Unit 9bc Book

1. Introduction

This unit deals with shapes. The title of this unit suggests that it uses the context of civil engineering and although this topic seems to be miles away from electrical engineering, the ability to describe a shape can be useful even for you. Imagine, for example, yourself discussing a big electrical machine/device with your international business partner, but not having a picture of that machine at hand. If you cannot recall the correct English term for a part you want to discuss and if there is no internet connection available for you to use a dictionary or to search the internet to find a good picture of the component, you can simply describe the function and the shape of the part. In any case, shape-related vocabulary should be an integral part of basic vocabulary at the B1/B2 level of English.

Contents:

Describing shapes using nouns:

• An A4 sheet of paper is (shaped like) a rectangle.
• An A4 sheet of paper looks like a rectangle.

Describing shapes using adjectives:

• An A4 sheet of paper is rectangular.

Describing shapes by saying what things look like:

• The roof is a dome. The roof is a pyramid.

Describing shapes by adding “-shaped” to a word:

• This is a heart-shaped box. Use a star-shaped cookie cutter.

2. Warm-up: Basic Shapes

Look around you. What shapes are objects that you use on a daily basis? Can you find anything circular, rectangular, square, cubic, semi-circular, cylindrical, triangular, oval, conical and spherical? Practise these words in this matching task. It in fact answers a simple question: What shape is… ?

For example:

What shape is a traffic cone? – It´s conical.

3. Grammar and Listening: Nouns and Adjectives

To describe basic shapes, you don´t need to use adjectives only. You can also change the word class and use corresponding nouns:

What shape is a CD?             – It is circular.            OR:                 It is a circle.

Do the same in this task.

Similarly, you can simply use another noun denoting a well-known shape to describe an object:

The roof is a dome. The roof is a pyramid.

Alternatively, you can add the word “-shaped” to a noun:

This is a heart-shaped box. Use a star-shaped cookie cutter.

Or you can use and adjective and add the phrase “in shape”:

It is conical in shape. It is pyramidal in shape.

Now, study this document to see some other expressions you can use to describe a component and its properties, including the shape, location and connection.

However, the problem is that if you change the word class, i.e. turn a noun into an adjective, sometimes there is a change in word stress. Sometimes there is no change, but sometimes the stress moves:

Practise this first in this listening task, where you are asked to listen and decide what you hear. A noun or and adjective? Then choose the pairs words which demonstrate the change in stress in this gap-fill task.

4. Vocabulary and Reading: Buildings

Later in this unit, some interesting buildings will be described. To understand the description, you will need some technical vocabulary. This exercise is intended to pre-teach you this vocabulary. Your task is to read explanations and match the correct terms to them.

Now that you are equipped with all necessary vocabulary and grammar, you can read about three interesting tall buildings. Find their photos on p. 70 in your coursebook (Bonamy, D. (2011). Technical English Level 3 Coursebook. Pearson Longman) and read about them here. As you read, complete all the gaps by choosing the correct option from the drop-down list.

5. Forum: Tall Buildings

What is your opinion on the three tall buildings you read about in the previous section? Which one do you like most and why? Is there anything you would change about it? Would you like to live in such a building? Why or why not? What are its pros and cons? Where and in what type of building would you like to live after you finish your degree, find a good job and have kids? Answer these questions in this forum.

6. Writing: The No. 1 Building

Find p. 71 in your coursebook (Bonamy, D. (2011). Technical English Level 3 Coursebook. Pearson Longman) and look at the other two interesting buildings at the bottom of the page. Use the information provided to describe the two buildings, including their shapes/appearance. Then imagine that you are a member of a jury at a Contest of Architecture and your task is to choose the winner of the award for the best tall building. The short-listed buildings are the Gherkin, and the two buildings at the bottom of the page, i.e. the Tornado Tower and the Bahrain World Trade Centre. Compare these three buildings using modified comparatives and superlatives. Important: before you begin, decide on your criteria for the award, for example, beauty, innovation, functionality, low material consumption, and low energy consumption. Write at least ten sentences. Submit your text via this Moodle portlet.

7. Further Practice: Shapes and Lines on a Site Plan

The final section of this Unit will give you a chance to practise shapes even further. This time, you will not only see the photos of the exact buildings, but also the site plan. This means that you will also learn some basic vocabulary related to the types of line on a technical drawing.

First, find p. 72 in your coursebook (Bonamy, D. (2011). Technical English Level 3 Coursebook. Pearson Longman) and look at the site plan. Then match the individual buildings and objects to the descriptions in this task using labels A to H. Then, within the same task, listen to Recording 32 that comes with your coursebook and use the same labels to identify the buildings of the institute. (Alternatively, you can read the transcript on p. 124 in your coursebook). Finally, use the same labels to locate the two buildings that are in the photos on p. 72. 

The last exercise in this section describes the same buildings again, namely the Administrative Building and the Student Hostel, which you could see in the photos on p. 72. You can also see them on p. 73; this time, however, they are not in a photo, but in a form of two sketches. Do not be confused – they are in a different order when compared to the photos on p. 72. Based on the sketches, complete the gaps in this task.

8. Word list

The key terms related to the topic of Unit 9bc 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 9bc

A printer-friendly version of Unit 9bc exercises and the keys to these exercises can be found here.