لوازم بازگشت به مدرسه - قسمت اول

Back To School supplies part 1

Hi, everybody! I’m Georgiana, your online English teacher. My mission is to help you to speak English fluently. Speaking English is way easier when you use the right material and techniques.

Since it’s September, we’re going back to school. At least in this episode, you will remember how exciting it used to be to start a new school year.

We’re going to check out vocabulary related to the school supplies that kids need when they go back to school, after the summer vacation.

And in the second part of this episode, you’ll learn English grammar without studying any rules with an exclusive point of view story.

Before I go any further, I’d like to thank you for listening.

Did you know that there are over 20 million downloads of the Speak English Now podcast? I’m very excited because that means that my method really helps you to improve your English speaking and listening skills.

Thanks again for listening and remember to share the podcast with your friends and family. That would mean a lot to me.

All right, let’s get started!

We could use the expression “back to school” as a metaphor for this episode that kicks off this new season. You will continue to improve your English skills with my mini-stories and point of view lessons. But don’t worry because you don’t have to study or memorize anything, just listen and learn as children do with their mother tongue.

Each year, parents face significant challenges when purchasing school supplies for their children.

Since there’s a wide range of vocabulary related to this topic, next week, I will continue talking about the same thing, though I’ll introduce more vocabulary. In any case, don’t worry if you can’t remember everything.

You can listen several times to learn new words and expressions.

Well, here we go:

Notebooks

Basically, a notebook is made up of several sheets of paper which are joined together. They can be handy to use in the classroom. You can write exercises, copy things the teacher writes on the board, etc. In some cases, instead of notebooks, you simply use sheets of paper. The advantage is that you don’t carry so much weight. The disadvantage is that you can easily lose them. I remember that in the first year of high school, I started with notebooks, but in the second year, I only used sheets because the notebooks weighed a lot.

Clips

But if you want to organize the sheets of paper a little better, you can use some clips. They’re really useful.

Pens, pencils, and eraser.

Obviously, if you want to write, you’re not going to do it with your finger.

A pen is a good choice. The disadvantage of the pen over the pencil is that you can’t erase what you write. On the other hand, if you write something down with a pencil, you can easily wipe it with an eraser.

Many students like to use different colors of pens. The most common colors are black, blue, and red.

As for pencils, most students use mechanical pencils. If you use classic pencils, you need a sharpener, also called a “pencil sharpener.” That’s how you sharpen your pencil.

Felt-tip pens

Felt-tip pens are like pens but are usually available in a variety of colors.

They have many uses, from painting to highlighting. We don’t generally use them for writing, although some children may like doing that.

Teachers use red markers to correct exams.

Marker

When you study a text and find a relevant phrase, what you want is to remember it. You can use a marker for this. There are markers in several colors, so you can always create categories. In my opinion, you don’t have to overuse colors, because otherwise, you leave the text like a rainbow. :)

If you don’t have markers; what you can do is underline. Underlining is simple. You just have to make a roughly straight line below the text you want to stress. You can do it with a pencil or a “pen.” I like to underline, and I always do it with a pencil. This way, if I have underlined too much, I will still be able to erase those parts.

Ruler

Do you want to make straight lines? It’s almost impossible to do it without a tool. You need a ruler for that, and it’s gonna be useful, especially in your geometry class.

Well, let’s leave it here for now because otherwise there’s going to be too much vocabulary piled up in one episode. Don’t worry, next week I’ll continue with the same topic.

POV Story �

(improve your grammar)

Great! Now we’ll move on to a point of view lesson. This exercise helps you to improve your grammar, as I will tell you the same story twice but changing a grammatical aspect. You just have to listen and try to identify the changes.

Okay, let’s get started:

The first time, in the past tense:

The day before he went to school, Dennis realized that he was short of some school supplies, so he told his mother. His mom gave him $50 and a list of all the things he had to buy.

The list contained several things - pencils, pens and felt-tip pens for writing. Since Dennis made a lot of mistakes in writing, his mother added several erasers.

The year before all the students used notebooks, but that year the school management decided that they should write on sheets of paper. So on the list was a package of 500 sheets of paper.

Finally, the mother also included five different markers to highlight the essential parts of the texts. The colors were yellow, blue, pink, green, and red.

Dennis ran off with the money to buy all that stuff. On the way, he saw a candy store.

Dennis thought, “I’ll buy $5 in candy, and I’ll still have money to purchase the material on the list. But after spending $5, he spent another $5. Until he finally ran out of money having eaten $50 in treats.

His mother said to him in anger, “How could you spend all that money? And will go to school tomorrow without any materials?!

Dennis replied, “I don’t think it’s a problem, Mom. My stomach hurts so much that I won’t be able to go to school all week!”

Now let’s change the point of view to the present tense. I’ve changed some expressions slightly:

The day before going to school, Dennis realizes that he is short of some school supplies, so he tells his father. His dad gives him $50 and a list of all the things he has to buy.

The list contains several things - pencils, pens and felt-tip pens for writing. Since Dennis makes a lot of mistakes when writing, his father adds several erasers.

Last year all students used notebooks, but this year the school principal decides to have them write on sheets of paper. So on the list was a package of 500 sheets of paper.

Finally, his dad also includes five different markers to highlight important parts of the texts. The colors are yellow, blue, pink, green, and red.

Dennis runs off with the money to get all that material. On the way, he sees a candy stand. Dennis thinks, “I’ll buy $5 in candy, and I’ll still have money to buy the supplies on the list. After spending $5, he spends another $5. He finally runs out of money having eaten $50 in treats.

His father says to him in anger, “How could you have spent all that money on sweets? And how about tomorrow? Will go to school without any material!? Dennis says, “I don’t think that’s gonna be a problem, dad. My stomach hurts so much that I won’t be able to go to school all week!

Fantastic, this is the end of this point of view story. After eating so many treats, Dennis felt so bad he couldn’t go to school. Poor parents! Right?

Okay, have you seen the power of point of view technique? We have checked a lot of grammar by merely using the same story. It’s very easy to compare the different structures because you compare in parallel.

If you want to get hours of audio with mini-stories and point of view lessons, I’d like to recommend to you my Fluency Course.

You can get it at Fluency.SpeakEnglishPod.com

Well, that’s it for today.

I’ll be back next week with a new episode.

Take care! Bye! Bye!