Part One: Warm Up
Discuss the following questions with your partner(s).
- Why do people lie?
- How often do you lie?
- In English, we have the expression "to tell a white lie". What do you think it means? Do you have an expression like this in your language?
- Have you ever convinced someone not to lie? If so, how? Did you simply tell them that lying was wrong or describe the consequences of telling the lie?
Part Two: Getting Ready to Speak
In this lesson, you are going to practise giving advice and explaining the consequences of an action being done or not.
Giving and Responding to Advice
In Use of English 1-2, you practised giving and responding to suggestions. In English, giving advice is different from giving a suggestion. Giving a suggestion is usually more informal. A suggestion is more an idea or an opinion about a situation. In contrast, advice is generally considered more formal because the person giving the advice has specific knowledge of or personal experience in the given situation. Because of this, the language used is usually slightly different.
Giving advice
- You should think about how your lies hurt people.
- (If I were you), I would just tell the truth.
- Have you thought about apologizing for being dishonest?
- It's not a good idea to pretend you have skills that you don't have.
- You had better be completely honest on your visa application.
Accepting advice
- Absolutely!
- I will.
- Done!
- I’ll do it!
- (That’s) True.
Expressing doubt about advice
- I suppose...
- I guess...
- Perhaps (not).
- Well,...
- The (only) problem is (that)...
- The (only) thing is...
- Possibly (not).
Open the exercise and follow the instructions.
Exercise
Explaining Consequences
Sometimes giving advice or explaining that you share a similar experience isn’t enough. To make your advice stronger, it’s a good idea to add a consequence and let the person know what will happen if they do, or don’t do, a certain action.
When explaining consequences, we usually use either the zero conditional when we know the result is a general fact or the first conditional when we feel that the result is possible in the future.
- If you lie to a police officer, it gets you in trouble.
- You go to jail if you lie under oath.
- If you lie to your mother, you will lose her trust.
- You will get caught if you lie on your taxes.
Open the exercise and follow the instructions.
Exercise
Part Three: Your Turn
Instructions Situation 1 Situation 2 Situation 3 Situation 4
Work with a partner to have conversations based on each situation. Take turns being either ‘A’ or ‘B’. Either person can start the conversation. Remember to:
- Ask for advice (optional)
- Give advice
- Accept or express doubt about the advice
- Express a consequence
- End the conversation
A: You are thinking about having another person do your university paper for you and handing it in as if you wrote it.
B: Give advice to ‘A’ about what they can do instead of this and give them a possible consequence if they go ahead with their original idea.
A: When doing your taxes, you usually lie to the government about how much money you make. You will probably do the same thing this year.
B: Give advice to ‘A’ about not doing this anymore and give them a possible consequence if they go ahead with their original idea.
A: You found a wallet with no identification, but it has money in it. You are thinking about keeping the money and throwing away the wallet.
B: Give advice to ‘A’ about what they can do instead of this and give them a possible consequence if they go ahead with their original idea.
A: You are applying for your dream job with a very big company. Because you really want the job, you’re thinking about lying on your resume about your past work experience.
B: Give advice to ‘A’ about not doing this and give them a possible consequence if they go ahead with their original idea.
Part Four: Further Discussion
There are many proverbs in English that use either the zero or first conditional to express the consequences of actions.
With your partner(s), discuss the following proverbs and talk about:
- what each proverb means (what the advice and the consequence are).
- whether or not there is a similar proverb in your native language.
Proverbs
- If you want something done right, do it yourself.
- If you play with fire, you’ll get burned.
- If you snooze, you lose.
- If it ain’t broke (isn’t broken), don’t fix it.
- If you can’t beat them, join them.