Unit 7с Book

1. Introduction

When designing a new product and coming up with its prototype, designers need to choose the most suitable materials to match a particular purpose or function of the device being designed. Therefore, you need to be able to list some materials properties in English and describe what you can do with those materials. This unit introduces some useful nouns and verbs to do so, together with some phrases used to explain technical phenomena to lay persons. Although during your professional career, the persons you will discuss technical issues with will probably be your colleagues, i.e. experts in the field of electrical engineering, the ability to communicate tech-related topics to general public can be useful, especially when launching new products on the market. Your prospective customers will definitely appreciate basic data on the novel product given to them in an understandable way. And your company heads will probably appreciate a greater number of customers willing to buy that product.

Contents:

Unit 7c introduces some phrases to…

• introduce an explanation intended for a lay person: in other words, or, like, just as, such as, that is to say/that is (i.e.), to put this in everyday terms/language, another way of putting this is that, to put that in layman´s terms

• describe some materials properties: resilience, regenerative capability, conductive, fluidity, elasticity, flexible, liquid, transparent

• describe what you can do with a material: stress, bend, squeeze, torsion, twist, impact, strike, hit, press, pull, oscillate, melt, stretch, conduct, deforming force, deformed

2. Listening

The topic of this unit is aerials (or: antennas, as they are usually called in American English). Can you explain the principle of an aerial? As a warm-up activity, watch the video to see how aerials work. Do this listening comprehension task as you watch the video.

3. Radio Aerials and Their Drawbacks

Read about radio aerials in Task 1 on p. 56 in the coursebook (Bonamy, D. (2013). Technical English Level 4 Coursebook. Pearson Longman). What is being criticized? What might be a possible solution?

The correct answer to the first question is that although aerials are very important, they are very delicate, as they are made of materials which break easily, such as copper. Thus, antennas can be destroyed in emergency situations, which may even result in a loss of lives. To find out the answer to the second question, read the transcript on pp. 122-123 or listen to the recording in Unit 7c of and complete this task as you listen.

4. Giving an Explanation

While reading the transcript in the coursebook (or listening to the recording), you might have noticed that some of the explanations were not intended for experts but for lay persons. Sometimes it is necessary to be able to explain technical issues to a non-expert. Study the language box on p. 56 in the book to see some phrases that are used to introduce these explanations. You can see that words like:

• …, or… (nebo)

• …; in other words, … (jinými slovy) 

• That is / that is to say / i.e. (to jest, tj.) 

are used to explain or rephrase single words or short phrases, 

While:

• Another way of putting it is that… Další způsob, jak to vyjádřit, je, že… 

• To put it simply, … jednoduše řečeno

• To put that another way, … jinak řečeno

• To put this in everyday terms, … vyjádřeno v každodenních termínech 

• To put this in everyday language, … vyjádřeno v běžném jazyce

• To put that in layman´s terms, … laicky řečeno

• To put that in layman´s language, … řečeno laickým jazykem

are used to introduce longer explanatory passages.

Now, do this task to see how technical terms can be explained easily by using non-technical words. However, as you can see, the task only asks you to match explanations to some technical terms, without linking these two parts by using some linguistic means. Therefore, this follow-up task asks you to insert suitable phrases to introduce explanations intended for lay persons. Finally, in this task, you can see an example of an explanation given to a lay person.

5. Specialist Reading

Did you know that liquid antennas actually exist? Read about them in this technical text and answer all the questions.

6. Forum

The questions in this forum are all related to the topic of giving explanations. Answer at least two of the questions and respond to at least one contribution of a fellow student. The questions in this forum are all related to the topic of giving explanations. Answer at least two of the questions and respond to at least one contribution of a fellow student.

7. Giving an Explanation

Prepare a short three-minute presentation in which you will explain at least four of the following electrical engineering terms: an electric current, voltage, resistance, an ammeter, a capacitor, a battery cell, a resistor, a conductor, an inductor, a voltmeter, a switch. 

If you are unhappy with this list, you can alternatively talk about any other components of an electrical circuit. 

Important: you are going to explain these terms to a lay person, so you should do your best to communicate your explanations clearly, using the phrases covered in this unit.

Remember: even this short presentation should have at least three basic parts: 

• The introduction, in which you introduce yourself and the four topics you have chosen;

• The body, in which you give your explanations clearly, using appropriate transitions when moving from one topic to another;

• The conclusion, in which you remind the listeners of the names of the four components you were talking about and summarize why they are used (why they are important).

Record yourself while giving the short presentation and upload the recording here. Just mp3 audio is enough – you don´t need to have any slides. Your recording should not be longer than three minutes (or exceed 40 MB).

8. Word list

The key terms related to the topic of Unit 7c 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.

A printer-friendly version of Unit 7c exercises and the keys to these exercises can be found here.