On Your Way

Imagine a stranger steps off the bus in your village and asks, in clear English, "Excuse me, where is the post office?". Your hand wants to point and say "that side, that side" — but the words won't come in order. That little moment of panic is exactly what this unit fixes.

Giving directions feels small, but think about what it actually needs: you have to know the words for where things are (behind, opposite, next to), the command words for moving (turn, walk, take), and the polite shape that holds it all together. Master those three and you can guide anyone, anywhere — and you've quietly learned grammar the exam tests every single year.

So by the end of Unit 2 you will be able to give directions with imperatives, describe where things sit with prepositions of place, introduce your country on a clean data sheet, write a short email home, and use those surprising group-words called collective nouns — a herd of cattle, a swarm of bees, a galaxy of stars. The unit dresses up as a tourist's guidebook, but underneath it is teaching you four exam-marked formats at once.

Notice that Bhanuka never just says "it's over there". She does three things in order, and that order is the whole trick of good directions: first she gives the action ("walk along… turn left"), then she pins it to a landmark ("the second building on your left"), then she adds back-up landmarks ("you will pass the National Bank and the theatre"). Action → landmark → back-up. A lost stranger can follow that even if they miss one step.

And see how the whole exchange is wrapped: it opens with "Excuse me" and closes with "Thank you very much" / "My pleasure". That polite frame is exactly what examiners reward in any dialogue task — be polite at the start and at the end, every time.

Picture giving someone directions on the phone — they can't see your pointing finger, so every "where" has to become a word. That word is a preposition of place: a tiny word that fixes one thing in space next to another. "Behind", "in front of", "next to" — each one paints the same picture in your listener's head that you can see with your eyes.

Here is the simplest way to keep them straight: think of a small black ball and a box (this is exactly how the textbook draws them on page 15). Wherever the ball sits, that's the preposition — the ball is in the box, on the box, behind the box, in front of the box. Once you can place the ball, you can place a cafe on a street.

• behind — at the back of: The cafe is behind the bank.
• in — inside: The book is in my bag.
• on the left — to your left side: The temple is on the left.
• in front of — facing, ahead of: The park is in front of the school.
• next to — beside, touching: The post office is next to the library.
• on the right — to your right side: The bus stop is on the right.

Three more carry their weight in the Test 2 dialogue fill-ins (the 2018 paper used this exact list): between — with something on each side ("the cafe is between the pharmacy and the communication centre"); opposite — directly facing across a gap ("the bank is opposite the temple"); and at the end of — right where a road stops ("the school is at the end of the road").

Here's a real slip that costs marks. A student once wrote "the shop is in the road". But a road is a line you travel along, not a box you step inside — so the ball sits on it, not in it. He lost the mark for one wrong little word.

When you give a direction, you don't say "you should walk along this street" — that's too slow for someone in a hurry. You just say "Walk along this street." That stripped-down command is the imperative: the bare verb thrown to the front, with no subject in sight.

Why does it work without a subject? Because the subject is obvious — it is always "you", the person standing in front of you. Think of it like a coach shouting from the sideline: "Run! Pass! Shoot!" Nobody is confused about who should run. The verb does all the work, so the imperative is the fastest, clearest sentence in English — perfect for directions, recipes and safety signs.

• Walk along this street.
• Turn left at the traffic lights.
• Go straight for about 200 metres.
• Take the second right.
• Cross the bridge.
• Stop when you see the temple.

A bare command can sound a bit bossy, though. To soften it for a stranger, do what Bhanuka did — add "Please" at the front, or switch to "you will pass…" / "you will see…", which sounds like a friendly guide walking beside them rather than ordering them:

• "Walk along this street and you will pass the National Bank on your right."
• "Take the second left and you will see the library opposite you."

English has a quiet little habit that trips up even good students: when it sees a group of something, it often refuses to say "a group of". It reaches for a special word instead. Bees don't come in a group — they come in a swarm. Stars don't come in a group — they come in a galaxy. These special group-words are collective nouns: one word that scoops up many things at once.

Think of each one as a nickname the group has earned. A noisy cloud of flying bees really does feel like a "swarm"; a tight bunch of bananas hanging together really is a "bunch". The word fits the picture — which is also why it's worth picturing each group as you learn it, instead of just reading the list.

The textbook gives you ten to lock in (pages 18–19):

Before you read this, know what to look for. A poet writing about home almost never says plainly "I have mixed feelings about my city" — that would be a sentence, not a poem. Instead he lets the feelings leak out through small images and contradictions. Watch how Ray Hansell loves and resents Jersey City in the very same breath; that tug-of-war is the poem.

Feel the contradiction? "It's not a bad city" sits right beside "there were many times it didn't forgive". "A city you can embrace, but one you can never hold" — he loves it and lets it go in one line. That honesty is what makes it ring true; a place that is purely good or purely bad would feel fake. If you're ever asked to write a poem about your own town, steal this move: name one thing you love and one thing you can't stand, and let them sit side by side.