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Interdependence - VIP Mini Story

Hello, this is AJ and welcome to the mini story for this month’s lesson. Let’s get started.

Back to our heroes Chim-chim and Heva. What are they doing this month? Well, this month they’re returning to school, so let’s begin.

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Heva and Chim-chim decide to return to school, to go back to school, back to college. You see, Heva and Chim-chim are both rich, but they don’t have college degrees so they decide to enroll in a community college.

So ‘to enroll’, ‘to enroll in’, we usually use that preposition ‘in’, ‘to enroll in’, to enroll in college. It means really just to register. Now, when we say register, we say ‘to register for’. I don’t know why. There’s no logic to it, okay? So we enroll in a class, we enroll in a college, but we register for a class, register for, enroll in.

This is why you need to learn phrases not just single words because certain words go together naturally. It’s probably just habit. I don’t really think there’s a logical reason why we might use ‘in’ and ‘for’ in different situations like this. Of course, all you grammar people you know that there’s another name for that, but we’re not going to talk about it.

So, anyway, they went to enroll in. It means they went to register for college, register for classes. So ‘to enroll in’ means you go, you register, you pay your money and you’re signed up. There’s another one ‘signed up’. This time we use ‘up’, signed up for a class.

All of these basically mean the same thing. So you can sign up for a class. This is the idea of you’re signing your name. You’re registering. I signed up for a class yesterday, would be a common sentence. You could enroll in. I enrolled in a course.

We usually use the word ‘enroll’. It has more of the idea of something that’s going to maybe continue for a longer time. You enroll in college, so you might take multiple courses in college. It’s a small difference in meaning, but again we use the phrase ‘enroll in’ and then ‘register for’. I registered for this class. Register for, sign up for, enroll in.

Okay, so Heva and Chim-chim, what did they enroll in?

They enrolled in community college.

Did Chim-chim enroll in community college?

Yes, he did. He enrolled in community college.

Did Heva enroll in a community college?

Yes, he did. He also enrolled in a community college.

And what type of college did they enroll in?

They enrolled in a community college.

What is a community college? Well, in the United States a community college is a smaller college usually. The idea of community is that it’s smaller and that it’s typically, not always, but typically in a smaller community. So it serves a specific community usually. Sometimes, not always, sometimes community colleges are only two-year colleges. So people will go to the community college for the first two years then they will transfer to a larger college or university to finish. Some community colleges are four years long, so it really depends.

If you are interested in studying in the United States, community colleges are a great place to start. Anyway, give it a try if you really want to come to the United States. If you have trouble getting into a large university or a large university is scary, you might try a community college.

So, what kind of college did Heva and Chim-chim enroll in?

They enrolled in a community college.

Why did they enroll in a community college?

They enrolled in a community college because neither of them had a college degree.

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Okay, back to the present. We’re going to mix a little bit. I’m going to tell you the story in the present, but I might ask you some questions in the past tense as if we’re looking back. So this is possible too. We can switch back and forth.

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So, they go and they enroll in a community college. Next, they have to take a standardized test. The college requires them to take a standardized test to enter classes.

So what kind of test did Chim-chim and Heva have to take?

They had to take a standardized test.

Did they both have to take the standardized test?

Yes, they did. They both had to take a standardized test.

So what is a standardized test? What does standardized mean? ‘Standardized’ means the same. It’s this idea of the same, so it’s a test that’s the same for everyone. It’s standard. It comes from the word standard. ‘Standard’ has this idea of sameness. Now, it’s not exactly the same. A standardized test is not exactly the same.

The TOEFL exam, for example, that is a standardized test. It doesn’t mean every single question is the same for every person, but the idea is that the level of the test is basically the same. That for every different person they’re getting basically the same kind of test. It also has the idea that if you take this same test five times that your score will basically be the same, unless you improve your skills, but if you take it today and then tomorrow and then the next day and the next day then your score on that test should basically be the same. That’s a standardized test.

So why did Heva and Chim-chim have to take a standardized test?

Well, they had to take a standardized test in order to enroll in community college and so they took a standardized test.

They took their standardized test, next they go back to the office and the person at the office says “Well, your test scores were not so good. Unfortunately, we need to put you in remedial English classes.”

So what kind of classes did they put Heva and Chim-chim in?

They put Heva and Chim-chim into remedial English classes.

Did they put Heva and Chim-chim into an advanced English class?

No, they didn’t. They didn’t put them into an advanced English class. They put them into a remedial English class.

Did they put Chim-chim into a remedial class?

Yes.

Did they put Heva into a remedial class?

Yes.

And what kind of remedial class did they put them in?

Well, a remedial English class. They put them both into a remedial English class.

You’re probably wondering what does remedial mean? So ‘remedial’ is the idea of basic or like a review class. So, remedial classes are for people who don’t have the necessary skills for the normal class, in this case English. So Heva and Chim-chim their English ability, their writing ability, was not good enough for the normal class so they had to go to the review class, the basic class.

Sometimes this has a little bit of a negative idea or feeling. That it’s kind of a class for people who are not very good at something. You know oh, I had to take the remedial English class. It can have a little bit of a negative feeling in some situations, not always, but in some situations.

So they had to go to a remedial English class. So the next day they go to their English class and they sit and they listen to the professor teach about English grammar. During the class, Chim-chim gets very antsy. He gets very, very antsy, sitting, sitting, sitting, listening to the teacher talk about English grammar.

So who gets antsy or who got antsy?

Chim-chim. Chim-chim got very antsy in class.

Did Heva get antsy in class?

No, Heva did not get antsy in class. Heva was very calm in class. In fact, Heva got quite sleepy during the class.

So who got antsy during the class?

Chim-chim. Chim-chim got very, very antsy during the class.

‘Antsy’ is a slang kind of word and it means fidgety. That’s another way to say it, but it means kind of nervous, nervous energy. It’s this idea of moving around a lot. We get antsy when we need to sit somewhere and we need to be calm and be still, but we’re bored maybe or we have a lot of energy. We just can’t sit still, so we might kind of start moving our hands and our attention starts to look around. We can’t stay still and calm.

Antsy is the opposite of still and calm.

So Chim-chim got antsy during the class. He got kind of bored and he’s kind of moving around. He’s tapping his pencil. He’s moving his hands. He’s looking all around. He’s looking at the clock. He’s talking to Heva, right? He does not have a focused calm attention. It’s the opposite of that, antsy.

So was Heva antsy?

Heva was not antsy.

Who was antsy during the class?

Chim-chim. Chim-chim was antsy during the class. Heva was very calm. In fact, Heva was too calm. Heva feel asleep during the English class.

And what kind of English class was it?

It was a remedial English class.

So did Chim-chim enjoy the remedial English class?

No, he didn’t enjoy it. He was very antsy, very bored, very distracted.

Did Heva enjoy the English class?

No, Heva didn’t enjoy it either. Heva got very bored and sleepy during the class.

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Back to the present…

Well, this continues day after day after day until finally at the end of the class Heva and Chim-chim take the final exam and, unfortunately, they both fail the final exam and at the end Heva and Chim-chim decide to leave their English class and go back to running their successful company.

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And that is the end of our mini story this time. As usual, listen to the story again and again each day. You can pause and shout your answers to the questions or you could just try to say them quickly. A one word answer is fine. A couple of words are fine. You do not need to answer in full sentences. You can if you want to, but it’s not required.

All right, so I will see you again. Have a great day, bye-bye.