The World's Most Expensive Detours
Grammar: Reported Speech
A Business English English lesson exploring business.
What's in this lesson
A Business English ESL lesson on business, practising reported speech. The worksheet has a reading, target vocabulary, a grammar reference with practice and discussion questions.
From the reading: The World's Most Expensive Detours
Here is a question that sounds like geography homework but costs billions of dollars every year: why does almost everything you own travel through the same handful of narrow gaps in the planet? The Strait of Malacca — a ribbon of water between Malaysia and Indonesia barely 65 kilometres wide at its narrowest — carries roughly 40 percent of global maritime trade. The Suez Canal, a thin scratch across Egyptian sand, handles about 12 percent of world shipping. Remove either choke point, and supply chains do not just slow down. They go off the rails.
Vocabulary
- choke point
- off the rails
- reroute
- keep afloat
- Arctic corridor
- Permafrost
- strait
- wall
- in the pipeline
Grammar: Reported Speech
- Formal ellipsis
- The Arctic route, though faster, carries significant ice risk. — subject + auxiliary omitted after conjunction in formal reports
- Nominal substitution
- Two routes were proposed; the shorter one was rejected. — 'one' replaces a repeated noun phrase
Discussion questions
- Would you rather ship via the Arctic in eight weeks or around Africa in twelve?
- Which matters more to a business: speed or predictability?
- Can geography ever be a company's competitive advantage?
The World's Most Expensive Detours
Grammar: Reported Speech
What's in this lesson:
Full lesson plan with reading, grammar, vocabulary, and discussion.
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