Summary
Topic: Advertisements
Grammar: Speculation about the past, present and future Listening: The big picture
Speaking: Speculating about an advert
Communication worksheet 6B: How can that be?
Lead-in 1
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Write the word ADVERTISEMENT on the board. Ask students to work in pairs to discuss the following questions:Do you watch advertisements on TV or do you try to avoid them (e.g. by switching to another channel or ‘muting’ the TV)? Do you think your decisions to buy certain products are influenced by advertisements?
Can you remember a particularly good advertisement you have seen in the last six months? Describe it to your partner.
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Ask students to think of all the different places where theymight see or hear advertisements (e.g. TV, radio, billboards, magazines, newspapers, social media, blogs, websites). Exercise 1 page 70
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Focus attention on photographs A–D. Ask students to brainstorm words to describe the pictures (e.g. scaffolding,pavement, skinhead, mugger, businessman, accident, crash, leather jacket, bricks) and write them on the board.
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Students work in pairs to describe the pictures and think about the correct order.•
Check answers to question 1 as a class, asking students to vote for the picture they think should come first, second, third and fourth. Write the results of the vote on the board, but do not tell them if they are right or wrong.•
Ask a few students to tell the rest of the class what they think the ‘story’ of the advert is.Correct order: D, B, A, C
Extra activity
Ask students to work in groups to make and present an advertisement based on the four photos. Three of the students are the three people in the photos and the fourth student is a narrator. They can decide what they are advertising. Ask different groups to perform their advertisements for the rest of the class. Then ask the class to vote on their favourite advertisement.
Exercise 2 $ 2•01 page 70
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Play the recording for students to find out what is being advertised.•
Play the recording again and ask students to think about the predictions they made in exercise 1. Which predictions were right and which were wrong?•
You could then ask the students to work in groups and agree on a ‘star rating’ for the advert (five stars = a very good advert; one star = a very poor advert). Write thegroups’ ratings on the board and get a volunteer to work out the class’s average star rating for the advertisement. Audio script
At the beginning of the advert, we see a young man running down a street in a deprived, working-class area. The man is wearing jeans and a leather jacket and he’s got a shaved head. You most probably think he’s aggressive or a troublemaker and that he must have done something wrong. He has to be running away from a bad situation: he might have stolen someone’s wallet or someone could have been hurt in a fight. He can’t be doing anything good.
Then the camera angle changes; we see that he is running towards someone, not away from something. There’s an older man holding a briefcase, standing in the street ahead. He may be a businessman on his way to work, or it’s possible that he’s just finished work. It’s safe to say that he doesn’t know the younger man, because he looks as if he’s frightened. He’s bound to be thinking the man is going to mug him – I’m almost sure we’re all thinking the same. But will he? Then the camera zooms out some more so more context is given, we get a bigger picture, and our perceptions start to change. There’s what looks like bricks and cement being lowered from the building above the men. The bricks might fall and they could both be badly hurt. Then, in the final moments of the advert, the bricks do fall down, but they don’t hit them, because the young man has pushed the businessman to one side and saved him. Hey, wait a minute, that can’t have happened because he’s a troublemaker, right? He can’t have been trying to help him. But in fact, that’s exactly what happened. The advert has cleverly played on our prejudices and expectations until we are finally given the whole picture. It’s a TV advert for a newspaper called the Guardian, and it cleverly teaches us a valuable lesson about judgement and perspective. From hoodlum to hero in three camera angles.
The advert is advertising a newspaper called the Guardian.
Language note: Speculation about the past, present and future
Speculation about the past
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We use must have / can’t have + past participle to describe certainty about the past. We can also usemust have been / can’t have been + present participle for
a continuous action. We do not use mustn’t have + past participle to describe certainty about the past.
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We use may have / could have / might have + past participle to speculate about the past when we are not certain. (For a continuous action: may have been / couldhave been / might have been + present participle.) Speculation about the present
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We use have to / must / can’t + infinitive without to to describe certainty about the present. (For a continuous action: have to be / must be / can’t be + present participle.)•
We use might / could / may + infinitive without to to speculate about the present when we are not certain. (For a continuous action: might be / could be / may be + present participle.)Speculation about the future
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We use will / going to + infinitive without to to make predictions about the future when we are certain. (For a continuous action: will be / going to be + present participle.)•
We use might / could / may + infinitive without to to speculate about the future when we are not certain. (For a continuous action: might be / could be / may be + present participle.)Exercise 3 page 70
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Explain that in the recording, the speaker is imagining that they are watching the advert for the first time, and is speculating about what has happened, what is happening now and what might happen. Ask students to read the sentences and decide whether they speculate about the past, present or future. They should also think about whether the speaker is certain or not.•
Students work individually to answer the questions. They then compare their answers in pairs.•
Check answers as a class.1a Sentences a, b, d, g and h express certainty.
1b Sentences c, e and f express possibility.
2a Sentences b, c, g and h refer to the past.
2b Sentences a, d and e refer to the present.
2c Sentence f refers to the future.
3 We can use may, might and could to refer to the present and the future.
Exercise 4 page 71
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Explain that these phrases from the recording are more colloquial ways of expressing speculation and certainty.•
Students work in pairs to decide which express certainty and which express possibility.•
Check answers as a class.Certainty: He’s bound to be; It’s not possible that; It’s safe
to say that
Possibility: most probably; looks like; it’s possible that; It
seems likely that; He looks as if; I’m almost sure
Grammar reference and practice 6.1 Workbook page 119 1 1 must 2 could 3 It’s not possible
4 can’t 5 can’t 6 might
2 1 must have gone out 2 can’t have gone 3 might have decided 4 might have kicked
5 must have done 6 must have told 7 can’t have written 8 might have seen
3 1 could have bought
2 must be wearing
3 can’t have seen
4 almost sure that we will visit our grandparents
5 is bound to listen
6 seems likely that the government will soon change
7 might be
8 must have forgotten
Exercise 5 page 71
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Tell students to read the first sentence in each pair and think about whether it expresses certainty or possibility. Remind them that if it describes a past event, they need to use modal + have + past participle.•
To check answers, ask individual students to read out their answers while the rest of the class listen and call out if they think they hear any mistakes.1 A citizen journalist has to have taken the photo.
2 They must have been at work when the news story broke.
3 The police may already have caught the escaped criminal.
4 He must have been watching TV when the disaster happened.
5 He can’t have heard about it on the radio. He never listens to the news.
6 They’re bound to be at the scene of the incident by now. They left two hours ago.
7 The report can’t be accurate. It lacks credibility.
8 It seems likely that he’ll read the news headlines today.
Exercise 6 page 71
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Students can discuss the questions in pairs or you can invite suggestions and write them on the board.•
If you have access to the internet, you could find the video of this advertisement online (search for ‘A dramatic surprise on a quiet square’) and play the first eighteen seconds (until the cyclist pushes the button). Then ask students to speculate about what will happen next. Exercise 7 $ 2•02 page 71•
Play the recording for students to check their ideas. Again, if you have access to the internet, you could let students watch the rest of the advertisement.•
Check comprehension by asking the following questions:What happens to the man on the stretcher? (He falls out of
the ambulance.)
What happens after the car chase? (a huge gun battle) How many people watched the video on YouTube in one month? (over six million)
Audio script
In 2012, the American company TNT (or Turner Network Television) decided to launch a new TV channel in Belgium. There were already hundreds of channels available on TV, so the question was: how could they make their channel stand out? They could have put up giant billboards, produced a simple TV ad, or posted flyers about the event, but they didn’t do any of these things. Instead, they decided to do some guerrilla advertising. They placed a big red button ‘on an average Flemish square of an average Flemish town’, and encouraged people to push it. When they did, the square suddenly erupted into chaos, as actors appeared out of nowhere and acted out scenes from medical and legal dramas. A man on a stretcher falls out of an ambulance. A car chase ends in a huge gun battle. People in the square must have been surprised and some might have thought the scenes were real until the final moments, when a giant banner appeared on the side of a building that read: ‘Your daily dose of drama. TNT. We know drama.’ Of course, the real stars were the passers-by who witnessed the event, and their reactions. The video of the event was posted on YouTube and went viral … Over six million people watched it in one month!
1 The button was placed in a quiet square in a little Flemish town.
2 It was put there by the American company TNT as part of one of their advertising campaigns.
3 When someone pushed the button, actors appeared and acted out scenes from medical and legal dramas.
4 People must have been surprised.
5 Its purpose was to advertise a new TV channel in a way which made it stand out.
Learning outcome
Ask students: What have you learned today? What can you
do now? and elicit answers: I can understand descriptions of adverts. I can speculate about the past, present and future.