now wonder why in this last example “that” is also mentioned to be a relative pronoun, while in the table above does not give it. During your previous English studies, you may have been taught that the relative pronoun who is used with people, which is used for things or animals and that for people, things and animals. The problem is that “that” can be used like this in defining relative clauses only because there is no comma in these relative clauses. There is never a comma before “that” (meaning: “který”, or “že”) and for this reason, you cannot use “that” in non-defining clauses simply because in these clauses the comma is necessary.

Finally, notice that who, which and that are not the only connectives you can use in relative clauses. Where, from where and whose can also introduce a relative clause, as the table above illustrates. Now, read this grammar overview, which gives basics of defining and non-defining relative clauses. Later in courses AEL5 and AEL6, you will learn about more complex types of relative clause.

Now that you know the basics of non-defining relative clauses, practise them in this task. Just join these pairs of sentences into complex sentences. Use WHICH, WHERE, FROM WHERE and WHO to replace the CAPITALIZED words. Finally, imagine you need to add extra technical facts and figures to the description of the emergency beacon. First, match items on the right to the correct items on the left in this task. After you finish, leave this task open to see the completed table. Then think about how you would read out the figures and the units in full. To check whether you can read them out correctly, complete the gaps in this task by writing out all the necessary figures and units. Sometimes you will need more than one word per gap. If you are not sure whether or not you can read out technical data in general, read this overview.

5. How the Free-Floating Emergency Beacon Works

So far you have learned about the Cospas-Sarsat system as a whole. Now, it is time to look closely at the special beacon itself. It is a sophisticated device that is able to detach itself and activate itself automatically. This feature is necessary because manual beacons may be lost, or the crew may be injured or unable to activate them manually. So, the beacon must be able to operate even if the crew is unable to activate it. Go to page 8 in your coursebook and study the diagram of the beacon in Task 1. It should help you to complete this task. Its purpose is to make sure that you know the technical vocabulary to be able to describe the function of the beacon. Leave the completed exercise open. Then, while still looking at the same diagram, match answers with questions in this task. Again, leave the completed task open. You are going to need the two open tasks to describe the function of the beacon in seven sentences.

Use these clues to help you:

Free-floating emergency beacon for Cospas-Sarsat rescue system

How It Works

If the boat sinks, and the beacon is submerged below four metres of water, the water pressure activates the HRU (hydrostatic release unit) automatically.

The water pressure inside the HRU ...

This releases ...

The lever arm then ...

The beacon then ...

As a result, the beacon…

When it reaches the surface ...

Where appropriate, use sequencers to indicate the order of events, for example: first, then, after that, next, finally.

Submit your text here.

Now you know how the beacon works. An interesting fact is that if the vessel is not sinking, you don´t need to throw it into water to make it activate itself.  You can simply activate the beacon manually. The diagram in Task 5 on p. 9 in your coursebook illustrates this manual activation. Study it and complete the missing verbs in these instructions. Notice that the most effective way to give instructions is to use the imperative mood and sequencers. The imperative mood of the second person singular and plural is simply formed by omitting “to” from the “to” infinitive, for example: to write (psát) → write (piš, pište).

6. Specialist Reading and Listening: Fuses and Circuit Breakers

Now, after finishing almost all tasks in this unit, you should know how the special beaker works. However, as a future professional engineer, you should be able to describe any system, not just those presented in your coursebook. Of particular importance to you are electrical systems, as your area of expertise is electrical engineering. Therefore, in this specialist reading and listening section, you will learn about two electrical systems that prevent electrical injuries, namely the fuses and circuit breakers. First read about fuses in this reading task and then learn about circuit breakers while watching the video  and doing this listening comprehension task. Finally, compare these two systems and answer the questions in this forum.

7. Word list

The key terms related to the topic of Unit 1bc 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.

8. A printer-friendly version of Unit 1bc

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