Answer the questions below. Listen to same people answering these questions. Report back or read the transcript to practise speaking.

People in business often have to make predictions about the future: for example, to say if they think a product or idea will be successful or not.

Study these ways of talking about how likely something is. 

Look at these ingenious inventions and decide if they are going to be a success or a flop.

Source: In Company Photocopiable Resources, Macmillan, 2001

Alita:
Have you read that old article from 2001 about the future of business and technology? It’s surprising how accurate it turned out to be!

Pete:
I know, right? I mean, they predicted intelligent fridges and mobile internet. Back then, that must have sounded crazy, but now we take it for granted. I honestly didn’t expect technology to develop so fast.

Alita:
Same here. And what really surprised me was the idea of a “total experience.” It said people would want one provider for everything—gas, electricity, internet—and now look at companies like Amazon or Google. They offer everything from cloud storage to smart home devices.

Pete:
Exactly. The author said companies would succeed if they focused on building strong customer relationships. That’s still true today. I think it’s quite likely that in the next ten years, customer loyalty will matter even more than product quality.

Alita:
Yeah, and companies that don’t adapt may well disappear. Just look at what happened to brands that didn’t go digital. They struggled or disappeared completely.

Pete:
True. Also, the prediction that new products would be “superseded sooner rather than later” was spot on. These days, your new phone is old in a year. I wouldn’t have believed that back in 2001.

Alita:
I guess the only thing we can be sure of is that change will keep happening. I’m almost certain that AI will reshape even more industries very soon.

Pete:
And who knows? In a few years, we might be talking to digital assistants that are smarter than us. It sounds unlikely now, but after reading that article—I’m not so sure anymore!

Message to the Future: What’s in Your Time Capsule?

Imagine it’s the year 3025 and someone finds a mysterious metal box buried in a backyard. Inside? A fidget spinner, a pizza menu, and a USB stick with a password no one can crack. Welcome to the wonderful world of time capsules—those little boxes of hope, sent to the future with love, confusion, and questionable taste.

Time capsules have been around for centuries. One was hidden in the base of the Statue of Liberty in 1884. When it was opened, people found newspapers, coins, and… a calling card. (Apparently, even back then, people wanted to network.)

Perhaps the most famous time capsule isn’t even on Earth. In 1977, NASA sent the Voyager Golden Record into space—a gold-plated disc with music, greetings in 55 languages, and even whale sounds. The idea? To introduce humans to extraterrestrial life. Let’s hope aliens appreciate Chuck Berry.

Some time capsules go hilariously wrong. In 2014, one was opened after 100 years and contained… a ticket to a play, a tooth, and a pair of shoes. The future was, understandably, underwhelmed.

But still, there’s something beautiful about sending a message to people we’ll never meet. Whether it’s serious or silly, a time capsule reminds us that someone, someday, might wonder what life was like now—and hopefully, they’ll get more than just an expired chocolate bar.

So, if you were to make one today, what would you put inside?

Alita:
Okay, Pete, imagine we’re making a time capsule today. It will be opened in the year 3025. What would you put inside?

Pete:
Easy. My old smartphone. I want future humans—or aliens—to laugh at how we thought this little thing was the height of technology.

Alita:
Great idea! And I’d include a handwritten recipe for banana bread. Let’s remind them there was once a global obsession with baking during a pandemic.

Pete:
Oh yes, the Great Banana Bread Boom of 2020. I’d also put in a mask. Just one. Let them wonder if it was a fashion statement, a medical tool, or part of some strange ritual.

Alita:
Nice. I think I’d add a photo of people sitting next to each other without their phones. That alone might shock them.

Pete:
True. Or maybe a Spotify playlist on a CD, just to confuse them completely.

Alita:
We should definitely write a note, too: “Dear Future, sorry about the climate, we did try… a bit.”

Pete:
And maybe a coffee cup that says, “But first, coffee.” Just to prove caffeine addiction is timeless.

Alita:
Perfect. Funny, isn’t it? What seems normal now might look totally ridiculous—or deeply meaningful—in a thousand years.

Pete:
Exactly. Maybe the most valuable thing in the capsule won’t be the objects… but the stories behind them.

Check out the mind-map below. It contains all the language of making predictions and expressing likelihood from this lesson plus some extra expressions. 

Click on the mind-map to see a bigger version. Right click to save the mind-map to your computer.

What is your outlook on the future? Are you excited about future developments or rather anxious and worried? Do we have reasons to be optimistic about the future?

Share your views and experience here.