Arriving late to class

Listen to the conversation between two students to practise and improve your listening skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.

Preparation

Transcript

Student 1: Sorry. Sorry, excuse me. I'm just … just coming to sit over here. Phew. Hey. How's it going? So, what have I missed?

Student 2: Nothing. He just started around five minutes ago.

Student 1: Did he say anything about the mid-term?

Student 2: What?

Student 1: About the mid-term tests. Did he say anything about when he was going to hand them back?

Student 2: He's almost finished marking them, he said. We get them next Tuesday.

Student 1: I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. When do we get them?

Student 2: Tuesday. Next Tuesday.

Student 1: OK. Got it. Sorry. What page are we meant to be on?

Student 2: Page 34.

Student 1: Page … 34. Oh, wait. I don't have my textbook. Can I … share with you? Wow. This is hard stuff.

Student 2: Mmm.

Student 1: What does SEO mean?

Student 2: What?

Student 1: SEO. This is all about SEO but he hasn't said what it means.

Student 2: Search engine optimisation. How to appear on internet searches.

Student 1: Internet searches. Right. Right. OK.

Student 2: He said what it meant.

Student 1: What?

Student 2: He explained it before you got here.

Student 1: Oh. Right. OK.

Student 2: Can you be quiet? I'm trying to listen to the lecture.

Student 1: So am I. Sorry. Sorry, one more question. What does this have to do with the American Revolution?

Student 2: What?

Student 1: I don't get it. Why is he talking about search engines in a course on the American Revolution?

Student 2: What are you talking about? This is a class on software engineering.

Student 1: You mean, it's not Early American History?

Student 2: You're in the wrong class.

Student 1: Oh, wow. Now it all makes sense. I'm so sorry.

Student 2: It's fine.

Student 1: Here, I'll just … excuse me. I'm in the wrong class. Excuse me. Thanks. Sorry.

Task 1

TrueOrFalse_MjMzMzg=.xml

Task 2

ReorderingHorizontal_MjMzMzk=.xml

Discussion

When you don't understand something in class, what do you do?

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Language level

B1 Intermediate

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Well, If I don't understand something in the English classes, I sometimes enquire to my classmate in order to explain me what we have to do exactly on the excercise, but in some special occasions I prefer to ask to my teacher directly. So, next in either case both of them repeat it to me again.

Hello, I think always is better ask, because you don't learn and you have a mistake all the time. if you didn't understand you would ask to the teacher.

If I dont understand something I try to Pay attention. But if ten minutes after I am still Lost, I ask a lot of questions.

In this case we have two options the first one is to raise your hands and ask your teacher. The second is to ask students sitting beside you. For me i prefer the first option to not make noise or interrupt my colleagues.

It is better the students consider the following points for the deep understanding of a lesson: 1- They must come to class on time. 2- They must listen to the lecture carefully. 3- They must write some of their questions 4- After class, they must refer to the textbook to find answers to their questions as much as possible. 5- If they couldn't obtain their answers must take time from the teacher and ask him to explain them. Dear teacher, I think I have repeated some words like 'they' and 'must' too much. What is your opinion?

Hello shahhoseini

I don't find that you use 'they' or 'them' excessively here, but if you wanted to avoid them, you could use simple imperatives instead of 'They must ...'. For example: 'Come to class on time, Listen carefully,' etc. That would also reduce the user of 'must'; alternatively, you could use 'should' or 'have to' or both to vary things a bit.

All the best

Kirk

The LearnEnglish Team

When I was in middle school, I was good at math. But when I went to high school, I became bad at math. I am very sad about myself because mathematics in my country is the main subject and if I want to be a good student, my math score must be high. In class, I often do not understand math lessons, in those times I would ask my friends about things I find difficult or complicated and sometimes I also ask teachers about my problems. Fortunately, my friends and teachers were very kind, always explaining me wholeheartedly. It made me feel very happy but some of my classmates were grumpy, they didn't want to take the time to explain it to me but I understood and sympathized with them.

At the end of the teaching whenever the teacher asks us have nt u had any problems or was it clear ? i raise my hand and ask my question, if its useless again and i dont percept again i prefer to ask one of my classmate to explain me the tips have to do with the course.

Sometimes, when I can t understand, or miss something during the class, I ask my friend ( who sits with me), - what is that about, or try to figure out by myslef, but I do never ask my teacher, because I m too shy

When I don’t understand something in class, either I ask my friends and try to understand what I haven’t got or I raise my hands to get what I haven’t understand from my teacher.

Arriving late to class

Preparation

Transcript

Task 1

Task 2

Discussion

Language level

Online courses