School Life for a 13 year old British Boy

My School is a mixed 11-18 school. There about 1,150 students in my school, including 200 in the sixth form. It is called a Technology College and specializes in Computers and Maths. My school has over 1200 computers (including over 400 tablet PC's)

I am in Year 8 and at the end of Key Stage 3 (a year earlier than normal). I am presently having to decide what GCSEs I would like to start working towards. I sit my GCSE exams next year instead of the year after when most other people of my age will be doing them.

Some subjects are compulsory like Maths, English, Science and a foreign language. I am not sure what other GCSEs I will be taking. I will have to decide soon.

My School Day

 I leave home at 6:45 and walk 20 minutes to catch a bus to school. The bus is a special one just for kids going to my school. The journey on the bus takes an hour because it has to keep stopping to pick up other students along the way.

When I arrive at school, I collect my Tablet PC from the Flexi (Flexible Learning Centre). Then I go to my Tutor Room for Registration at 8:30.

We listen to announcements to see what special things are happening at school today or this week.

At about 8:50 we leave Tutor Room to go to our First Period. Every day I have a different Lesson the first period. Normally it is Humanities but I also have Maths, Drama and Music, and French on the other days. Each period lasts an hour.

All my lessons are in different rooms and places around the school. Each Room either has a three digit number or a name. The numbers are very hard to remember!. I have different teachers for each lesson. I have a locker where I can store some of my stuff but otherwise I have to carry it all around with me in my bags.

Swipe Cards

Every Student carries a swipe card. We swipe into every lesson to let the school know that we have attended that certain lesson and to know where we are in case of emergencies.

On the Swipe Card there are two stripes, a black and a brown. The brown is to swipe into lessons and the black is to get into the toilets and buildings.

We can put money on our Swipe cards instead of carrying cash around. When we want to pay for snacks at the Tuck Shop or canteen we just hand over our cards and they deduct the money.

Subjects                              Maths,  English  Science  ICT

                                            Drama Music        Art   PE

Humanities (History, Geography, and Religion),    French or Spanish

 What is registration?

 The attendance of every child attending school each morning and afternoon is   

 recorded in a special book.

The teacher reads out each child’s name in turn. On hearing his/her name, the child replies 'yes Mrs. (teacher's name)' and the teacher notes down in the book whether the child is in school or not.

Time Table

9:00 1st Period

10:00 2nd Period

11:00 - 11:20 Break

 During break, I have a snack and play and chat with my friends. Usually we play 'it' -  a chasing game. Snow ball fight when it snows is dead fun.

11:20 3rd Period

12:30 4th Period

1:30 - 2:10 Lunch

 I bring a packed lunch to school but occasionally I have school dinners in the School Canteen.

2:10 5th Period

3:10 End of School

Sometimes I stay after school for clubs.

Canteen

The Canteen is open at Lunch Time and Break Time. Most hot food is served only at lunch time. Chips are only available on Mondays and Fridays.

Tablet PC

 We don't use our Tablet PCs in all lessons because some rooms do not have enough power sockets. We use the Tablets to do our work on and to search the Internet. Our Tablet PCs are connected to a Network so we can send our work straight to our teachers. and they can send them back with their comments.

Written by Erik

Site of Woodland Junior School. Hunt Road Ton bridge Kent

UNIT VI

 Amy Tan (born February 19, 1952) is an American writer whose works explore mother-daughter relationships and the Chinese-American experience. Her best-known work is the collection of short stories “The Joy Luck Club”, which has been translated into 35 languages. In 1993, the book was adapted into a commercially successful film.

Tan has written several other bestselling novels, including “The Kitchen God's Wife”, “The Hundred Secret Senses”, “The Bonesetter's Daughter”, “Saving Fish from Drowning” and “The Valley of Amazement”. She also wrote a collection of non-fiction essays entitled The Opposite of Fate: “A Book of Musings”. In addition to these, Tan has written two children's books: “The Moon Lady” (1992) and “Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat” (1994), which was turned into an animated series.

Rules of the Game.

I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength. It was a strategy for winning arguments, respect from others, and eventually, though neither of us knew it at the time, chess games.

"Bite back your tongue," scolded my mother when I cried loudly, yanking her hand toward the store that sold bags of salted plums. At home, she said, "Wise guy, he not go against wind. In Chinese we say, Come from South, blow with wind-poom!-North will follow. Strongest wind cannot be seen."

The next week I bit back my tongue as we entered the store with the forbidden candies. When my mother finished her shopping, she quietly plucked a small bag of plums from the rack and put it on the counter with the rest of the items. ,

My mother imparted her daily truths so she could help my older brothers and me rise above our circumstances. We lived in. San Francisco's Chinatown. Like most of the other Chinese children who played in the back alleys of restaurants and curio shops, I didn't think we were poor. My bowl was always full, three five-course meals every day, beginning with a soup of mysterious things I didn't want to know the names of.

My mother named me after the street that we lived on: Waverly Place Jong, my official name for important American documents. But my family called me Meimei, "Little Sister." I was the youngest, the only daughter. Each morning before school, my mother would twist and yank on my thick black hair until she had formed two tightly wound pigtails.

My older brother Vincent was the one who actually got the chess set.

We had gone to the annual Christmas party held at the First Chinese Baptist Church at the end of the alley. The missionary ladies had put together a Santa bag of gifts donated by members of another church. None of the gifts had names on them. There were separate sacks for boys and girls of different ages. One of the Chinese parishioners had donned a Santa Claus costume and a stiff paper beard with cotton balls glued to it. I think the only children who thought he was the real thing were too young to know that Santa Claus was not Chinese. When my turn came up, the Santa man asked me how old I was. I thought it was a trick question; I was seven according to the American formula and eight by the Chinese calendar. I said I was born on March 17, 1951. That seemed to satisfy him. He then solemnly asked if I had been a very, very good girl this year and did I believe in Jesus Christ and obey my parents. I knew the only answer to that. I nodded back with equal solemnity.

Having watched the older children opening their gifts, I already knew that the big gifts were not necessarily the nicest ones. One girl my age got a large coloring book of biblical characters, while a less greedy girl who selected a smaller box received a glass vial of lavender toilet water. The sound of the box was also important. A ten-year-old boy had chosen a box that jangled when he shook it. It was a tin globe of the world with a slit for inserting money. He must have thought it was full of dimes and nickels, because when he saw that it had just ten pennies, his face fell with such undisguised disappointment that his mother slapped the side of his head and led him out of the church hall, apologizing to the crowd for her son who had such bad manners he couldn't appreciate such a fine gift.

When we got home, my mother told Vincent to throw the chess set away. "She not want it. We not want it." she said, tossing her head stiffly to the side with a tight, proud smile. My brothers had deaf ears. They were already lining up the chess pieces and reading from the dog-eared instruction book.

I watched Vincent and Winston play during Christmas week. The chessboard seemed to hold elaborate secrets waiting to be untangled. The chessmen were more powerful than old Li's magic herbs that cured ancestral curses. And my brothers wore such serious faces that I was sure something was at stake that was greater than avoiding the tradesmen's door to Hong Sing's.

"Let me! Let me!" I begged between games when one brother or the other would sit back with a deep sigh of relief and victory, the other annoyed, unable to let go of the outcome. Vincent at first refused to let me play, but when I offered my Life Savers as replacements for the buttons that filled in for the missing pieces, he relented. He chose the flavors: wild cherry for the black pawn and peppermint for the white knight. Winner could eat both.

As our mother sprinkled flour and rolled out small doughy circles for the steamed dumplings that would be our dinner that night, Vincent explained the rules, pointing to each piece. "You have sixteen pieces and so do I. One king and queen, two bishops, two knights, two castles, and eight pawns. The pawns can only move forward one step, except on the first move. Then they can move two. But they can only take men by moving crossways like this, except in the beginning, when you can move ahead and take another pawn."

"Why?" I asked as I moved my pawn. "Why can't they move more steps?"

 "Because they're pawns," he said.

"But why do they go crossways to take other men? Why aren't there any women and children?"

"Why is the sky blue? Why must you always ask stupid questions?" asked Vincent. "This is a game. These are the rules. I didn't make them up. See. Here in the book." He jabbed a page with a pawn in his hand. "Pawn. P-A-W-N. Pawn. Read it yourself."

On a cold spring afternoon, while walking home from school, I detoured through the playground at the end of our alley. I saw a group of old men, two seated across a folding table playing a game of chess, others smoking pipes, eating peanuts, and watching. I ran home and grabbed Vincent's chess set, which was bound in a cardboard box with rubber bands. I also carefully selected two prized rolls of Life Savers. I came back to the park and approached a man who was observing the game.

"Want to play?" I asked him. His face widened with surprise and he grinned as he looked at the box under my arm.

"Little sister, been a long time since I play with dolls," he said, smiling benevolently. I quickly put the box down next to him on the bench and displayed my retort.

Lau Po, as he allowed me to call him, turned out to be a much better player than my brothers. I lost many games and many Life Savers. But over the weeks, with each diminishing roll of candies, I added new secrets. Lau Po gave me the names. The Double Attack from the East and West Shores. Throwing Stones on the Drowning Man. The Sudden Meeting of the Clan. The Surprise from the Sleeping Guard. The Humble Servant Who Kills the King. Sand in the Eyes of Advancing Forces. A Double Killing Without Blood.

There were also the fine points of chess etiquette. Keep captured men in neat rows, as well-tended prisoners. Never announce "Check" with vanity, lest someone with an unseen sword slit your throat. Never hurl pieces into the sandbox after you have lost a game, because then you must find them again, by yourself, after apologizing to all around you. By the end of the summer, Lau Po had taught me all he knew, and I had become a better chess player.

A small weekend crowd of Chinese people and tourists would gather as I played and defeated my opponents one by one. My mother would join the crowds during these outdoor exhibition games. She sat proudly on the bench, telling my admirers with proper Chinese humility, "Is luck."

A man who watched me play in the park suggested that my mother allow me to play in local chess tournaments. My mother smiled graciously, an answer that meant nothing. I desperately wanted to go, but I bit back my tongue. I knew she would not let me play among strangers. So as we walked home I said in a small voice that I didn't want to play in the local tournament. They would have American rules. If I lost, I would bring shame on my family.

During my first tournament, my mother sat with me in the front row as I waited for my turn. I frequently bounced my legs to unstick them from the cold metal seat of the folding chair. When my name was called, I leapt up. My mother unwrapped something in her lap. It was her chang, a small tablet of red jade which held the sun's fire. "Is luck," she whispered, and tucked it into my dress pocket. I turned to my opponent, a fifteen-year-old boy from Oakland. He looked at me, wrinkling his nose.

As I began to play, the boy disappeared, the color ran out of the room, and I saw only my white pieces and his black ones waiting on the other side. A light wind began blowing past my ears. It whispered secrets only I could hear.

"Blow from the South," it murmured. "The wind leaves no trail." I saw a clear path, the traps to avoid. The crowd rustled. "Shhh! Shhh!" said the corners of the room. The wind blew stronger. "Throw sand from the East to distract him." The knight came forward ready for the sacrifice. The wind hissed, louder and louder. "Blow, blow, blow. He cannot see. He is blind now. Make him lean away from the wind so he is easier to knock down."

"Check," I said, as the wind roared with laughter. The wind died down to little puffs, my own breath.

By my ninth birthday, I was a national chess champion. I no longer played in the alley of Waverly Place. I never visited the playground where the pigeons and old men gathered. I went to school, then directly home to learn new chess secrets, cleverly concealed advantages, more escape routes.

But I found it difficult to concentrate at home. My mother had a habit of standing over me while I plotted out my games. I think she thought of herself as my protective ally. Her lips would be sealed tight, and after each move I made, a soft "Hmmmmph" would escape from her nose.

"Ma, I can't practice when you stand there like that," I said one day. She retreated to the kitchen and made loud noises with the pots and pans. When the crashing stopped, I could see out of the corner of my eye that she was standing in the doorway. "Hmmmmph!" Only this one came out of her tight throat.

My parents made many concessions to allow me to practice. One time I complained that the bedroom I shared was so noisy that I couldn't think. Thereafter, my brothers slept in a bed in the living room facing the street. I said I couldn't finish my rice; my head didn't work right when my stomach was too full. I left the table with half-finished bowls and nobody complained. But there was one duty I couldn't avoid. I had to accompany my mother on Saturday market days when I had no tournament to play. My mother would proudly walk with me, visiting many shops, buying very little. "This my daughter Wave-ly Jong," she said to whoever looked her way.

One day after we left a shop I said under my breath, "I wish you wouldn't do that, telling everybody I'm your daughter." My mother stopped walking.

Crowds of people with heavy bags pushed past us on the sidewalk, bumping into first one shoulder, than another.

"Aii-ya. So shame be with mother?" She grasped my hand even tighter as she glared at me.

I looked down. "It's not that, it's just so obvious. It's just so embarrassing." "Embarrass you be my daughter?" Her voice was cracking with anger. "That's not what I meant. That's not what I said."

"What you say?"

I knew it was a mistake to say anything more, but I heard my voice speaking, "Why do you have to use me to show off? If you want to show off, then why don't you learn to play chess?"

My mother's eyes turned into dangerous black slits. She had no words for me, just sharp silence.

I felt the wind rushing around my hot ears. I jerked my hand out of my mother's tight grasp and spun around, knocking into an old woman. Her bag of groceries spilled to the ground.

"Aii-ya! Stupid girl!" my mother and the woman cried. Oranges and tin cans careened down the sidewalk. As my mother stooped to help the old woman pick up the escaping food, I took off.

I raced down the street, dashing between people, not looking back as my mother screamed shrilly, "Meimei! Meimei!" I fled down an alley, past dark, curtained shops and merchants washing the grime off their windows. I sped into the sunlight, into a large street crowded with tourists examining trinkets and souvenirs. I ducked into another dark alley, down another street, up another alley. I ran until it hurt and I realized I had nowhere to go, that I was not running from anything. The alleys contained no escape routes.

My breath came out like angry smoke. It was cold. I sat down on an upturned plastic pail next to a stack of empty boxes, cupping my chin with my hands, thinking hard. I imagined my mother, first walking briskly down one street or another looking for me, then giving up and returning home to await my arrival. After two hours, I stood up on creaking legs and slowly walked home. The alley was quiet and I could see the yellow lights shining from our flat like two tiger's eyes in the night. I climbed the sixteen steps to the door, advancing quietly up each so as not to make any warning sounds. I turned the knob; the door was locked. I heard a chair moving, quick steps, the locks turning-click! click! click!-and then the door opened.

"About time you got home," said Vincent. "Boy, are you in trouble."

He slid back to the dinner table. On a platter were the remains of a large fish, its fleshy head still connected to bones swimming upstream in vain escape. Standing there waiting for my punishment, I heard my mother speak in a dry voice.

"We not concerning this girl. This girl not have concerning for us." Nobody looked at me. Bone chopsticks clinked against the inside of bowls being emptied into hungry mouths.

I walked into my room, closed the door, and lay down on my bed. The room was dark, the ceiling filled with shadows from the dinnertime lights of neighboring flats.

In my head, I saw a chessboard with sixty-four black and white squares. Opposite me was my opponent, two angry black slits. She wore a triumphant smile. "Strongest wind cannot be seen," she said.

Her black men advanced across the plane, slowly marching to each successive level as a single unit. My white pieces screamed as they scurried and fell off the board one by one. As her men drew closer to my edge, I felt myself growing light. I rose up into the air and flew out the window. Higher and higher, above the alley, over the tops of tiled roofs, where I was gathered up by the wind and pushed up toward the night sky until everything below me disappeared and I was alone.

I closed my eyes and pondered my next move.

Tan, Amy, The Rules of the Game from Short Stories for Students, G.P.Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1989.

Ø TRANSLATION TIPS

A). Translate the following sentences with Gerund.

1. Trying to go on painting her was no easy task. 2. But on his way upstairs he could not for the life of him help raising a corner of a curtain and looking from the staircase window. 3. A man may falter for weeks and weeks, consciously, subconsciously, even in his dreams, till there comes that moment when the only thing impossible is to go on faltering. 4. Intoxicated by the awe and rapture in that “Oh!” he went on, whispering. 5. Not that he liked him. But liking mattered less than one might have thought, in these alliances. 6. Appearing on the stage, as I’m

words LEST, SHOW OFF, WHOEVER

1. He paused, afraid lest he say too much. 2. He worried lest she should be late. 3. She worried lest he should tell someone what had happened. 4. She turned away from the window lest anyone see them. 5. But, lest you should be alarmed, if I don't come home by ten, don't expect me. 6.Never announce ‘Check’ with vanity lest someone with an unseen sword slit your throat.7.We shall send whoever is available. 8. Whoever comes I’ll be happy. 9.Whoever disobeys the law must be punished. 10. I’ll take whoever wants to go. 11.She kept saying it to whoever looked her way. 12. Boys always show off before girls. 13. He shows off tremendously. 14.She is used to showing off her wealth. 15.A plain black background shows the diamonds off best.

D).Translate samples of clichés (stereotyped

expressions).

All things considered, it is all to the good, ample opportunity, cast-iron will,  apple of discord, tied to someone's apron strings, to be in the same boat with, to bear the brunt (of the battle), to beat swords into

E).Translate the following attributive phrases, formed according to the model N+N. Give your own examples of N+N attributive phrases

Chess pieces, chess etiquette, instruction book, chess champion, Christmas week, West shore, exhibition game, tiger’s eyes, dinnertime lights, spring afternoon, rubber band, trick question, toilet water, dress pocket, Saturday market day, dinner table, night sky, cotton balls.

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