Unit 2b Book

1. Introduction

This unit deals with describing properties and features of a product, with a special focus on improving these features and capabilities. Engineering is never about unchanged things: it is a lot about improvement. A specialist in this field should be able to describe features of an existing product in detail, including its strong and weak points, and based on its disadvantages, to recommend appropriate improvements. This unit will provide you with useful phrases to be able to talk about abilities, capabilities, obligations and recommendations.

Contents:

• Basic modal verbs: can, could, may, must, should (= ought to), cannot, mustn´t, needn´t
• Phrasal modal verbs: be able to, be allowed to, have (got) to
• Describing functions of a product: can, be able to, have the ability to, be capable of, allow somebody to, have the capacity to, enable somebody to
• Talking about obligations: must, have (got) to
• Giving recommendations: should, ought to
• Reducing clauses/sentences with Present Participles: Inflatable 35-cm wheels provide a comfortable ride, allowing drivers to travel across rough, open ground.

2. Warm-up: Listening

Coming up with a new product is one thing, but its marketing is another. As engineering companies operate in a very competitive environment, they do their best to attract customers. One way of doing so is to describe a product´s features during a demonstration. Watch the video showing one of these demos and do this accompanying listening comprehension task.

3. Grammar: Talking about Features and Capabilities

In a nutshell, what was the main function of the device demonstrated in the video in the listening task? Obviously, it prevents people from having access to your private information. So, if someone asks you what this device can do, you can use the verb “to be” + an adjective:

1)      It is able to prevent people from having access to your private information.

2)      or: It is capable of preventing people from having access to your private information.

Or you can use “to have” + a noun:

3)      It has the ability to prevent people from having access to your private information.

4)      or: It has the capacity to prevent people from having access to your private information.

5)      or: It has the capability to prevent people from having access to your private information.

6)      or: It has the capability of preventing people from having access to your private information.

As you can see, you must be very careful about using the correct phrase that follows the adjective in items 1) and 2), or the noun in items 3) to 6) above. Notice that with “capability”, you have a choice:

capability to + infinitive or: capability of + -ing form.

Now practice this grammar point by completing this task. Then write about your abilities in this writing task.

4. Grammar: Present Participle

If you describe a product, you can pack more information into a sentence without using full clauses. This is because you can use the -ing form (the present participle) to reduce some clauses/sentences. For example:

Inflatable 35-cm wheels provide a comfortable ride, allowing drivers to travel across rough, open ground.

(Instead of saying: Inflatable 35-cm wheels provide a comfortable ride. They allow drivers to travel across rough, open ground.)

Read more about this grammar point here and then do this task about a mobility scooter for disabled people. NB: The use of the present participle for reducing relative clauses is going to be further practised in Unit 3b.

5. Forum: Products and Their Improvement

The pace of technological progress has achieved an unpresented speed. Technologies that today´s twenty-year-olds have known and used virtually since their birth are incomprehensible to previous generations. However, there seems to be a discrepancy between this rapid pace of technological development and the length of service life of products currently being produced. In fact, appliances and devices manufactured today usually do not last as long as earlier models produced in the past. How does this finding influence your behaviour as a consumer? Answer at least two of the following questions and respond to at least one contribution of a fellow student.

1)      What products do you buy most frequently?

2)      What do you like buying?

3)      When planning to buy a product, to what extent are you influenced by TV commercials and online advertisements? Or do you prefer reading consumer reviews?

4)      Have you ever made a complaint about a product you bought? If so, were you successful? Did you get a refund, replacement or repair of the faulty product?

5)      What products have been improved most? For example, how have phones been improved?

Forum

6. Grammar: Obligation/Recommendation and Ability

Of course, products change with time: design and development engineers work on them to enhance their features and design. Look at the picture in Task 2 on p. 12 of the book (Bonamy, D. (2013). Technical English Level 4 Coursebook. Pearson Longman.), which shows a product intended for people recovering from an injury. In response to some complaints about the product, a product design team came up with some suggestions for its improvement. Read the Draft Product Design Specification on p. 13. While reading, focus on the words in bold and do this vocabulary task. Then, look at the pictures on p. 12 again, and listen to and read the transcript of a brainstorming session of a product design team on how to improve the product called SpaceRunner. They talk about what the improved product should be able to do; in other words, they use a combination of modals to describe ability and obligation (or recommendation). To be able to understand these two grammar points fully, look at each of them separately first. Revise what you know about modal verbs and phrasal modal verbs here and then practise them by doing these tasks: A (to practise can, must, and have to), B (to practise can, could and be able to), and C (to practise should, shouldn´t and could). If you think you need to practise modals further, do these extra tasks: D, E, F, G. Now that you have practised modals, you can combine this grammar point with expressions used for describing ability, which were presented in Section 3 above. This means that you will use the following sets of phrases together:

should, ought to, must, have (got) to, need to

+

be able to, have the ability to, have the capability to/of, be capable of, have the capacity to

For example:

The new train has to be able to achieve speeds of up to 600 kilometres per hour.

The new system must allow you to control everything remotely.

Now, practise the combination of these two grammar points here and here.

7. Your Turn to Write

Are there any products that you are not satisfied with? Identify some products and tell how they could be improved. What should they be capable of? Write a minimum of 350 words. Use a combination of these two sets of phrases:

should, ought to, must, have (got) to, need to

+

be able to, have the ability to, have the capability to/of, be capable of, have the capacity to

Submit your text as a Word or Open Office document here.

8. Word list

The key terms related to the topic of Unit 2b 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 2b exercises and the keys

A printer-friendly version of Unit 2b exercises and the keys to these exercises can be found here.