This lesson is designed around the BBC documentary "Visions of the Future: Part 1" presented by Dr Michio Kaku.

1. 1
LEVEL 1
LESSON 4
1. Mini Monologues: Groups
 Conversation gambits (production strategies) for delaying, expressing an opinion and
supportive listening
2. Vocabulary Notebook Project: using vocabulary strategies inc graphic organizers for vocab
notes
 SS sort the Mini Monologue cards into categories and use a vocabulary strategy to record
them in Vocab Notebook.
 Handout: Vocabulary Strategies. (not attached)
3. Using Graphic Organizers to brainstorm ideas for discussions and essays.
a. Mind Map: How will the computer change society in the next hundred years?
b. Whole class discussion
4. View DVD: 00.00 – 01.31
a. Cloze exercise
b. post-listening questions
5. What’s in Store? Groups rank possible future inventions in time order
6. View DVD: 01.31 – 21.30
 SS compare their predications with those on the DVD
 Elicit that 3 and 5 helped SS with the viewing to establish need to prepare before reading
or listening to a lecture
7. Homework: Vocab Notebook

2. 2
MINI MONOLOGUES
Mini Monologues Standard Directions (cards are below)
The vocabulary items chosen are a mix of general topics which will be familiar to the students
(mangoes, rice, Asia) and others which are mentioned in the documentary the students will
watch. This helps to start triggering/building their schemata.
1. Students form groups of 4 to 6.
2. Write on the board: Dialogue and Monologue. Elicit the difference.
3. Model:
1. Put a pack of Monologue Cards facedown on a table.
2. Ask one student to time you for 1 minute.
3. Tell the class you must talk for 1 minute without stopping on the topic on the
card.
4. Tell students you want them to help you keep speaking by showing they are
listening by nodding, saying “uhuh”, “really?”, etc, but they cannot take part.
5. Pick up the top card.
6. Read the topic out and start talking.
7. Stop after a minute.
8. Elicit:
 you talked about how you felt, your experiences, personal opinions
etc and did not talk like an expert. (This relaxes students who may
feel anxious about giving a ‘lecture’ on a topic they do not ‘know’
anything about.)
 you did not speak with ‘perfect grammar’. You spoke in chunks, and
used production strategies* like pause fillers (uh, um), vagueness
expressions (sort of, I mean), and repeats (repeating a word after a
pause).
 it was not a conversation
 that some people were nodding their heads, or said ‘Oh’ etc. Indicate
this is good Supportive Listening behavior.
4. Check groups can time themselves.
5. Tell students to change roles each turn.
6. Give groups the packs of Cards
7. Monitor to make sure that Listeners are not also speaking.
8. Allow each student at least two topics.
* Thornbury, S., (2005), How to Teach Speaking. Longman/Pearson Education Ltd: Harlow. p.7

3. 3
TREES THE MOON THE SUN WATER
MAKING POLLUTIO
WEATHER ROBOTS
DECISIONS N
BRAIN GLOBAL- COMPUTER
THE EARTH
STORMING IZATION GAMES
FLYING VIRTUAL THE
INTELLIGENCE
CARS REALITY INTERNET

4. 4
Visions of the Future
Cloze: Key
NOTE
The student worksheet looks the same, but without, of course, the answers.
DVD  00:00 – 00:01.30
You are going to watch a short section from the beginning of the documentary
Visions of the Future: The Intelligence Revolution and complete the text below.
STEP 1: Read the text below.
STEP 2: Watch the DVD and complete the text.
STEP 3: Compare with your group.
Three centuries ago, the great English scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, wrote, “I seem to have
been only a like 1 a boy playing the sea shore, whilst the great 2 ocean of truth lay all
undiscovered before me.”
Today, once again, we are like children playing on the seashore, but the great ocean of
truth is 3 no longer undiscovered.
We have unlocked the secrets of matter – 4 the atom.
We have unravelled the molecule of life – 5 DNA.
We have created a form of artificial intelligence – 6 the computer.
The discovery of the fundamental 7 laws of nature in the 20th C. will open up unparalleled
opportunities for the 8 21st.
We are making the historic transition from the age of 9 scientific discovery to the age of
scientific mastery, in which we will be able to manipulate and mould 10 nature almost to
our wishes.

5. 5
QUESTIONS
1. Why does Professor Michio Kaku say that “the great ocean of truth is no
longer undiscovered? Because we have discovered the ‘fundamental
laws of nature’.
2. Why does he say that we are still like “children playing on the shore”?
Because we have only just begun to use this knowledge and it will
bring about huge changes in this century.
3. What is ‘scientific mastery’? The ability to use science to ‘manipulate
and mould nature almost to our wishes.’
4. What do you expect the documentary to be about? Answers will vary,
but will hopefully include: the internet, computers, and genetic
engineering.

6. 6
Visions of the Future:
What’s in Store?
1. Cut up the cards below and make packs.
2. Give 1 pack to each pair or group of 3 students.
3. Students sort the cards into POSSIBLE and IMPOSSIBLE stacks.
4. Then sort/rank the POSSIBLE cards into a ‘timeline’: the invention they think most likely
to happen soonest 1st, and so on.
5. Each pair joins another pair to form a group of four and compare their ‘timelines’.
6. Group discussion: Students need to justify the positioning of each invention on the
‘timeline’.
“smart” clothes “smart” furniture
automatic, self-
with computer with computer
driving cars
chips in them chips in it
machines which are
virtual tele- virtual reality chips
more intelligent
conferencing in our brains
than humans
brain chips for “smart” roads
extra memory, which tell cars flying cars
better vision, and where to go
brain chips to cure
the Internet on
“smart” walls some brain
sunglasses
diseases or brain
virtual reality
Internet chips in “maid” robots which
schools and
our brains clean our houses
universities