Unit 1a Book

1. Introduction

Unit 1a describes some past inventions and discoveries, including their background. Many of them are vital because they have helped to establish the standard of living we currently have. In other words, they have made our lives easier. And not just that. They have also made some further technological and medical advancements possible, as current scientists and inventors build on them when coming up with their own discoveries. It is clear that the ability to describe and understand past discoveries and inventions is very important even for professional electrical engineers. Unit 1a revises some verb tenses that are necessary in order to do so.

Contents:

Unit 1a revises and introduces some grammar points necessary for describing inventions and discoveries:

• The Past Simple tense: We started the project in 2010.
• The Past Continuous tense: When we were constructing the building, an accident happened.
• The Present Perfect Simple tense: Yes, we have replaced the faulty parts.
• The Present Perfect Continuous tense: Scientists have been thinking about the problem for years.
• Wh- questions: Why did you start the project?

2. Forum: Important Discoveries and Inventions

1)     What do you think are the most important inventions/discoveries at any time in the past?

2)     Which of them wouldn’t you be able to live without? Which of them would you be able to live without?

3)     Do you know any background related to an invention?

4)     Is there anything that has not yet been discovered/invented, but would be nice/important to discover/invent?

Answer these questions in this forum.

3. Warm-up: Accidental Discoveries or Inventions

A lot of discoveries in science were made accidentally. First, match the inventions to their inventors in this task and then read about two of them in detail while completing the gaps in this gap-fill task.

4. Grammar: Talking about Ongoing Actions in the Past

In the previous task, you may have noticed that some of the verb forms in the two short texts were capitalized:

In 1968, Dr Spencer Silver WAS WORKING in the research laboratories of the 3M company in the US as a research chemist.

Then, one day, when Arthur Fry, a colleague of Silver’s, WAS SINGING in his church choir, the bookmarks in his hymn book KEPT falling out, so he USED some of Silver’s adhesive to keep them in place. 

Initially, in 1977, Endo's team WAS TRYING to use the piezoelectric effect to move ink out of the nozzle but NOTICED that ink shot out of a syringe neck when it was accidentally touched with a soldering iron. The hot iron FORCED the ink out of the syringe. That is how Endo INVENTED the inkjet printer.

You can see that all capitalized verbs talk about actions happening in the past, but some are simple while some are progressive forms. Why is that? Find out in this grammar overview. After that, practise this grammar point in this task. Then read about three more accidental discoveries/inventions in this reading comprehension task. Finally, use these notes to give the stories behind famous discoveries/inventions in full sentences.

5. Talking about Current Discoveries and Inventions

The previous section discussed some discoveries and inventions of the past. The inventors are no longer alive and the research behind the inventions has been finished, so the stories of the discoveries/inventions were described using the past tenses: simple and continuous. The following section will focus on current research and issues scientists and engineers are dealing with. You will notice that to talk about these issues, present tenses are used.

One problem humankind is currently facing is the possible shortage of energy sources because one day, we are going to run out of fossil fuels. For example, as the large deposits of oil have already been depleted, extracting oil is no longer as easy as it used to be a few years ago. Currently, oil companies need to use expensive technologies to get oil from numerous small pockets of oil instead of one large, easily accessible pocket. To get introduced to this issue, watch the Shell commercial and complete the related task here.  After that, find out more about Jaap and his invention by listening to or reading transcript 02 on p. 118 in your book (Bonamy, D. (2013). Technical English Level 4 Coursebook. Pearson Longman). While reading, complete this comprehension task.

6. Grammar for Talking about Current Discoveries and Inventions

Now, look at some of the sentences from the transcript again. While reading, compare the verb tenses used in the first and second paragraphs.

The problem in our oilfield here in Brunei is that you can’t find the oil in one single large reservoir located in one place underground. At the same time, we cannot build one oil platform for every small pocket of oil. This is the problem that we’ve been trying to solve for years. Fortunately, Jaap has recently found a solution.

One day, he was sitting with his young son in a cafe while his son was finishing his milkshake. Jaap watched his son bend the straw and steer it around the sides of the glass to suck the last drops of milk from it. Suddenly, while he was watching his son, Jaap had a eureka moment.

You may have noticed that the second paragraph uses the past tenses (simple and progressive) in order to tell a story about an event finished in the past. However, the first paragraph uses the present tenses because it describes a current issue and gives some facts or actions that happened at an unspecified time in the past or have been happening over a period of time up to the present. Find out more about the present perfect simple and continuous tenses. Then complete this task to make sure you can distinguish between the present perfect simple and the past simple tenses. After you finish, do this task to make sure you can distinguish between the present perfect simple and progressive. Finally, put the lines in this dialogue in the correct order. This task will let you see how various tenses are used in context.

7. Asking Questions

The ability to ask questions is crucial in every language because it is a way to get information you need. In the previous task, you had a chance to see eight questions in context in various tenses. For example:

As you can see, the questions have been divided into two groups. The group on the left requires either Yes or No in order to answer the questions. Therefore, this group is called “yes-no questions”. The group on the right, however, requires giving longer answers containing some facts. The questions in this group have a question word at the beginning of each question. This word usually starts with “wh-” and that is the reason why these questions are called “wh- questions”.

Of course, there is also another way to categorize questions. They can also be sorted out according to the verb tense:

However, although questions can be categorized according to various criteria, their structure always follows the same pattern – with the auxiliary verb preceding the subject. You can think of that pattern as a formula you just follow to produce correct question forms:

As you can see, some boxes in the table above are empty. To find out why + some other exceptions from the fixed arrangement, study this simple grammar overview. Then practise (or revise) this grammar point in this task. Finally, complete the gaps in this dialogue.

8. Your Turn to Write and Speak

In the final section of this unit, revise the tenses covered in this Unit in this gap-fill task. Then, read the following poem with special attention paid to the tenses used. After reading it, personalize the poem by changing the bold-faced sections so that they are true about you. For example, you can think about your field of study and how you have arrived at it. Or you can write about some of the projects you have been working on for some time and you think will be successful in the future. If you cannot think of any ways to personalize the poem, you can simply think of any invention/discovery you have recently heard about and present it as your own (but, of course, you need to cite the source of the information). After completing the poem, write about the same topic in eight to ten sentences, using the correct verb tenses. Underline the most important information in your text and then swap it with one of your fellow students. His/her task will be to read the sentences and prepare four to five questions about the underlined data + at least two more related questions. Your task will be to do the same with your fellow student´s text. Finally, use the text and the questions to prepare short interviews in pairs. You can arrange an online meeting and record yourself. One of you will be the interviewer and the other one the interviewee. After you finish, swap your roles. The finished mp3 file should not exceed 40 MB (it should not be longer than five minutes). 

9. 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.

10. Printer-friendly version of exercises + key to exercises

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