I wanna talk about something I saw in the British Council that is very weird to me.
My name is Jannie, I’ve been working in the British Council Hong Kong for nearly two years. This is a comfy place to work ‘cause it’s very modern the building, it’s clean and we’ve got sunshine from outside the window and surrounding us, there are different international, big hotels and they are like Shangri-la, Conrad and it’s like a business area here, an ordinary office area.
Last Sunday I saw a very strange thing here. We were having lesson with the children – they are four years old and we were in a very big classroom, and because it’s very big so we separated it into two areas, that means we have got two classes there, two teachers and two different groups of children.
We started to have the lesson as usual, singing, playing and asking them if they are well that day. And suddenly the teaching assistant from next door came into my classroom and screamed, saying that “There is a pig, there is a pig!” The teacher looked at me and I looked at the teacher, we were like “What, what’s going on?” And then so we left the classroom, we went into the next classroom and then we saw a real pig! It’s a wild pig we believe and it’s very big. It is black in colour and I can’t believe I could see a pig in, outside the British Council, in such a business centre in Admiralty here.
So all the children were very excited to look at the pig and we were so close with the pig, and it’s like the pig was just outside the window, in the garden outside, and we were behind the window inside the classroom. And because of the children, they were so excited and they were screaming and patting the window and screamed “Piggy, piggy, piggy!” and then we were like, I think we did something that made the pig (feel) excited as well. It started to use its very flat big nose to hit the window, it’s like trying to enter the classroom, to have lesson with us. And we messed around for about 10 minutes and then maybe the pig started to feel bored and so it left the window, walked away. And another strange thing is the pig walked upstairs to another garden because the garden outside is separated into two different areas, downstairs and upstairs, so it walked upstairs. And it’s very strange to me!
So after the pig left us, we went back to our classroom and then we had our lesson again but it’s like we all can’t calm down and we were thinking about the piggy, the piggy and the children were screaming “piggy, piggy” and then, it was a very interesting day.
Comments
Also I had bad experience with "uninvited guests". I was in my backyard when suddenly I saw something like hose in my grapevine. I was very frighten when I realised that it was snake. It was very big snake, the biggest one that I have ever seen in my life. I run off to call my futher. He came and we killed or just stun the snake. Snake was motionless and we threw it into the forest nearby our house. It was really strange experience for me, but not because we saw snake. There are many snakes in the coast of Montenegro. The strangest is it that I saw a live the highest snake in my life.
what a cute story! However, I don't know what is going on with that pig, haha.
Wow! Very interesting fact! I thought that wild animals can be seen at Zoo, but I was wrong. Or, maybe, British Council Hong Kong have a zoo department :)). Anyway, it's very funny to see a wild pig at classes. I never met a wild animal in a public place, except for a horse :)). When I was 11, I walked on the street. Then I saw a horse who galloped beside the cars. I was a little bit scared, but after he got away, I started to laugh. The funny thing was that later, I saw that horse again. He was again without his proprietary.
its very interesting story.I enjoyed it a lot while listening,definitely it will help me in my grammar
This funny story makes me remember one story from my student life. In Armenia it is very unusual to encounter with snakes, but one day after finishing his lecture our respectable lecturer opend the door to go out. Suddenly he stoped walking and we saw how he was becoming pale. There was a not big yellow snake standing infront of him.
It could have been very funny.
It is amazing story. I have almost the same situation with wild animal. I live in Kyiv (the capital of Ukraine). It happened month ago. The phone rang when I had been cooking. It was our friend Lena who lived in next house. She screamed that she had a bat in the apartment. Lena was terrible scared and I was trying to calm her down but unsuccessfully. My brother and husband rushed to Lena's help immediately. After two hours absence boys returned and described the situation in details. The bat flew into Lena's room throw the opened window. Bat has been flying about 1,5 hours on the first and the second floors. Finally my husband managed to catch it. He let the bat go away. This weird evening will never be forgotten by all of us.
i am glad because i have found this site few days ago and all related with culture from England particularly and English in general is interesting. get to know about people from all over the world is a exiting experience to me. On the other hand this story show me that we are not different at all we surprise,laugh and cry with the same things, it does not matter where you live. said in few words i liked it a lot.
could you please help me with my writing?
Dear British Council,
We started to have the lesson as usual, singing, playing and asking them if they are well that day.
May I use the past tense of the verb to be (were) in that context instead of the present tense (are) in the above sentence?
Please, be kind and tell me if there is a grammar rule to clarify my doubt.
Thanks a lot for your reply,
Oscar
team
Dear Oscar,
Personally, I think that using the past tense sounds better in that sentence. If you want to read more about this, look at section 3 of our page on reported speech.
Best wishes,
Adam
The LearnEnglish Team