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Listening/Speaking
Nanotechnology
Aims Tasks
• Provide listening and speaking practice • Watch and discuss a 10-minute video about
• Practise using context and prior knowledge to nanotechnology
understand technical concepts and language

Lead-in
Discuss these questions with a partner.
• What is nanotechnology?
• How big is a nanometre?
• Why are scientists so excited about nanotechnology?
• Have you had any experience of nanotechnology?

Watching and listening 1

Watch the first part of the video (0.00 to 1.57) to answer the lead-in questions.
What do the following numbers refer to?
6000 1/1,000,000,000 100,000

Vocabulary 1
Complete these extracts from Listening 1 with words from the box. For each extract, discuss what you
think the speaker was talking about. Watch the extract again to check.
Behave control dimension draw opens materials
periodic phase projects scale unimaginable
1 What scientists have discovered is that at the nanometre ____________ , everyday ____________ start to
behave in ____________ ways.
2 That’s exactly the _____________ .
3 When you have things that start changing the way they ____________ , and now you have the ability to
____________ that, it ____________ up an entirely new ____________ base of material.
4 Suddenly it’s like the ____________ table ____________ out into a new ____________ .

Watching and listening 2

Discuss these questions with a partner. Sometimes several answers are correct.
1 Which examples of nanotechnology already exist?
a Faster computer chips b Medical devices to repair clogged arteries
c Filters to clean water pollution. d Techniques to change the colour of glass
2 How long has nanotechnology existed?
a hundreds of years b around 50 years
c around 10 years d around 5 years
3 What colour is silicon, if you look at it closely?
a charcoal (grey-black) b white
c red d blue
4 What tools can be used to change the number of atoms in a chunk of material very precisely
a a tiny knife b carbon nanotube
c a nano- ice-cream scooper d miniature filters
5 What happens to the relationship between volume and surface area when you work at very small scales?
a Surface area increases relative to volume b Volume increases relative to surface area

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 Professional English Online
Nanotechnology
Watch the second part of the video (1.57 to
5.01) to check. Are you surprised by any of the
answers?
Vocabulary 2
Watch to the clip again and complete the words in
these extracts.
1 The fact that you can c _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
nanomaterials’ unique behaviours has already
turned nano into the b _ _ _ _ _ _ _ of the decade.
2 They have been the result of a controlled heating
and cooling process that a _ _ _ _ _ _ the size of
tiny c _ _ _ _ _ _ _ in the glass.
3 Every time you c _ _ _ the material in two … say,
you go from 100 atoms across to 50 to 25, each
time you do that almost all of the p _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
of the material really change.
4 The electrons are s _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ into a space
smaller than they prefer. It’s called q _ _ _ _ _ _
confinement.
5 The smaller you make the crystal, the higher the
e _ _ _ _ _ of the e _ _ _ _ _ _ _ will be.
6 Its k _ _ _ _ _ _ energy is increased, and that can
be thought of as making its w _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ a
bit shorter and forcing it into a box where it zips
around more quickly.
7 The surface area of the material starts to
s _ _ _ _ _ _ _ compared to its v _ _ _ _ _ .
8 The more s _ _ _ _ _ _ you have, the more
r _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ you can carry out on that surface.
Watching and listening 3
Before you watch the next clip, discuss these
statements with a partner. Do you think they are
true or false?
1 It is not yet possible to produce working nano-
machines.
2 Some very advanced motors and rotors exist at the
nano scale.
3 The motor in the flagellum of a bacterium is very
similar to conventional man-made motors.
4 Nano-engineers are trying to find new forms of
clean energy.
5 Every day, the earth receives enough light from the
sun to meet our energy needs for an entire month.
6 Photosynthesis and photovoltaics are both
techniques for turning the sun’s light into usable
energy.
7 If we are to make use of the sun’s energy, our only
option is to copy the techniques used in nature.
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Listening/Speaking
Watch the third part of the video (5.01 to 6.46) to
check your predictions.
Watching and listening 4
Watch the fourth part of the video (6.46 to 9.04) to
answer these questions.
1 What type of work is done at Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory Molecular Foundry?
2 Which of the following materials can be used to
make solar cells? What was said about each of
them?
a Plastic b Polymers c Nylon
d Crystal e Silicon
3 How thick is the layer of polymer in each solar
cell?
4 How long has it been possible to control individual
molecules in the process of polymerisation?
Vocabulary 3
Read the following extracts from part 4 and discus
the meaning of the words in bold with a partner.
We’re focusing in a solar cell on the active layer
– the part that does the light absorbing and the
conduction of the electrons to the electrodes .
We can design these conjugated polymers that are
conducting in any number of ways. We can add on
certain side chains to them that make them more
soluble , that make them better conductors , that
change the energy levels, and the bang-gaps of these
polymers. We start with a glass substrate with a
transparent electrode, which is normally Indian tin
oxide . We spin a polymer solution down on top of
this, which the solvent evaporates really quickly,
and we’re left with approximately 100 nanometres
of polymer, which is our active layer. Then we take
it, evaporate on a top contact electrode, and test
it in a solar simulator . We have eight aluminium
electrodes– that gives us eight solar cells per
substrate. And so now we can use this to test and
see what kind of efficiencies we’ve gained. We
have the ability to control individual molecules in
the polymerisation steps . We’re just on the very
cutting edge of this – it’s only been around for so
few years that we don’t know where this is going to
go, but it only looks up.
Watching and listening 5
Look at this list of issues. In which of these could
nanotechnology have a negative L impact? In which
could it be beneficial J? For some issues, there may
be both positive and negative impacts.
PHOTOCOPIABLE
• Hazardous materials • Health
• Global warming • Disease
• Clean water • Sustainable energy
• Interaction between nanoscale materials and living
systems
Watch the last part of the video (9.04 to 10.44) to
compare the experts’ ideas with your own.

Discussion
Discuss the following questions with a partner.
• Do you think we should worry about
nanotechnology?
• Do you think nanotechnology will have a positive
impact on our lives?
• How soon do you expect to be directly affected by
nanotechnology?
• What can you do personally to be part of the
nanotechnology revolution?
 Professional English Online
Nanotechnology
Aims
• Provide listening and speaking practice
• Practise using context and prior knowledge to
understand technical concepts and language
Level
B2/C1 (Intermediate to Advanced) Higher levels
will get more out of the video, but the tasks are
intended to enable lower levels to get a good general
understanding. The lesson should last around 60–75
minutes.
This activity is based on a television clip from KQED
(http://www.kqed.org/quest/television/view/189)
a public service broadcaster based in northern
California. (If you have problems accessing the
video, the same clip is available on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4CjZ-OkGDs.
If you use the YouTube clip, subtract 12 seconds from
the timings given in the activities). It includes some
very technical vocabulary, but it is not necessary to
understand every word in order to get a good general
understanding of the subject-matter. For reasons of
space, not all the technical jargon is explained in
the teacher’s notes, but some useful online sources
of information are provided. The primary aim is to
provide listening practice and to help students predict
meaning from context, so I recommend avoiding
teaching all the vocabulary, depending on the needs
and expectations of your students.
General procedure
For each section of the video, the recommended
procedure is (a) students predict the answers to the
first listening task in pairs; (b) students watch the clip
to check; (c) students discuss their answers in pairs;
(d) check with the whole class; (e) students predict
the answers to the second listening task (if there is
one) in pairs; (f) students watch to check; (g) students
discuss their answers in pairs; (h) check with the
whole class; (i) deal with outstanding vocabulary of
comprehension problems, if necessary playing the
clip (or fragments of it) again.
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Listening/Speaking
Tasks
• Watch and discuss a 10-minute video about
nanotechnology
Lead-in (5 minutes)
Discuss the questions with the class. Avoid
confirming answers at this stage, as this will spoil the
first listening exercise.
Answers
Nanotechnology is the study of the control of
matter at an atomic and molecular scale. (See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotechnology).
It deals with objects measured in nanometres
(= one billionth of a metre). Scientists are excited
about it because the behaviour of materials changes
radically at very small scales, opening up many new
possible uses for materials).
Watching and listening 1 (5 minutes)
See general procedure above. Elicit from the class
how to pronounce the numbers and to predict
what they might mean. NB 1/1,000,000,000 is one
billionth in American English. Traditionally this was
called one thousand-millionth in British English, but
most British people would also now call this one
billionth.)
Answers
6000 motors would fit on the head of a pin; a
nanometre is one billionth of a metre; a nanometre is
100,000 times thinner than a human hair.
Vocabulary 1 (5–10 minutes)
See general procedure above. NB One of the terms
used in the clip is phase base. This does not seem
to be a common term (e.g. Google generates very
few hits for the term). It seems to mean something
like a database of phases, where phases are states
of matter (e.g. solid, liquid, gas). The point is that
nanotechnology allows this range of phases to be
expanded dramatically.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_(matter)
Answers
1 scale; materials; unimaginable 2 draw
(= attraction); 3 behave; control; opens;
phase 4 periodic; projects; dimension
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 Professional English Online
Nanotechnology
Watching and listening 2 (5 minutes)
See general procedure above.
Answers
1d 2a 3a, c, d 4b, c 5a
Vocabulary (5–10 minutes)
See general procedure above.
Answers
1 customise, buzzword 2 adjusts, crystals 3 chop,
properties 4 squeezed, quantum 5 energy, electron
6 kinetic, wavelength 7 skyrocket, volume 8 surface,
reactions
Watching and listening 3 (5–10 minutes)
See general procedure above. NB There is no separate
vocabulary work for this section, but you may wish to
play the clip a second time to help students understand
it better. For more on photovoltaics, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaics.
Answers
1 False (simple motors already exist) 2 True (but only
in nature) 3 False (it’s built very differently)
4 True 5 False (every minute – an entire year) 6 True
(photosynthesis is nature’s technique, photovoltaics is
the manmade technique) 7 False (we also need to find
our own tricks)
Watching and listening 4 (5–10 minutes)
See general procedure above. NB The website for the
research centre shown in the clip is
http://foundry.lbl.gov/
Answers
1 It’s one of the world’s premiere nanoscience
research centres, where the newest nanomaterials
move from theory into the lab.
2 a Yes – the researcher is trying to make plastic
solar cells.
b Yes – the researcher is experimenting with
polymers. NB Polymeric materials include
plastics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer).
c No – the polymers are “more like nylon”, but
they aren’t using nylon itself.
d Yes – crystal and silicon are used in traditional
solar cells, but they’re less than ideal.
e Yes – but it’s heavy, expensive and fragile.
3100 nanometres
4 only a few years
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Discussion (10 minutes)
Students discuss the questions in small groups and then feed back to the class.
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Listening/Speaking
Vocabulary 3 (5–10 minutes)
See general procedure above. If there are vocabulary
issues that you and the students can’t resolve, get
students to choose the most important vocabulary to
research as a homework task, and to feed back in the
next lesson.
active layer – the topmost layer of material that
reacts; is active
light absorbing – taking in light
conduction – the process by which heat or electricity
goes through a substance
electrons – the negatively charged part of an atom
electrodes – the point at which an electric current
enters
side chain – a chain of atoms
soluble – able to be dissolved to form a solution
conductor – a substance that allows heat or electricity
to go through it
spin – this is a definition of spin coating from a the
nanoforum
http://www.nanoforum.org/nf06~buchstabe~S~.html?
A method to obtain coatings with defined thickness
in a huge range (from several nanometers up to
millimetres). The coating material is dissolved in a
solvent and dropped on the surface which is mounted
on a spinning plate. The solvent evaporates and a
homogeneous layer is left on the surface. The coating
thickness is adjusted by the spin speed, the spin time
and the viscosity of the liquid.
solution – a liquid into which a solid has been
dissolved
solvent – a liquid in which solids will dissolve
evaporate – to cause a liquid to change into a gas
substrate – a layer where material can absorb or
reactions happen
efficiencies – improvements in performance
polymerisation steps – stages involved in making a
polymer
on the very cutting edge – at the beginning of
something completely new
Watching and listening 5 (5 minutes)
See general procedure above. NB The answers below
are simply those mentioned in the clip. There are of
course many other impacts, positive and negative,
which were not mentioned.
Answers
Hazardous materials L Health JL Interaction
between nanoscale materials and living systems
L Global warming J Disease J Clean water J
Sustainable energy J
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