English Recordings

Dear Penfriend,
I'm Matt. I'm eleven years old. I've got green eyes and short blond hair. I've got three brothers. I haven't got any sisters. I live with my dad, my mum, my grandpa and my brothers.
I live in a small village near London. I've got lots of hobbies. I play the guitar. I play football in the school team.
I've got a little brother. His name is George. He is five years old. He is six years younger than me.
My older brothers are John and Luke. They are twins. They play in the school band. They are thirteen years old. They are two years older than me and eight years older than George. John plays the drums and Luke plays keyboards. They can sing very well, too. I like my brothers. They are funny and kind.
What about you?
Write soon,
Matt

Hello! I'm Penny and I'm nine years old. In the picture you can see me and my family members. The boy next to me is my brother. He is ten years old. His name is John. He is one year older than me. The woman next to John is my grandma. She is Doris. She's got glasses. She is sixty-one years old. She is married to Bob. Bob is my grandpa. He is sixty-seven years old. Bob is six years older than my grandma and fifty-eight older than me.
Sue is my mum. She is thirty-four years old. She is married to my dad. He is thirty-seven years old. My dad is twenty-eight years older than me. My mum is three years younger than my dad.
Tom is my cousin and Mandy is my aunt. Mandy and my mum are sisters. My mum is seven years younger than Mandy. Mandy is married to my uncle. His name is Val. He is forty-five years old. He is four years older than my aunt.

My name is Mandy. I'm ten years old. I'm from England. I live in a small house with my family. I love my family. I've got lots of toys. My special toy is my robot. It can walk and it can say "Hello" and "Goodbye". I've got three Barbie dolls. I always play with them with my little sister. she likes dolls, too. My sister is called Rebecca. She is six years old. She's got long blonde hair and blue eyes. She is short and thin. She plays the violin.
My school is nice and my teacher is kind. My schoolbag is big and purple. In my schoolbag I've got slippers, a pencil-case, felt tips, and lots of books and notebooks. I've got lots of hobbies. I can play football and I can play the recorder.

Opening a barbershop or even a salon can be a challenging job. There are many rules and regulations governing the industry usually set by the state boards and by the city codes and ordinances. Many cities have barbering educators who are licensed to teach in their shop or school and who have a wealth of knowledge of what's required in your city to be able to run a violation free shop. They typically love the business and loving talking about it. If you can seek out their support you will have an advantage in getting started.

She wore cast-off clothes.
Try to cast your mind back to the last conversation you had with her.
Maybe you can cast your mind back to when you were in the choir, yes?
I can't believe they cast me as Romeo — I only tried out for the chorus!
My daughter is thrilled that she got cast as the lead in the school play.
He cast down his eyes in shame.
Because my son is so shy, he usually casts his eyes down whenever he meets someone.
We will all benefit from moving to a warmer, sunnier climate.
You may hate it now, but I guarantee you will benefit from your time as an intern.

--Already recorded, thanks!--

1.
A) There was Helena eavesdropping outside the door.
B) I caught him eavesdropping on our conversation.
C) I wish Rachel would stop listening in on my phone conversations.
D) I overheard him say something about wanting to move house.
E) Excuse me! I couldn’t help overhearing that you were planning a trip to Thailand.

2.
A) Jessica was pouring more wine into her glass.
B) Pour the oil into the frying pan and heat.
C) He slipped and the wine spilled all over the carpet.
D) The tanker was leaking, and spilled oil into the sea.
E) Let's see if you can pour the juice into the glass without spilling it.

But the cost benefits from deploying the measures were dependent on future greenhouse gas emissions and diminished as temperatures went higher. Hardisty said the study had shown it was “technically feasible to act at scale” but he said “it’s going to be a combination of measures applied at different scales and in different areas that will work together to achieve real success.” He said: “If we can get the science right and intervene on the reef at scale to prevent this kind of damage and build that resilience, then the benefits for Australia environmentally, socially and economically, especially for reef communities, is going to be in the tens of billions of dollars.”

But the cost benefits from deploying the measures were dependent on future greenhouse gas emissions and diminished as temperatures went higher. Hardisty said the study had shown it was “technically feasible to act at scale” but he said “it’s going to be a combination of measures applied at different scales and in different areas that will work together to achieve real success.” He said: “If we can get the science right and intervene on the reef at scale to prevent this kind of damage and build that resilience, then the benefits for Australia environmentally, socially and economically, especially for reef communities, is going to be in the tens of billions of dollars.”

My grade school was the smallest school in Thuringia with only ten to fifteen students. The school had only one teacher and one educator. That teacher was my mum.

The size is not the only special thing about the school. We also had a different way of learning, to help you understand it I will just walk you through a normal school day.

Our day started with our so called free learning time. During that time, we could decide on our own what we wanted to learn. All students sat together in the same room doing the tasks they decided on. If we had any questions, we asked our teacher or other students who might know the answer to the problem we had. Despite that we still had a weekly plan of tasks we had to complete each day. This included math, writing and reading. Usually the tasks were something like do half a page of math, write one page and read 5-10 min, thus leaving the decision on what exactly we wanted to do to us. Sometimes fields in the planer were left empty giving us complete freedom on what we wanted to do as long as it included one of those topics. To prove that we finished something we would show it to our teacher and she corrected it. If we made mistakes she would explain to us what we did wrong and we had to redo the exercise.

After that we gathered for our morning round. For that, we sat in a circle and everyone would tell something about what they have done and sometimes present parts of it. If they read an interesting book for example, they would present it to us. Then we had our first break.

Afterwards we continued with structured lessons. Here we had only one subject we did together with our teacher. That one was more like normal classes but the seating arrangement was still quite different because the entire class, teacher included, sat at one table. The subjects were art, science and social studies, music or English. We had all of these subjects together, except for English, but usually the older students got more complex and harder tasks and the younger ones were often allowed to leave early so the topic could be discussed more in depth with the older students. Those who had to stay were usually in grade 3-4. For English we were divided into grade 1 and 2 and grade 3 and 4. Grade 1 and 2 learned English in a very playful approach with singing songs, listening to stories and starting with very basic words. For grade 3 and 4 a substitute teacher would come in to teach them English like in any other school.

After that we ate lunch. The lunch was supplied by the school and we all ate together.
Later in the afternoon we continued with our special activities. Some of those activities were supported and accompanied by a parent who knew something about a certain topic. For example one of the parents had a market garden and helped us tend to the school garden. We also had crafts and non-violent communication or recorder lessons.
Another one of those activities was printing our own school newspaper. The newspaper was printed with an old letterpress machine. We sorted the single letter blocks into texts and colored them with ink. After that we put paper on it and went over it with a drum.

During all these classes we never received grades or took exams. We were solely evaluated by the progress we did. We didn’t even get a normal school report with grades, but only one that showed our progress.

When I went on to secondary school, I had to adept to some practices that I wasn’t used to. For example, the difference in authority the teacher had over us and learning how to learn for exams. Regarding my knowledge, there were a few subject areas where I was lacking, but there were others where I was ahead. All in all, I liked my grade school and the transition to secondary school wasn’t as hard as I thought.