ESL Lesson | C1 | Literature: how science fiction can help predict the future

Summary

This C1 ESL lesson explores how science fiction can act as a powerful tool for predicting and shaping our future. Through engaging activities, advanced students will delve into the intersection of literature, innovation, and foresight, discussing real-world predictions inspired by sci-fi.

This material helps advanced students develop their critical thinking and communication skills while examining how fictional narratives can forecast technological advancements, societal changes, and potential challenges. Activities include a warm-up discussion, video comprehension, vocabulary building, and grammar practice focusing on future tenses.

The lesson is designed to spark meaningful conversations about future possibilities and encourage students to articulate complex ideas related to progress, ethics, and human imagination.

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Activities

A warm-up discussion about personal perspectives on the future and the importance of prediction.
Video comprehension questions based on a TED-Ed talk explaining how science fiction has historically predicted future technologies and societal trends.
Vocabulary matching exercises covering both general science fiction tropes and key terms from the video, such as forecast, futurist, and radical shifts.
A grammar exercise focused on applying the Future Continuous and Future Perfect tenses to discuss future events and completed actions.
An advanced vocabulary activity on collocations related to the future and predictions, including terms like envisage and far-fetched.
Speaking practice designed to encourage students to use newly acquired vocabulary and grammar to discuss various future scenarios, utopian/dystopian visions, and the influence of science fiction.

00:07 Would you like to know what's in our future?

00:10 What's going to happen tomorrow, next year, or even a millennium from now?

00:14 Well, you're not alone.

00:16 Everyone from governments to militaries to industry leaders do, as well,

00:20 and they all employ people called futurists

00:23 who attempt to forecast the future.

00:26 Some are able to do this with surprising accuracy.

00:29 In the middle of the 20th century,

00:30 a think tank known as the RAND Corporation

00:33 consulted dozens of scientists and futurists

00:36 who together forecast many of the technologies

00:38 we take for granted today,

00:41 including artificial organs,

00:42 the use of birth control pills,

00:44 and libraries able to look up research material for the reader.

00:49 One way futurists arrive at their predictions

00:52 is by analyzing movements and trends in society,

00:55 and charting the paths they are likely to follow into the future

00:59 with varying degrees of probability.

01:01 Their work informs the decisions of policymakers and world leaders,

01:06 enabling them to weigh options for the future

01:09 that otherwise could not have been imagined in such depth or detail.

01:13 Of course, there are obvious limits to how certain anyone can be about the future.

01:18 There are always unimaginable discoveries that arise

01:21 which would make no sense to anyone in the present.

01:24 Imagine, for example,

01:25 transporting a physicist from the middle of the 19th century

01:30 into the 21st.

01:33 You explain to him that a strange material exists, Uranium 235,

01:37 that of its own accord can produce enough energy to power an entire city,

01:42 or destroy it one fell swoop.

01:45 "How can such energy come from nowhere?" he would demand to know.

01:48 "That's not science, that's magic."

01:51 And for all intents and purposes, he would be right.

01:53 His 19th century grasp of science

01:55 includes no knowledge of radioactivity or nuclear physics.

02:00 In his day, no forecast of the future could have predicted X-rays,

02:04 or the atom bomb,

02:05 let alone the theory of relativity

02:07 or quantum mechanics.

02:09 As Arthur C. Clarke has said,

02:11 "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

02:15 How can we prepare, then, for a future that will be as magical to us

02:19 as our present would appear to someone from the 19th century?

02:23 We may think our modern technology and advanced data analysis techniques

02:27 might allow us to predict the future with much more accuracy

02:31 than our 19th century counterpart,

02:33 and rightly so.

02:34 However, it's also true that our technological progress

02:38 has brought with it new increasingly complex and unpredictable challenges.

02:43 The stakes for future generations to be able to imagine the unimaginable

02:47 are higher than ever before.

02:49 So the question remains:

02:51 how do we do that?

02:53 One promising answer has actually been with us since the 19th century

02:56 and the Industrial Revolution

02:58 that laid the foundation for our modern world.

03:01 During this time of explosive development and invention,

03:04 a new form of literature, science fiction, also emerged.

03:08 Inspired by the innovations of the day, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells,

03:12 and other prolific thinkers explored fantastic scenarios,

03:16 depicting new frontiers of human endeavor.

03:19 And throughout the 20th century and into the 21st,

03:22 storytellers have continued to share their visions of the future

03:26 and correctly predicted many aspects of the world we inhabit decades later.

03:31 In "Brave New World,"

03:32 Aldous Huxley foretold the use of antidepressants in 1932,

03:37 long before such medication became popular.

03:40 In 1953, Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451," forecast earbuds,

03:45 "thimble radios," in his words.

03:48 And in "2001: A Space Odyssey,"

03:50 Arthur C. Clarke described a portable, flat-screen news pad in 1968.

03:58 In works that often combine entertainment and social commentary,

04:01 we are invited to suspend our disbelief and consider the consequences

04:05 of radical shifts in familiar and deeply engrained institutions.

04:10 In this sense,

04:11 the best science fiction fulfills the words of philosopher Michel Foucault,

04:15 "I'm no prophet. My job is making windows where there were once walls."

04:20 Free from the constraints of the present and our assumptions of what's impossible,

04:25 science fiction serves as a useful tool for thinking outside of the box.

04:30 Many futurists recognize this,

04:32 and some are beginning to employ science fictions writers in their teams.

04:36 Just recently, a project called iKnow proposed scenarios

04:40 that look much like science fiction stories.

04:43 They include the discovery of an alien civilization,

04:45 development of a way for humans and animals to communicate flawlessly,

04:50 and radical life extension.

04:52 So, what does the future hold?

04:55 Of course, we can't know for certain,

04:57 but science fiction shows us many possibilities.

05:00 Ultimately, it is our responsibility

05:02 to determine which we will work towards making a reality.

Vocabulary focus

This lesson introduces and reinforces advanced vocabulary related to future prediction and science fiction. Key terms from the video include: futurist, forecast, trends, arise, indistinguishable, unpredictable, emerged, consequences, assumptions, radical shifts, and weigh options. Students will also learn about sci-fi tropes such as utopia, dystopia, advanced technology, social commentary, and speculation, alongside collocations like envisage, far-fetched, grim, and foreseeable to discuss future possibilities.

Grammar focus

The grammar section of this lesson focuses on the Future Continuous and Future Perfect tenses. Students will practice using the Future Continuous to describe actions that will be in progress at a specific point in the future (e.g., "By 2050, many people will be living in smart cities."). The Future Perfect will be used to discuss actions that will be completed before a certain time or another event in the future (e.g., "By the end of the century, humanity will have colonized Mars."). This practice helps students articulate predictions and future scenarios with greater precision.

How science fiction can help predict the future

Summary

Activities

Vocabulary focus

Grammar focus

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