English Grammar: Time

The narrative tenses: The past simple/continuous and the past perfect/continuous
Prepositions of place and movement: behind, in front of
Listening comprehesion: The Aymara Indians and Ronald Mallet's Time Machine
Note taking

Anecdotes

Extract from Back to the Future

Doc: Here's a red-letter date in the history of science,November 5, 1955. Yes, of course, November 5, 1955.

Marty: What, I don't get what happened.

Doc: That was the day I invented time travel. I remember it vividly. I was standing on the edge of my toilet hanging a clock, the porcelain was wet, I slipped, hit my head on the edge of the sink. And when I came to I had a revelation, a picture, a picture in my head, a picture of this. This is what makes time travel possible: the flux capacitor.

Vocabulary note:

A 'red-letter day' refers to a date on a calendar that is printed in red rather than black. The red colour indicates that it is a holiday or some other special day. Doc Brown is making a joke when he says 5 November is one such day.

Exercise

1) Draw a timeline with the past on the left hand side, the future on the right and the present in the middle. Then plot each past event in Doc Brown's anecdote from "I was standing..."

Answer

2)Tell your partner an anecdote. Relate something scary, funny, dangerous or strange that happened to you. Use the past simple and past continuous tenses.

Discussion

In what direction does time move?
What does the expression “Time flies when you’re having fun” mean?

Reading

Read an extract from an article from the newspaper The Guardian entitled, ‘How Time Flies’ by Laura Spinney (February 24, 2005). When you have finished answer the questions below.

The old man shields his eyes against the fierce light of the Altiplano and considers the question. When he talks about his ancestors, does he mean the Incas? No, he replies in a sort of Spanish creole, he means his great-great-grandfather. And with his right hand he makes a rotating gesture up and forwards from his body. The Incas, he adds, came way earlier. And with the same hand he sweeps even further forward, towards the mountains on the horizon.

In the next video clip, the researcher asks a woman to explain the origins of her culture. She starts by describing her parents' generation, then her grandparents', and so on, extending her arm further and further in front of her as she does so. Then she switches to talk about how the values of those earlier generations have been handed back to her (her hand gradually returns to her body from out front), and how she will in turn pass them on to her children (she thumbs over her shoulder).

1. With your partner make the gestures as described in the text that indicate the past and the future.

2. What is unusual about the way the Aymara Indians talk about the future and the past?

3.Listen to a short radio interview to check your answer as well as to answer the questions that follow.

Listening:

NPR Radio - Aymara's concept of the future- For the Aymara, Future is Then
Apart from space what metaphor is used to talk about time in English?
List the cultures for which time does not flow from behind us to in front of us
For Mandarin Chinese what direction does time flow?

Video - Ronald Mallett's Time Machine - The History Channel hosted by Youtube

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=mGrBNtJjsU0

Instructions

Watch the video at least two times.
The first time take notes while you watch.
Answer question 1 as a class.
After you have done this your teacher will put you in groups of 3-4.
Each group will be responsible for one of the four batches of questions.
Each batch contains four questions.
Once all the groups have answered their assigned questions it will be time to exchange answers with the other groups.

1) What is the greatest question? 00:18-00:33 mins.

2) What happened in 1955 that changed Ronald Mallett's life forever?
00:38-00:45 mins.

3) What inspirational book did Mallet read in 1956? 00:56-1:15 mins.

4) He also read Einstein. What key points about the relationship between space, time, light and gravity did he learn? 1:30-2:16 mins.

5) What are the implications for time travel knowing that gravity can twist time into a loop? 2:16-2:43 mins.

6) In the 1980's studying time travel was not taken seriously. Mallett therefore decided to another branch of physics as 'a cover'. Explain what is meant by 'a cover' in this context, and then say what mallet's cover was. 2:44-3:14 mins.

7) What is a black hole? 3:15-3:30 mins.

8) Einstein's famous equation e=m2 desrcibes the relationship between light and matter and that they are different forms of the same thing. Listen to Ronald Mallet explain the relationship between light, gravity and time. Now complete the following:
Gravity __________ time.
Light _______ gravity.
Then light can _______ time. 3:32-4:34 mins.

9) Describe Mallet's time machine 4:34- 5:20 mins.

10) Who or what will the first time traveller be? 5:20-5:36 mins.

11) What is the significance of being able to send information back into the past?
5:36-5:50 mins.

12) Use Mallett's analogy of the coffee cup to explain how his time machine works. 5:50-7:00 mins.

13) With Mallett's time machine how far back into the past will it be possible to travel? 7:00 -8:05 mins.
14) How could an advanced alien civilization help us travel to the very distant past to witness say the building of the pyramids in Egypt? 8:05-8:41 mins

15) How much does Mallett need to finance the construction of his time machine?
8:41-8:52 mins.

16) What is the 'grandfather paradox'? 9:00- 9:30 mins.

17) The grandfather paradox may not be a problem due to the possible existence of parallel universes – explain this 'far out' notion. 9:30-10:24 mins.

ANSWERS

References

Photos from Flick.com