Unit 1a Book

Find page 4 in your coursebook (Bonamy, D. (2011). Technical English Level 3 Coursebook. Pearson Longman). Look at the diagram in Task 1. It illustrates all the safety devices that were used to rescue the two sailors. Which of them are used to stop survivors from sinking? Which of them tell the rescuers where the survivors are? Which of them is used to rescue them from water? Answer these questions in this online task.

Now, you are going to listen to a news report giving details of the rescue. As you listen, do this task, i.e. put the six safety devices in the order the reporter mentions them. The recording comes on a CD accompanying the coursebook. If you happen not to have it, you can read Transcript 2 on p. 118 of your coursebook.

Now that you know what devices were used for the rescue and in which order, you are going to find out more about the rescue. In this task, the events are described in detail, but they are not in the correct order. Based on what you remember from Listening 1, put the statements in the order the events actually happened. Then listen again to the same recording to check your answers. Again, if you happen not to have the recording, you can read Transcript 2 on p. 118 of your coursebook.

Finally, notice that the events in Task 3 above were described in several isolated sentences. If you were asked to tell the story of the rescue, you would need to use suitable phrases to indicate the order of events.  Basically, there are two grammatical points that help listeners or readers to understand this order: the correct use of past tenses and phrases called sequencers. Typical sequencers sentences of a story are introduced with are: first, after that, next, then, finally.