Full transcript
0:00Well, hello and welcome to this English lesson about school. I
0:03love talking about school. As most of you know, my real job
0:08as we might say in English is that I am a high school
0:11teacher. Um it's summer right now so I don't need to go to
0:15work but during the school year, I am a high school
0:18teacher and I love talking about school. I think it's
0:22because when I was young, when I was a student, I loved being
0:25in school. I have always loved learning and I think naturally
0:30uh people who love learning sometimes choose to become
0:34teachers. So, as a teacher, I'm always excited to do a lesson
0:38about school. In particular, this lesson is about back to
0:42school. Back to school will be happening in a few weeks here
0:46in Ontario, Canada. It's kind of the middle of summer
0:49vacation but I've noticed already that the back-to-school
0:53sales have started. So, students usually need to buy a
0:57few things before they go back to school So today I thought I
1:00would do a lesson on back to school. So school let me make
1:04this a little bit bigger for you. School I actually modified
1:09this slide for this lesson because school may look like
1:12one or the other when you look at the pictures over here.
1:15School last year for the most part for us was online. But
1:20also we had in person learning. So if you look to the far side
1:24of this slide you'll see there's a boy looking at his
1:27computer. He would be doing called online learning or
1:31remote learning and these students are doing in-person
1:34learning. So school is of course the place where kids go
1:37um in Canada kids from the age of about four or five up to age
1:43seventeen or eighteen attend school on a daily basis. So
1:47school is the place where children go in order to learn
1:51things. This is what's called back to school time. Back to
1:56school usually happens right after a holiday that we call in
2:01Ontario, Canada and in many other parts of the world, I
2:04think it's similar. Back to school is the day when kids go
2:08back on the bus or they walk to school and they start school
2:12again. So, the phrase back to school is used a lot right now.
2:17We would call this the back-to-school season or it's
2:20back-to-school time or you might even say something like,
2:24well, it's almost back to school, isn't it? So, we use
2:26the phrase in a lot of To talk about usually the end of August
2:34and right uh the first few days of September we would call that
2:38the back to school time. It is of course right now summer
2:42holidays or what we also call summer vacation. So if there
2:47are any students watching this they probably don't want to
2:50talk about back to school. Back to school is not a fun time for
2:54some students. I'm sure some students look forward to it.
2:58But some do not look forward to it but it is right now uh
3:03summer holidays or summer vacation. In Ontario, Canada,
3:07students get 2 months off from school and teachers do too,
3:11which is kind of a bonus. Um and we would refer to that as
3:14summer holidays or summer vacation. A good time to hang
3:18out with friends, maybe just read a book. Older students
3:22usually get part-time jobs so they'll get a summer job during
3:26the summer vacation or summer holidays. My two oldest kids
3:31both have summer jobs right now. Um they both found places
3:34to work for the summer so that they could earn some money. We
3:39have of course other things that happen during back to
3:43school time and we add the phrase back to school to it. So
3:46right now people are going to start to do back to school
3:49shopping. You know the word two in back to school. Sometimes we
3:54actually put the number two back to school. Guess it looks
3:58cooler. But right now I've noticed that we get flaw in the
4:03mail. A flyer is like a paper that shows everything that is
4:07on sale at a store and all of them say back to school. Back
4:12to school shopping time. So we have times of the year when we
4:16shop for certain things. This is certainly a time of the year
4:20where there will be a lot of people doing back to school
4:23shopping. And of course because of that we will have what's
4:28called back to school sales. A back to school sale is a sale
4:32during the month of August where thin that you normally
4:35buy for school are cheaper than they normally would be. So
4:40right now the back to school shopping has started. The
4:44stores are sending out flyers where they're showing a lot of
4:47back to school sales. You know pencils 50% off or pencil cases
4:5225% off. There are a lot of back to school sales happening
4:56right now. Because students need things like school
5:00clothes. So in general sometimes kids buy clothes just
5:05for school. It's not really any different than their normal
5:09clothes but it might be different than the clothes they
5:12play in outside. They might be clothes that they keep a little
5:15cleaner because they are their school clothes. So, for our
5:19kids, we would say something like, well, we need to go buy
5:21some more school clothes for you because that pair of pants
5:24has a hole in the knee or that shirt doesn't fit you anymore.
5:28You need some new school clothes. Some schools though
5:31have a school uniform This is quite common at probably I
5:38would say about ten to 20% of the schools in Canada have
5:42school uniforms. I know in certain countries school
5:45uniforms are very very popular. Um for instance the school I
5:50work at has school uniforms. But the school my kids go to my
5:54younger kids doesn't have school uniforms. So again a
5:58school uniform is um clothing that you usually buy from the
6:03school or you buy from a store that the school chooses. So
6:07that all the students look the same. Common school uniforms
6:11would be like uh black pants with a white shirt and tie uh
6:16and those types of things. So, if your school doesn't have
6:20school uniforms, you might just need school clothes. Maybe you
6:23need some school clothes because um as a kid, uh
6:26sometimes kids outgrow them and then maybe you need to get some
6:30new uh shirts and pants for your school uniform. And of
6:36course, there are back-to-school sales because
6:38people need school supplies. So, the or phrase we use to
6:43refer to all the things you buy when you need to go to school,
6:47we would call school supplies. Some schools supply certain
6:52things to the students but other schools, most schools
6:56require students to buy certain things before they go in
7:00Canada, of course. So, the school would supply things like
7:03glue or maybe colored paper if they're doing art or paint but
7:09my kids and most Canadian kids have to buy certain school
7:12supplies in order to go to school. They might need a
7:17binder. We would call this a three-ring binder. This is
7:21something that you can open and close and it can hold paper.
7:25You might need to buy a notebook which is just a small
7:28book that you can take notes in. When you're asked, when
7:32you're a student at school, it's a good idea to take notes.
7:36You might need to buy some pencils, pens, or a
7:39highlighter. So, a pencil is of course something you can
7:42sharpen and it's used for math or art class a pen is something
7:47that's permanent. This is a BIC pen made by my friends over in
7:51France. BIC pens are really cool. I like them. I shouldn't
7:54tell you this but I actually like chewing on the cap of the
7:58BIC pen. I shouldn't mention that, should I? Uh and then a
8:01highlighter is something you can use to um basically make
8:05words yellow so that you can see them easier. Um a
8:10highlighter is a really good tool if you're learning
8:12English. You can highlight new words. Don't do that in library
8:16books though. Only use a highlighter in a book that you
8:19own. You might need an eraser so that if you write something
8:23in pencil, you can erase it later. You might need a pencil
8:27case to store all of your stuff. So, once again, these
8:31are all school supplies that kids in Canada and I think most
8:36other countries would need to buy. They would need to go to a
8:41back-to-school sale and if they needed, if they didn't have a
8:44pencil case, they would need to buy one. The school would not
8:47give these items to the kids. You might need a pencil
8:51sharpener. Although most classrooms have a pencil
8:55sharpener, sometimes students are required to have a small
8:58one with them that they can keep in their pencil case. And
9:02maybe they need a laptop, maybe they need a calculator, and
9:07maybe they need a backpack, or what we sometimes just call a
9:11book bag. So, let's quick review again. These are all
9:15things that we would call school supplies and some of
9:20these things students will need to buy before they go back to
9:23school. A binder, maybe two binders, maybe four. They might
9:27need a notebook. They might need a pencil, pen, and a
9:30highlighter or kind of like a few of each. They would put
9:34them with their eraser in their pencil case and they might need
9:38a small pencil sharpener and they might need a laptop and a
9:43calculator. This really depends on the school as well. I think
9:46at my school, we have a class set of calculators um and then
9:52they might need a backpack or a book bag for all of these
9:56items. So, the first day of school is called the first day
10:01of school but I wanted to put this slide in here. I mean, it
10:04sounds pretty obvious, doesn't it? Um in our part of Canada,
10:09the day after Labor Day, which is a holiday in September, we
10:13have the first day of school. So, the first day of school
10:16this year, I think, I actually didn't look this up. I
10:19should've looked it up. First day of school, this year is
10:21probably September seventh. That would be my guess. First
10:26day of school, September seventh. Um but you also have
10:30really little kids who haven't gone to school before sometimes
10:35have their first day of school. So, they've never been to
10:39school and and that's an exciting day for them. The
10:41first day of school, whether you're like four or five and
10:44you've never been or if you're like fourteen, um it's usually
10:48a day where parents take a photo. We often take a photo on
10:52the first day of school of our kids with their backpacks and
10:55their new school clothes um and then uh we put that in a album.
11:00The school day in Ontario, Canada. So, when you talk
11:05about, you know, the work day is from about eight til five.
11:09Some people work from seven till four thirty. Uh some
11:12people, their work day is 730 til 530 but the school day is a
11:17little shorter and the term we use to talk about the length of
11:21the day out of school is school day. Uh students have to get
11:26used to it in Ontario, Canada. The school day can range from
11:30830 to three thirty. It might go from nine till three. For my
11:35school, the school day is from 830 to 330 and classes start at
11:41ten to nine and go to three oh five. So, the school day is
11:45just a way of talking about the day at school. If you are older
11:50and if you are at a high school, you might have a
11:53semester system. The semester system is a system where you
11:58take certain classes for about four or 5 months and then you
12:02are done and then you take other classes. Our elementary
12:06schools, our grade schools, kids under the age of thirteen,
12:10do not have semesters. They usually take the same classes
12:14all year long. So, they'll have math class every Monday,
12:19Tuesday, Thursday, Friday for 40 minutes or something like
12:23that. In our high schools, we have a semester system. So,
12:26this fall, for the fall semester, for semester one, I'm
12:31teaching two classes this year I'm teaching a computer class
12:34and a business class and then semester two, I'm teaching my
12:38three French classes again. So, a semester system is when you
12:42break the year up a little bit. Um of course, the student is
12:46the person who is learning. We don't use the word pupil
12:49anymore. Um it's kind of an old term and we sometimes use the
12:54word learner. Although, this is more common in other
12:57English-speaking countries. In Canada, we would call the kids
13:01who go to school students. I think years ago, you might call
13:06them pupils and we usually don't use the word learner very
13:10often like how many students do you have in your class? That
13:13would be a common question. Not how many learners. Although it
13:16is a common English word, that means the same as student. You
13:20might have a student in your class who is a class clown. So,
13:24a class clown is a student who is always smiling and laughing
13:29and doing silly things. You can see this boy has decided to
13:32take all his new pencils and insert them in his ears and in
13:36his nose um and just be silly. Class clowns often tell jokes.
13:40When you, as a teacher, when I write on the board, sometimes
13:44class clowns uh say funny things and make everyone laugh
13:48or they throw things. A class clown is someone I was gonna
13:53say isn't serious about learning but I've actually had
13:57class clowns who got the best grade in the class in the past.
14:01Some students can be silly and also learn very well at the
14:06same time. We don't use this term anymore. Um in Canada we
14:10also call a student like this a keener. Um that's a Canadian
14:14word I think though. But a teacher's pet is a student who
14:18likes to sit at the front likes to answer the questions um and
14:22all of those kinds of things. I think if you watch um Petite
14:27Nicola in French, I think is the teacher's pet. He's the
14:30small boy that knows all the answers. Sorry, that's a little
14:33bit of French. I might have got the name wrong but a teacher's
14:36pet, it's not a nice term. It's kind of an insult now. As a
14:40teacher, I would not use the word teacher's pet but when
14:44students bug each other, they might say, uh you're the
14:47teacher's pet. You're always answering the questions. Then,
14:51of course, you have the teacher. The teacher is the
14:54person at the front of the room who does all of the teaching.
14:57In Canada, we have one teacher per classroom but there also
15:01might be someone called a teacher's aide who helps the
15:05teacher um or there might be a teaching assistant. There might
15:09be a student teacher who comes and helps the teacher for a few
15:13months to learn how to teach. But the person who does most of
15:17the work is the teacher. Sorry, I shouldn't have said that.
15:20Teacher aides do a lot of work as well. The primary the person
15:24who plans the lessons is the teacher. If you are at a
15:29university or college, we would call that teacher a professor.
15:33Now, some of you call me professor Bob and that would be
15:36incorrect. Um I know in other languages like French means
15:41teacher but in English, there is a distinction. So, I am a
15:46teacher. Brent in the chat from American English with this guy
15:50is a teacher. If Brent or I went and got our PHD and if we
15:56went and taught at a university, we would then be
15:58professor Bob and professor Brett. That's a nice ring to
16:01it, doesn't it, Brett? By the way, I have no desire to do
16:05that at this point in my life. I like what I'm doing now. The
16:09place where you teach is called a classroom. I'm gonna speed up
16:12maybe a bit here. I think some of these are quite familiar to
16:15you. So, a classroom is a place where you teach. By the way,
16:19one of the original classrooms was a tree. So, hundreds of
16:23years ago, trees used to be classrooms. Um because if you
16:27learned outside, it was a nice shady place to learn. So,
16:30sometimes when I'm making a lesson under a tree, it makes
16:33me smile because I feel like I'm an old-fashioned teacher
16:36from 500 years ago teaching under a tree. If you are at a
16:41university, you could go to a classroom, you might also call
16:46it a lecture hall. So, when I was in university, some of my
16:50classes were in small classrooms and some were in
16:53lecture halls which were bigger rooms where more people could
16:56sit and learn. You of course will have a desk. This we would
17:01call a student's desk. There's also a teacher's desk at the
17:04front of the room which is bigger. Um and there's all
17:07different kinds of desks. Uh in Canadian classrooms. Um my
17:12students don't like these kinds of desks where the seat is like
17:16connected to the desk. Because some students by grade twelve
17:21are quite tall. They're very big and it's hard to fit in a
17:25desk when you're six foot two and in grade twelve. There be
17:30probably a whiteboard or a chalkboard in the room. We have
17:34more whiteboards than chalkboards now. Chalkboards
17:37have kind of slowly been removed from classrooms over
17:41the last 20 years and have been replaced with whiteboards. A
17:45whiteboard is a little cleaner. You don't get chalk on your
17:48hands when you use a whiteboard. But you might see a
17:51whiteboard or blackboard in the room. By the way, even if the
17:54blackboard is green, we still call it a blackboard. So, I
17:58still have a classroom where I do have a blackboard at the
18:01back and it's actually green but it's still called a
18:04blackboard or chalkboard. You can just call it chalkboard
18:06too. Uh and then of course you have whiteboard markers. So on
18:11the far side of this image you can see whiteboard markers.
18:15They are actually the exact same kind I use in my room.
18:19Expo. And then you see that there is chalk. I like to use
18:23different colors especially when I'm teaching French. It's
18:27nice to write sentences in one color and then kind of uh teach
18:31things about the sentence using another color. Very very handy
18:35to use different colors. Uh to teach grammatical or grammar
18:40concept when I'm teaching French. And then here's another
18:44eraser. So just like the first eraser which is used to erase
18:48pencil. This eraser can be used to erase uh whiteboard markers
18:53or chalkboards. Or blackboards. And then there will probably be
18:58a bulletin board in the room where students can hang their
19:01work or where the teacher can hang some posters. And usually
19:05um in my room I have students create different um they do
19:10Different assignments where they create something visual
19:12and then we will put that on the bulletin board for everyone
19:16else to see. We do in the earlier classes we do things
19:20like comic strips in French and then we put them on the
19:23bulletin board. And we use of course either a push pin which
19:28is the red thing here. We would call that a pushpin or
19:31thumbtacks. I generally use push pins. I find they're
19:34easier to take back out. Uh thumbtacks go in really nicely
19:39but it's sometimes hard to get the thumbtack back out again.
19:43And then there will of course be a projector and a screen.
19:47The projector in this picture is on the ceiling and the
19:50screen is way over there on the far wall. We also have in our
19:54classrooms something called a smart board where you can write
19:58on the smart board and it shows up on the computer through the
20:02projector. A little bit hard to explain. I don't use my smart
20:06board a lot because I do all of my annotations on my laptop
20:11which I put onto the projector screen. I'll let see where
20:15we're at. Last thing for this section, bookshelf. There might
20:18be a bookcase or bookshelf in your classroom. Um so for me, I
20:23have bookshelves that are full of French books because I teach
20:26French. Um there's a few computer books on there but
20:30they're really old. When you buy a textbook for a computer
20:34class, uh within a few years, it's obsolete. The information
20:38changes way too quickly. So, you might have a bookshelf or a
20:43bookcase in your classroom. Oh, yes. Just finished talking
20:47about what is in a classroom and we are now going to talk
20:51about just a few odds and ends about school. So, one of those
20:55would be textbooks. Some classes require that you have a
20:58textbook. Most schools in Canada, when you are in school,
21:03like if you're in grade one up to grade twelve, so in
21:06elementary school, grade school, or high school, schools
21:10provide the textbooks, okay? So you do not have to buy your
21:14textbook. So when you go to math class in grade nine, on
21:18the first day of school, the teacher will give you a
21:20textbook. Will you go to university or college in
21:25Canada, you have to buy your textbooks. So again, a textbook
21:28is a book that has all of the information you need to learn
21:32or most of it for that class. So, when you take a French
21:36class with me, I give you a French textbook and it's like
21:40grade nine French textbook. Actually, it's called Express
21:43Nubian um for grade nine um but the textbook contains most of
21:48what you will learn that semester in printed form and
21:51again, in elementary schools and high schools in Canada the
21:55teacher will give you a textbook. So um if you're in
22:00university though it can be quite pricey. I know even 25
22:03years ago when I was in university um it was like 400
22:08or $500 a semester to buy textbooks. It was expensive.
22:11Now during class the teacher will teach a lesson. So for me
22:16a lesson is all of the things I have planned for one class.
22:20There might be small lessons within the bigger lesson but
22:25basically I make a lesson plan and then I teach the lesson
22:28plan that day. So students will take um certain lessons from
22:33me. An assignment is when I ask a student to do a certain type
22:38of work and then give it to me when they're done. Okay? So a
22:42lesson can have assignments in it. But sometimes my lesson I
22:48don't require the students to give me anything. I'll say you
22:51know Write in French, write what you did yesterday in five
22:56sentences and then I'll have them read it out loud and I
23:00don't take the paper from them and grade it. It's just a
23:02little lesson to practice but an assignment would be if I
23:06said, you know, write five paragraphs about something you
23:10like doing and give it to me and then as a teacher, I will
23:14grade it or I will correct it. In Canada, we say, I would, I
23:18will mark it and then give it back. So, aren't always graded
23:22but assignments are usually things that I would collect and
23:25grade. Now, you can do assignments that aren't graded
23:28but generally, if I say, you know, this assignment is due
23:31tomorrow or here's an assignment, please finish this.
23:36Um let's see here. Lockers. So, generally, our grade schools
23:41and elementary schools don't have lockers. Students usually
23:44just hang their book bag on a hook but in high school, you
23:48usually have a locker and you usually have a combination lock
23:52on your locker and you would put your books in your locker
23:55and only take the books out that you need for the class you
23:59are going to. The lockers are usually all in a hallway. So a
24:05school is a fairly well they used to be fairly boring
24:09buildings. So you know ten or 20 years ago a school was just
24:14hallways and classrooms. And some bathrooms or washrooms.
24:17Now um we have hallways and classrooms and we're starting
24:21to add other spots to our school. Like our school has a
24:25nice um meeting area that we call an atrium. Um of course we
24:30have a gymnasium as well. But lockers if you get a locker it
24:34will be in the hallway your locker will have a number on it
24:37so on the first day of school you would have to find your
24:40locker when I was in school I had to share a locker my school
24:45didn't have enough lockers so everyone in the ninth grade had
24:48to share a locker with someone else I ended up sharing it with
24:51a good friend of mine so it wasn't a problem but it
24:54certainly was crowded by the lockers so young kids will go
24:59out for recess so during the day they will have breaks and
25:04they are called recess so in Canada if you are in anywhere
25:08from kindergarten grade one up to grade eight. You will have
25:12recess during the day. Elementary schools have recess.
25:16We don't call it recess um in high school though. We simply
25:20call it lunch time. So my school in particular uh it's a
25:25high school. Uh there are two classes in the morning and then
25:29we have lunch time and then there are two classes in the
25:32afternoon. There's a small break between the first two
25:35classes. But for high school students we don't call it
25:38recess. They don't go out for recess. Sometimes The grade
25:42nine students on the first day of school, they might ask when
25:45is recess and then I just say, oh, here we just have lunch
25:49time. There's no recess. I try to answer that as nicely as
25:52possible. You can just call it lunch. But we do certainly use
25:57the word lunch time most often. Like, um oh, I have a meeting
26:00at lunch time or can you come and work uh write your quiz at
26:04lunch time? The one you missed last week? Lunchtime. I usually
26:08just eat at lunch time. That's my favorite thing to do at
26:11lunch time. Um kids will play on the playground. So
26:15elementary schools and grade schools will have playgrounds
26:17and they'll have lots of playground toys and things for
26:21students to do. So at recess they will usually go outside
26:25and play on the playground. Now I know from lessons in the past
26:29people have asked do Canadian kids go outside for recess and
26:35play on the playground in the middle of the winter. Yes. It
26:38it if it's above minus 20° Celsius then kids will go
26:43outside and play. If it's below minus fifteen, minus twenty and
26:47windy, we will have indoor recess instead of outdoor
26:51recess. But that's at grade schools. At high school, the
26:55kids just do whatever they want at lunch time. Um so there's
26:59three things that you might do in a classroom and each one is
27:02slightly bigger than the other. A quiz is usually something
27:05that's really simple. It's a test that takes about five to
27:09ten minutes. It might only have five or ten questions on it. I
27:14might say to my student, you have a small quiz tomorrow, you
27:16need to know these twenty vocabulary words. Um a test is
27:21definitely bigger. A test uh might take anywhere from 30
27:25minutes to over an hour. Our classes are 70 minutes long.
27:30They're an hour and 10 minutes long. So students might write a
27:34test that takes half the class. It might take the whole class.
27:37There might even be one or two students still writing their
27:41test when we get to the end of class. And then at the end of
27:46our semesters, we have what are called exams. We actually also
27:49have them sometimes in the middle. You can have a midterm
27:53exam. So, halfway through the school year or halfway through
27:57the semester, you might have a midterm exam and of course, an
28:00exam is a very large test that takes about two to 3 hours to
28:05complete um and it's the short form for examination. So, an
28:10examination, that's just too hard to say, isn't it? Exams a
28:14lot easier. Students have exams at the end of their semester
28:17and at the end of their school year. So, in Ontario, Canada,
28:22students from grade seven or eight up have exams. Usually,
28:27younger children don't have exams. And then of course, some
28:32kids go to school on a school bus. A school bus in Canada
28:35looks just like this. It is a big yellow bus. All of our
28:39school buses are yellow. They have lots of lights on them.
28:43When they stop to pick up kids, the red lights flash. The
28:47little stops sign goes out and if you pass a school bus with
28:53it's lights flashing and the stop sign out the police will
28:57give you a an enormous ticket. I'm not sure how much it is but
29:01hundreds of dollars um if you pass a school bus. It is do not
29:05ever pass a school bus if the stop sign is out and the lights
29:10are flashing. It's very dangerous for you. Dangerous
29:12for the kids. Um and uh if you do it and get caught it's uh
29:16it's a pretty big fine. You don't wanna do it. Uh by the
29:19way, a little Fun fact, my grandfather was a farmer but he
29:27also drove school bus. I was not aware of that until a few
29:31years ago. There was a picture of my grandfather's farm taken
29:34from an airplane and there was a school bus parked beside the
29:38house and I was like, what's that? And they said, oh
29:40grandpa, used to milk the cows and then he would do drive the
29:45school bus and then he would come home and do all his farm
29:48work and then he would go and do the run at the end of the
29:50day. Lots of fun.