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Please check the updated times at the start of the week.
This week the ‘Thinking in English’ Community is talking about alternate histories!
By using the third conditional, we can say what we think would have happened if other events had or hadn’t happened. This allows us to consider alternate histories!
So how would your life be different now, if you had made some different decisions? How would the world be different is some major events had never happened?
Here are 10 conversation questions to get you talking about alternate histories!
The Thinking in English Conversation Club takes place every TUESDAY at 12pm, 6pm, and 9pm, and THURSDAY at 12pm and 6pm UK time!
You can find more details on how to participate here Patreon!
Conversation Questions: Alternate Histories!
- 1. If you hadn’t joined Thinking in English, how would you be learning English now?
- 2. If you hadn’t chosen your current job, what job would you have chosen instead?
- 3. If the COVID-19 pandemic had never happened, how different would the world be now?
- 4. If English had not become a world language, would you still be learning it?
- 5. If dinosaurs had not gone extinct, would they survive with humans today?
- 6. If aliens had built the pyramids, would they have come back to Earth by now?
- 7. If you had/hadn’t gone to university, how would your life be different now?
- 8. If fossil fuels had not been discovered, would the environment be much safer?
- 9. If the internet had never been invented, what would the world be like today?
- 10. “History is the sum total of things that could have been avoided.” – Konrad Adenauer – What do you think of this quote?
Vocabulary
- Pandemic
- (short for Artificial Intelligence) the use or study of computer systems or machines that have some of the qualities that the human brain has
- Extinct
- not now existing
- Alien
- a creature from a different planet
- University
- a place where people study for an undergraduate (= first) or postgraduate (= higher level) degree
- Fossil fuel
- fuels, such as gas, coal, and oil, that were formed underground from plant and animal remains millions of years ago
- Discover
- to find information, a place, or an object, especially for the first time
- Avoid
- an agreement in an argument in which the people involved reduce their demands or change their opinion in order to agree
Photo from Marcus Lange on pexels.com
Photo from Emily Ranquist on Pexels.com
Model Answers & Vocabulary
To help you prepare for the Thinking in English conversation club this week, the wonderful English tutor Thomas Brock has created vocabulary lists and some model answers.
The model answers are split into intermediate, upper-intermediate, and advanced level responses. Hopefully this will give you an idea on the differences in quality between intermediate and advanced response, and perhaps inspire your own answers to these questions!
B1 (Intermediate)
Vocabulary
Model Answers
B2 (Upper Intermediate)
Vocabulary
Model Answers
C1 (Advanced Level)
Vocabulary
Model Answers
See you all at this week’s conversation club!
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Further Questions?
