Book 13   返回一分鐘英語教室    

第131集 上學 (Going to School)

How do you get to school, going to and from school? Here, most students ride a bike to school, or their parents take them to school with the car or motor scooter. Some walk, not too many. In the US, If you live very close to the school, you’ll probably walk, but I would say 95 to 97 percent of students in America ride a bus to get to school. That’s the normal way to get there. However, high school students, once they are 16 years old, can get a driver’s license. Most students, when they get their driver’s license, want to drive a car to school. It’s more cool than riding the bus. Now, I have two sons. Both of them,when they were 16 years old, got their driver’s license, and both of them ended up with a car, and they drove to school because it didn’t look right for them to ride the bus anymore. But again, most students in America ride a bus. And you know, some drive a car. If you live in a country, and it’s a long    ride to get to school, maybe you’ll have a car of your own to drive but not all.

第132集 美國平常的上課時間 (Regular School Schedule in the US)

Regular school schedule in America. You will get to school about 8 o’clock in the morning. At 8 o‘clock in the morning the bell rings, classes start. And usually you’ll have about four classes before lunch time at noon. At 11:45 in the morning, the lunch bell will ring, and all students will get to go eat. Now, here you have meat this Monday, they don’t have that there. They do have. Some school will have no meat on Friday and it’s for reglious purpose. But, from 11:45 to 1 o’clock in the afternoon, it’s your time. You can do what you want. Most students will sit in the open areas and talk. A lot of students go to the gymnasium and they will play basketball or something in the gym. Nobody takes a nap. The only students that get to take naps in America are kindergarten students. Once you are done with kindergarten, you get no more naps, teachers don’t get naps. Once you are in grade school, you could take a nap if you wanted to during lunch break. But if you did, somebody’s probably going to tease you about it and say, “What? You didn’t get enough sleep last night? Maybe you should go to bed a little sooner.” But then, classes start again at 1 o’clock in the afternoon. And your last class is at 3:30 in the afternoon. You then get out of school, go to the buses, get a ride home. What students do after school in the US? If I tell you, you won’t like. They don’t go to cram schools. They don’t go to private schools. They go home. They may study. They’re probably not going to study. They’re going to play games on the computer or go outside and play.

第133集 自修課 (Study Hall)

They have a session or period every day in most American schools called study hall. Study hall starts in junior high and goes from junior high through high school. What study hall is is one hour. Usually, every student gets one hour every afternoon. There isn’t a class. This is a time, one hour, for you to study or work on your homework for the day.

If you can get your homework done during study hall, you don’t have to take it home and do it. Now, when I was in high school, I usually managed to get my homework done during study hall. So, I didn’t have homework.

第134集 放學後的活動 (After School Programs)

When school gets out, in most American schools, there are after-school programs that are sponsored by the school. Almost all of the schools have sports programs for boys and girls. Girls’ sports would include volleyball, girls’ basketball. In the winter time these are sports. Softball in the summer, outside sports. Boys’ sports: baseball, basketball, American football. Now, practice would start when school got out.

At 3:30, you get out of school. If you were in sports, you would then go to the practice for the sports you were in. Practice would last, probably an hour and a half. Remember the gym bag you carried with your clothes for going to physical education. You’ll wear those for practice for sports. When you are done practicing for the evening, you take a shower again, and then the school will have another bus route taking student home unless you have your own car. You get home from sports practice probably 5:30 in the afternoon. About in time for most Americans to have their evening meal or supper .

第135集 學校科目 (School Subjects)

The most common subjects in grade school are reading, writing, math or English, science, history, social studies, and math. And in junior high school, you had the same subjects, in senior school you had the same subjects. But in junior high and in senior high school, you had the five main subjects plus electives. Now, electives in math, you have your basic math then you have algebra. Algebra one, algebra two, geometry, trigonometry,those were electives. Science, there was more serious classes in science. In English, there was spoken English. And then, reading English, like reading the classics like Shakespeare. That was a separate class on its own. That the type of classes they had in America.

第136集 學區 (School District)

School systems in America are set up in districts. The school district that I belonged to was called Seneca. My children went to the Seneca schools, and it was not easy to put them to go to another school if they wanna do. It could be done, but it wasn’t easy, and the reason they are set up in districts is I paid property taxes.

My property taxes, part of that goes to the school system to improve the school system and to pay for and to run it. So, you know, my house is in the Seneca district. My neighbor’s house was in a different school district. 

Their kids didn’t go to Seneca,they went to North Crawford. My kids couldn’t go to North Crawford,they have to go to Seneca. Here it’s much easier to change what school you want to go to. There it’s not. You can do it, but it’s not as easy as it is here.

第137集 小孩放學後做什麼事情 (What Children Do after School)

What do children in the US do after school and what time do they go to bed at night? 

Most children if they don’t have homework to do can come home from school and they go outside and play. If they live in the city, the city will have different programs for the kids to do. Usually these are sports. It could be baseball, soccer, badminton, tennis any number of sports ,swimming. If it’s winter time, you swim inside; in summer time you swim outside.

If you live in the country, and your parents are farmers. You would have some time to play ,but you probably have work that you have to do, too. When I was little. I lived on a farm. When I came home from school, I changed clothes and I worked till about 7 o’clock at night. And then it was time to eat supper. 

Most school children, if they are in grade school, go to bed at about 9 o’clock at night. And if you‘re in junior high or high school, 10 o’clock at night. That’s why I did with our boys. In grade school, nine o’clock, they had to be in bed. High school,10 o’clock be home and in bed. If they went out, I’d tell them be home by 10 o’clock or if they were going a long way, be home by 11 o’clock. If they got home late, I was usually awake and I’d tell them, you are late. Next time you go out, be home at 9 o’clock. If you don’t like that one, let’s try 8 o’clock. You know. My father did that to me. If you can’t live with the rules I give you, you may get punished a little bit. You have to learn. There are rules and you have to live with the rules.

But, for the most part students, when they got home from school, if they did not have homework, usually could play outside or on the computer. My boys, one boy, older son would come home and work on the computer. The younger son would come home and go outside, ride his bike, play in the yard .Whatever. He spent his time outside.