HEAAADERLOGORIGHT

BUSINESS ENGLISH · ENGLISH IN VIDEO · UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

THE VALLEY
OF DEATH
QrrkoD Scan to review worksheet

Expemo code:
19HP-N1TD-TQIQ

1 Warm up
Imagine you’ve had a new idea for a product or service. Think of a specific idea related to your own
field of business. Now in pairs, discuss the following questions.

• Who would you involve in your discussions about your new idea?
• What steps would you need in order to take it from an idea to a reality?
• What would you do to test if it is a good idea?
• What does your company do to test new ideas and see if they are suitable to invest time and
money in?

2 Focus on vocabulary
Part A: Add the following extracts to the correct gap in the definitions.
attack or hurt designed to protect difficult to do morally or legally
reduce the impact reliable and not running out the systems needed

1. regulation (n) - a law or rule someone or something

2. stabilize (v) - to create a situation where something is likely to change
3. vulnerable (adj.) - when someone or something is easy to
4. infrastructure (n) - for a country or an organization to function, for
example, buildings and power supplies
5. renewable (adj.) - describing energy and resources that can replace themselves without

6. obligated (adj.) - when you have to do something

7. initiative (n) - a plan, often by the government, to of a certain problem
or to achieve a certain goal
8. daunting (adj.) - when something looks and makes you lack confidence

FOOOOTERRIGHT Learn without forgetting! 1/7

Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Javier Alonso's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

THE VALLEY OF DEATH

Part B: Now complete the following sentences with another form of the words from Part A in brackets.

1. I’m feeling quite by my job interview next week. I just don’t know if I have enough
experience. (daunting)
2. The government has promised to invest heavily in the needs of the country,
improving public transportation and roads, which will create 150,000 jobs. (infrastructure)
3. I need to my driving license this week; the government requires you to update it
every 10 years. (renewable)
4. Our company holds the largest share of the market and has the best products, so at the moment,
we’re to the competition. (vulnerable)
5. You’re not to take your paid leave, but you will lose it if you don’t use it this year.
(obligated)
6. Due to the recession, the market has become very this year. (stabilize)
7. The government how much waste we are allowed to produce, so we’re investing
in greener technologies to reduce it. (regulation)
8. I hear the local government has legal action against that company for the amount
of pollution it has caused. (initiative)

Now in pairs, answer the following questions.

1. What industries do you think will be vulnerable in your country over the next 20 years?
2. How would you describe the infrastructure in your country? Does it need improving? Or does it
work well? Why?
3. What are you obligated to do in your life?
4. Are you aware of any initiatives by your government or your company? What did they aim to do?
5. What situations have you found daunting in the past?
6. What environmental regulations does your government have? What are they designed to protect
specifically?

FOOOOTERLEFT Learn without forgetting! 2/7

Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Javier Alonso's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

THE VALLEY OF DEATH

3 Understanding the main idea

Look at these sentences from the script at the beginning of the video you will watch. Number them
in the order you think they will be used. The first one has been done for you.

All new products must pass through here before they reach the market. Many never make it out, and
sometimes that’s OK.

But inventions that could help address massive global issues also face this risk.

But wait - what’s this? Ah, yes, there’s one more challenge.

If they don’t work, don’t fill a need, or for any number of other reasons.

Now, all that remains is to unleash them on the world.

They must now cross the valley of death.

They’ve passed every test, cleared every hurdle, jumped through every hoop. 1

Now watch the first part of the video (00:00 – 00:47) to check your answers.

1. What do you think is meant by "the valley of death"?

2. What does "cleared every hurdle" and "jumped through every hoop" mean?
3. What does it mean if you "unleash" something on the world?

4 Comprehension

Watch the rest of the video and answer the questions.

1. According to the video, the valley of death is dangerous for industries that have a lot of regulations,
such as ...
a. Construction and Transportation.
b. Hospitality and Recreation.
c. Education and Media.
d. Energy and Recycling.

2. While regulations are ultimately a good thing, they can have the effect of ...

a. reducing profits.
b. slowing down the process of development.
c. discouraging investment.
d. attracting negative attention from the media.

FOOOOTERRIGHT Learn without forgetting! 3/7

Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Javier Alonso's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

THE VALLEY OF DEATH

3. Zero-carbon technologies are important to mankind’s future because ...

a. they will help create a greener transportation system.

b. governments require a return on investment from them.
c. we soon won’t have enough trees to reduce carbon levels.
d. they will help make our climate more reliable and remove greenhouse gases.

4. The demand for zero-carbon technologies can be negatively affected by ...

a. how expensive they are.

b. the need for infrastructure and consumer behavior to change.
c. negative press created by the fossil fuel industry.
d. the fact that they don’t work particularly well in cities.

5. If companies making zero-carbon technologies don’t get investment, they can’t develop their
technologies. Therefore, they can’t ...

a. make any profit.

b. attract more investors.
c. do any advertising.
d. reduce costs.

6. In Germany, government loans ultimately enabled ...

a. solar power to save 90% of the country’s energy costs.

b. a 90% reduction in the cost of solar power.
c. China and the United States to finance their own solar power programs.
d. the country to meet its emission goals by 2009.

7. In the 1970s, Denmark encouraged the growth of wind energy by ...

a. increasing tax on fossil fuel-based energy companies.

b. financing a number of wind energy plants throughout the country.
c. promoting wind energy to the public.
d. increasing the costs of energy products which used oil.

8. The video concludes with the point that, for some of the most useful technologies to work, ...

a. there need to be investors who will take big financial risks.

b. the market needs to be guided with government help.
c. investors can’t expect to make large profits immediately.
d. the general public needs to support the government.

FOOOOTERLEFT Learn without forgetting! 4/7

Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Javier Alonso's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

THE VALLEY OF DEATH

5 Collocations

Look at the following words and match them to form the collocations.

1. consumer a. behavior

2. emission b. benefit

3. vicious c. cycle

4. high d. goals

5. social e. incentives

6. government f. loans

7. success g. potential

8. tax h. stories

Now write the collocations next to the correct example.

1. A laboratory borrows money at a low interest rate to fund new research into infectious diseases.
The results of the research will benefit the whole population of that country.

2. The government allows businesses that do not use energy from fossil fuels to pay a lower rate of
tax.
3. A company invents a machine that is able to remove waste from rivers and prevent it from going
into the sea.
4. Electric cars become more popular, and a greater number of people start buying them.

5. A company director cuts his own salary in order to increase the salary of his staff, and the profits
of the company increase by several billion dollars per year as a direct result.

6. After much research, the properties of a plant are found to greatly reduce the negative effects of
cancer.
7. Students need to work full time to pay for their education. They are constantly too tired to study
properly. They can’t get a higher paying job until they complete their degree.

8. The government of a country plans to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide its industry creates
by 75% before 2050.

FOOOOTERRIGHT Learn without forgetting! 5/7

Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Javier Alonso's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

THE VALLEY OF DEATH

Now complete the questions and answer them.

1. What tax does your government offer businesses or people?

2. What emission does your country have?
3. Have you, or anyone you know, been caught in a vicious ? What happened?
4. What businesses that you know of have high for the future in your opinion?
5. Does your company provide any social ? Are you aware of any other company
that has them?
6. Are businesses in your country able to get a government ? For what reasons are
they usually given?
7. Can you give an example of a business success in your country? What happened?
8. How has consumer changed in your country in the last ten years?

6 Talking point

In pairs, discuss the following questions.

1. What are the main sources of energy that people use in your country in their everyday lives?
2. Are greener energy sources (such as solar power, wind power) popular in your country? Why/Why
not?
3. Does your country have plans to change the energy sources it uses in the future? What are the
plans?
4. Think about the process of producing a new product or service that you are familiar with? What
process did it go through? How was it decided if that product or service was successful or not?
5. What is your opinion on the video? Do you agree that useful technologies require government
assistance? Or do you think that the market is better without intervention from the government?

FOOOOTERLEFT Learn without forgetting! 6/7

Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Javier Alonso's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

THE VALLEY OF DEATH

7 Extended activity/homework

Read the following essay question. Write an essay on the topic using your discussion, the information
in the video, and your own research as a basis for your answer.

The best way of judging if a new product is useful or not is to allow the market to decide. If
there is demand, it will succeed. If not, it will fail. Government interference in the market will
never lead to the best products and innovations.

• Discuss to what extent you agree with the statement.

• Write at least 250 words.

FOOOOTERRIGHT Learn without forgetting! 7/7

Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Javier Alonso's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
TEACHER MATERIALS · UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

THE VALLEY OF DEATH

Transcripts

3. Understanding the main idea

Narrator: They’ve passed every test, cleared every hurdle, jumped through every hoop. Now, all that
remains is to unleash them on the world. But wait - what’s this? Ah, yes, there’s one more
challenge. They must now cross the valley of death. All new products must pass through
here before they reach the market. Many never make it out, and sometimes that’s OK- if
they don’t work, don’t fill a need, or for any number of other reasons.

Narrator: But inventions that could help address massive global issues also face this risk. That’s
because a technology’s potential isn’t the only factor that determines whether it will
succeed. The valley of death is especially risky for innovations involving complex physical
objects as opposed to software, and for those in highly regulated industries, like medicine,
building materials, and transportation.

Narrator: Regulations and other obstacles aren’t inherently bad - they’re often designed to keep
people safe - but they do tend to scare off investors, and that’s what traps good ideas
in the valley of death: their funding dries up before they can become profitable. One of
the fields where this problem is most pressing today is zero-carbon technologies. They’re
essential to our future because they will help us eliminate greenhouse gas emissions and
stabilize our climate.

Narrator: But they also have features that make them particularly vulnerable in the valley of death.
Let’s look at why that is and how we can change it. All new technologies must go through
a development phase before they can become profitable. For zero-carbon technologies,
the costs of this phase are high, the timelines are long, and, in spite of the good they can
do, demand is often low because they can require big changes in both infrastructure and
consumer behavior.

Narrator: For example, electric heat pumps don’t burn fossil fuels and, when you factor in savings
on energy use, are cost-competitive with gas furnaces, but homeowners only change
their heating and cooling systems every few decades. Direct air capture technologies,
meanwhile, remove CO2 directly from the atmosphere. We need these technologies to
reach our emission goals, and several of them have already been proven to work, but
they’re at risk of getting trapped in the valley of death because they’re expensive.

Narrator: This creates a vicious cycle because the best way to lower costs is by, well, practicing:
making more of a product and refining it. But high initial costs scare off investors, and
without their money, companies can’t continue to develop their technologies - and can’t
ultimately decrease costs. Fortunately, there’s a way to break this cycle: governments
can help close the gap when private investors won’t fund technologies with such a high
potential for social benefit. This isn’t just theoretical: in the 1990s, functioning solar panels
existed but weren’t widely adopted because of their cost.

FOOOOTERAPPENDIXRIGHT
Learn without forgetting! i
Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Javier Alonso's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
TEACHER MATERIALS · UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

THE VALLEY OF DEATH

Narrator: To change this, Germany offered government loans to companies creating solar panels and
legally obligated utility companies to buy electricity produced using renewable energy.
The U.S. and China followed suit by financing major solar panel projects. The cost of
solar has dropped almost 90% since 2009, making it much easier to adopt. A similar
thing happened for wind energy: during the oil crisis of the 1970s, Denmark invested
in wind power and started taxing winds’ fossil fuel-based competitors. Other countries
took similar steps, and as more wind power was generated worldwide, the costs of this
technology dropped dramatically.

Narrator: These success stories tell us that government initiatives work - initiatives like boosting
spending on research and development, offering tax and loan incentives to start-ups that
want to develop zero-carbon technologies and consumers who want to buy them, and
putting a price on carbon emissions. We need governments to do what they did for solar
and wind for many more innovations. At the end of the day, ideas and inventions alone
can’t solve our most daunting problems - policies and markets have to be shaped so the
most promising technologies can succeed.

FOOOOTERAPPENDIXLEFT
Learn without forgetting! ii
Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Javier Alonso's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
TEACHER MATERIALS · UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

THE VALLEY OF DEATH

Key

1. Warm up

5 mins.
Ask your students to think about the process of a new product or idea going from an idea to a reality. Get them
to talk about or research how that happens. If you have students from different companies, you may be able to
compare the processes that products go through. Of course, not all the students will necessarily know, but they
may be able to have an educated guess. Alternatively, you could ask them to quickly do some research on the
development process of products by famous companies.

2. Focus on vocabulary

Part A:
5 mins.
Ask the students to place the extracts into the correct gaps. Ask them to complete it unaided in the first instance,
and then check their answers with a dictionary or on the Internet if required.

1. designed to protect 2. reliable and not 3. attack or hurt 4. the systems needed
5. running out 6. morally or legally 7. reduce the impact 8. difficult to do

Part B:
10 mins.
Ask the students to use a dictionary or the Internet to complete the gaps. You may want to ask them to identify
which part of speech could fill the gaps beforehand. When they have completed this, ask them to discuss the
questions. Students may well need to do a little online research to answer some of the questions, so allow this.

1. daunted 2. infrastructural 3. renew 4. invulnerable

5. obliged 6. unstable 7. regulates 8. initiated

3. Understanding the main idea

5 mins.
Ask students to recreate the script from the beginning of the video. Note that they should pay attention to
pronouns and referring phrases to help them with this. When they finish this, ask them to discuss the questions
and ensure that they understand the metaphors used.

1. They’ve passed every test, cleared every hurdle, jumped through every hoop.
2. Now, all that remains is to unleash them on the world.
3. But wait - what’s this? Ah, yes, there’s one more challenge.
4. They must now cross the valley of death.
5. All new products must pass through here before they reach the market. Many never make it out, and sometimes
that’s OK.
6. If they don’t work, don’t fill a need, or for any number of other reasons.
7. But inventions that could help address massive global issues also face this risk.

FOOOOTERAPPENDIXRIGHT
Learn without forgetting! iii
Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Javier Alonso's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
TEACHER MATERIALS · UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

THE VALLEY OF DEATH

Questions:

1. It’s a metaphor for the gap between investment and a product or invention becoming profitable.
2. They are both metaphors for overcoming difficulties.
3. It gives the idea of releasing a strong force into the world which will have a big impact or change it in some
way.

4. Comprehension

10 mins.
Ask students to watch the video and answer the questions. Give them time to read through the questions first
and predict answers.

1. a 2. c 3. d 4. b 5. d 6. c 7. a 8. b

5. Collocations

Collocations part 1
15 mins.
Ask students to match the collocations and then match them to the examples. You may want to allow them to use
the Internet to complete this. Once they have matched them to an example, you may want to extend the activity
by asking them to write a definition for the collocation. Ensure students can pronounce the target vocabulary.
Once they have completed this, ask them to discuss the questions. Circulate and help as needed.

1. a 2. d 3. c 4. g 5. b 6. f 7. h 8. e
Collocations part 2:

1. government loan 2. tax incentive 3. social benefit 4. consumer behavior

5. success story 6. high potential 7. vicious cycle 8. emission goals
Collocations part 3:
Questions:

1. incentives 2. goals 3. cycle 4. potential

5. benefits 6. loan 7. story 8. behavior

6. Talking point

10 mins.
Ask students to discuss the questions in pairs or small groups. Inherent in the video is a criticism of an entirely
free market approach to product development. Champions of an entirely free market may not agree with the
conclusions of the video.
The essay question at the end engages with this aspect more actively, but you may wish to draw that out in this
stage. Avoid giving your own opinion, but make students aware of free market principles vs a guided market.

7. Extended activity/homework

40 mins +.

FOOOOTERAPPENDIXLEFT
Learn without forgetting! iv
Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Javier Alonso's lessons.
 HEAAADERLOGORIGHT
TEACHER MATERIALS · UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

THE VALLEY OF DEATH

This activity allows students to more freely explore the ideas in the video and give their opinion. Make it clear
that they are free to voice their own opinion but should be able to defend it and clearly argue their point. You
may want to encourage students to do some research on this for homework and write the essay as a class activity,
giving each student in the group a clear role.
Remind them to pay attention to spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

FOOOOTERAPPENDIXRIGHT v
Learn without forgetting!
Scan the QR at the top of Page 1 to review the lesson flashcards with Expemo.
© Linguahouse.com. Photocopiable and licensed for use in Javier Alonso's lessons.