Lesson 4

The lessonplan

1. Lexical exercises. Active vocabulary (15 min)

2. Reading (20 min)

3. Listening (15 min)

4. Speaking practice (30 min)

5. Homework

LEXICAL EXERCISES

I. Ask students to refresh words and word combinations they have learnt at the previous lesson, doing this exercise (to match the words and their definitions given below):

Grade, high school, diploma, vocational, score, higher school, standards, selective subjects, term, admission, middle class, boarding school, mandatory subjects, loan, campus.

the mark given to a student for his work – grade

institution for giving secondary education – high school

educational certificate of proficiency – diploma

professional – vocational

record points – score

universities – higher school

academic requirements – standards

subjects that a student may choose – selective subjects

one of the periods into which the academic year is divided – term

being accepted to a school, a club – admission

class of society between the poor and the rich – middle class

a school where pupils study and live – boarding school

subjects that every student must study – mandatory subjects

sum of money given to a person who should return it – loan

place where students live – campus

II. Ask students to fill the gaps in the sentences:

1. In the UK most children start primary school at the age of five and move to secondary school when they are eleven. They can leave school at sixteen, but most students stay on in the sixth form till they are eighteen.

2. Our teacher was very strict and we were always punished if we misbehaved. Sometimes, if we were really naughty we were put in detention and had to stay after school.

3. The head is in charge of the pupils/students and staff of a school (the last two in any order).

4. Mary got such good marks/scores/grades in her exams, that she got a place at a Cambridge University and a scholarship to pay for her studies. She did so well that she graduated with the first class honours.

Reading

Ask students to match the words and their definitions:

scary – frightening.

to realize – to know and understand something.

to push somebody to do something – to make somebody do something.

to pick on somebody – to behave in an unfair way to someone.

to tease – to laugh at someone and make jokes in order to have fun by embarrassing them.

naughty – disobedient.

cheeky – rude or disrespectful, sometimes in a way that is amusing.

detention - here a punishment in which children who have behaved badly are forced to stay at school for a short time after the others have gone home.

confident – sure that something will happen in the way that you want or expect.

despite – syn. in spite of – used to say that something happens or is true even though something else might have prevented it.

reports – here complain.

to treat - to behave towards sb/sth.

to take a gap (year) – a period of time when nothing is happening, that exists between two other periods of time when something is happening.

Speaking

Work in pairs

Ask students to retell the story about their school-days, using useful expressions, given above.

Listening

(The purpose of the Listening exercises is to give students an opportunity of practice in listening to spoken English and to develop skills to make them better listeners. The task is to help them to understand the main points that are made – and to discourage them for listening to every single word or worrying about the words they don’t understand.

The voices represent a variety of authentic accents, and the speech contains the normal hesitations, false starts, pauses and interruptions that occur in authentic spoken language. All these hesitations and false starts are reproduced in the transcripts.):

You will hear Rachel talking about her schools-days. Put ticks in the chart with information about her:

Transcript

Rachel:	My name is Rachel Babington and I work in public relations for kids’ TV channel.
Interviewer:	And what sort of schools did you go to?
Rachel:	Um...I had quite a stable...um...er...sort of school life really. Um... I stayed in the same town for my whole childhood, so I went to quite a small...um...primary school, and then when I moved to secondary school I went to a different one from most of the f...friends I was with because I went to a Catholic school...um...so I kind of had a...a...a fresh start with totally new friends.
Interviewer:	And at primary school, did you enjoy it?
Rachel:	Yeah, I did. I... it was quite a...quite a kind of safe little environment, it wasn’t a big primary school and... I remember, you know, having friends for quite a...a long time.
Interviewer:	Was there anything that you really didn’t like?
Rachel:	Oh gosh, maths! Definitely, I was hopeless, absolutely hopeless at it.
Interviewer:	And what about secondary school?
Rachel:	That was quite a big sort of trauma really because sort of leaving all your friends behind and doing a completely fresh school where everybody sort of knew each other, I found really scary. And after I’d settled in for about a year, I...um...after about a year I moved up to..a stream, so again I had to kind of start again making friends and it was all quite stressful.
Interviewer:	Um...what where you favourite subjects at secondary school?
Rachel:	Oh, I...I loved...um...English really. English and I quite liked geography and history, um...but things like science and maths, where I really didn’t shine, were my least favourite.
Interviewer:	Have you ever been back to your secondary school?
Rachel:	No, and I think I’d be really nervous to go back, I think it’s a kind of scary thing to do, all those memories...

Listening comprehension

Didn’t like maths or science Enjoyed outdoor activities Had to make friends at secondary school Has a twin brother Liked English, geography and history Played tricks on people	+
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Leo Jones, Making Progress, Cambridge.

SPEAKING PRACTICE

The students in pairs are asked to make a questionnaire about the university and students’ activity (in the Present Simple Tense), using all the information, discussed before.

After that they should make up dialogues on the theme. We advise to remind them to use active vocabulary and useful phrases in their dialogues and to give another group of useful expressions: