F2F Class Notes 5th September (Celeste) [1]

Next class: Review the new vocabulary and article below.

dictionary ( dick – shin – air – ree )

longer – *** open mouth bigger for the ‘o’

small-talk – small conversations

Does that make sense? = Do you understand?
Yes, it does. / Yes, that makes sense.
No, it doesn’t. / No, it doesn’t make sense.

nervous ( ner – viss ) – not too confident

poll ( pole ) n. – a collection of people’s opinions on sth, gathers information

gather / gathering / gathered / will gather v. = collect

eg. Before you leave the classroom, gather your things.

purpose ( per – piss )

ar / er / ir / or / ur – er

author ( ahh – ther ) n. – sb who writes books, novels, poems

citizenship n. – duties, privileges, rights as a citizen

privileges ( priv – lij ) – a right or benefit for some people

Why do children go to school?

What is school for? It’s an easy question but people in the USA have different answers. A poll from a teaching group called PDK International asked Americans to name the biggest purpose of school. PDK said 45 per cent of people said the main goal was to prepare students for exams. Around a quarter of people said it was for kids to get a job. Just over 26 per cent of Americans said the biggest reason for school was to teach children about citizenship.
The CEO of PDK said the poll questioned whether schools were doing the right thing. He quoted from an author who said the purpose of school is, “to ask questions of the universe.” Students had different ideas about school. Elena Brankov, 15, said it was to teach creativity, ideas sharing and how to use technology. Lyndon Bailey, also 15, said school, “is just to make poor kids into robots who work and make rich people richer”.