Integrated Listening & Speaking Skills
  • Incomplete Intentions

    • Incomplete Intentions

    Past Narrations & Descriptions
    What is a narration? A narration is a story or a sequence of events. It is the explanation of an experience to an audience. We use narrations in many different ways, but the most common in spoken English is telling about something that already happened.

    Objectives

    1. Understand the difference between the three major aspects of past
    2. Use time and aspect changes to relate detailed narrations
    3. Combine narration and description to create paragraph-length ideas

    Past Incomplete Intentions

    When you are narrating in the past, you sometimes need to express a past plan that was unfulfilled for one reason or another. These are things you planned or considered but were not completed.

    The most common form for talking about these plans is to use be going to in the past:

    Examples

    I was going to apply for that job. (This action never occurred although it was the speaker's plan.)

    Joel and Amy were going to travel this weekend, but the weather was terrible. (This action is followed by a clause to explain why it was incomplete.)

    Additionally, you can use the past progressive and an intention verb to express this idea:

    Examples

    The company was planning to expand to the Asian market last year, but it didn't.

    The farmers were hoping for a long growing season, but the winter was long this year.

    I was intending to apply for the scholarship, but I missed the deadline.

    The students were thinking about attending the extra lecture, but they decided not to.

    Exercise 1: Listen &* Speak

    Listen to this example of past intentions during this interview. This form is only used twice to introduce the idea that his original plan was not what actually occurred in the past. 

    Transcript

    Interviewer: But doesn't everything about your career kind of like blow you away or freak you out a little bit? Because you're just a nice young guy from Massachusetts, right? You were going to be a teacher, I understand.

    John: That's right. I was in college. I was going to be a teacher all the way up till the end. And then out of sheer laziness-- I went to Brown University--that I took (Yeah! He's like noun? No! Brown) At the end, so I came in mid year. I had to go to school in January. They accepted me mid year.

    Interviewer: Why did they accept you mid year?

    John: They had a program for the 32 kids that didn't get in. They let you in.

    Interviewer: You were waitlisted.

    John: And they said, "Hang tough!" with one of those kitten posters and then we got in. A couple of us. Out of sheer laziness, after a couple of my friends graduated in May, I said let's find a place that transfers credits back. And there was a theater school and I went to that theater school and it completely changed my life. The National Theater Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Center. It completely changed my life.

    Speaking Practice

    • Summarize John's experience with changes to past plans.
    • Have you had an experience similar to this? Explain the situation using be going to in the past.

    Exercise 2: Change of Travel Plans

    Talk to a partner about a time when you made a travel plan that did not end as you intended. Try to use a few different forms of past incomplete intentions to narrate the experience.

    • ex. I was planning to visit Spain, but my flight was delayed. Because the flight was delayed, I stayed in New York City for an extra day.

    Exercise 3: Change of Career Plans

    Explain to the class about what you wanted to be when you were a child and why it changed. Try to use a few different forms of past incomplete intentions to narrate the experience.

    • ex. When I was a child, I thought I was going to be a doctor. However, I realized that I was more interested in computer science.

    Exercise 4: Change of Community Plans

    Prepare and present about a plan your community had and explain how the pandemic changed the plan. Try to use a few different forms of past incomplete intentions to narrate the experience.

    • ex. Our city was going to have a festival, but the COVID-19 pandemic made that impossible because people could not gather in large groups.

    Exercise 5: Interrrupted Plans

    Your teacher will assign you to a group for this practice.

    1. One student will start by saying something he or she was planning to do last night and the reason it was interrupted.
      • ex. I was planning to study for my test, but my child needed help with homework.
    2. The next student will continue the conversation by responding to the first student and then explaining his or her interrupted plans.
      • ex. I'm sorry you couldn't study for the test. I was going to read a book, but I fell asleep.
    3. Continue until everyone in the group has shared his or her interrupted plans. If you have extra time, go around the circle again and talk about interrupted weekend or holiday plans.


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