Speak English Now through mini-stories with teacher Georgiana

Hi, everybody! I'm Georgiana, your online English teacher. My mission is to help you to speak English fluently. Speaking English is way easier when you use the right material and techniques.

Since it's September, we're going back to school. At least in this episode, you will remember how exciting it used to be to start a new school year. We're going to check out vocabulary related to the school supplies that kids need when they go back to school, after the summer vacation.

And in the second part of this episode, you'll learn English grammar without studying any rules with an exclusive point of view story.

Before I go any further, I'd like to thank you for listening.

Did you know that there are over 10 million downloads of the Speak English Now podcast? I'm very excited because that means that my method really helps you improve your English speaking and listening skills.

Thanks again for listening and remember to share the podcast with your friends and family.

All right, let's get started!

We could use the expression "back to school" as a metaphor for this episode that kicks off this new season. You will continue to improve your English skills with my mini-stories and point of view lessons. But don't worry because you don't have to study or memorize anything, just listen and learn as children do with their mother tongue.

Each year, parents face significant challenges when purchasing school supplies for their children.

Since there's a wide range of vocabulary related to this topic, next week, I will continue talking about the same thing, though I’ll introduce more vocabulary. In any case, don't worry if you can't remember everything.  You can listen several times to learn new words and expressions.

Well, here we go:

Notebooks

Basically, a notebook is made up of several sheets of paper which are joined together. Notebooks can be handy to use in the classroom. You can write exercises, copy things the teacher writes on the board, etc. In some cases, instead of notebooks, you simply use sheets of paper. The advantage of sheets of paper is that you don't carry so much weight. The disadvantage is that you can easily lose them. I remember that in the first year of high school, I started with notebooks, but in the second year, I only used sheets because the notebooks weighed a lot.

Clips

But if you want to organize the sheets of paper a little better, you can use some clips. Really a very useful invention.

Pens, pencils, and eraser.

Obviously, if you want to write, you're not going to do it with your finger. A pen is a good choice. The disadvantage of the pen over the pencil is that you can't erase what you write. On the other hand, if you write something down with a pencil, you can easily wipe it with an eraser.

Many students like to use different colors of pens. The most common colors are black, blue, and red.

As for pencils, most students use mechanical pencils. If you use classic pencils, you need a sharpener, also called a "pencil sharpener." That's how you sharpen your pencil.

Felt-tip pens

Felt-tip pens are like pens but are usually available in a variety of colors. They have many uses, from painting to highlighting. We don't generally use them for writing, although some children may like doing that. Teachers use red markers to correct exams.

Marker

When you study a text and find a relevant phrase, what you want is to remember it. You can use a marker for this. There are markers in several colors, so you can always create categories. In my opinion, you don't have to overuse colors, because otherwise, you leave the text like a rainbow. :)

If you don't have markers; what you can do is underline. Underlining is simple. You just have to make a roughly straight line below the text you want to stress. You can do it with a pencil or a "pen." I like to underline more than to mark, and I almost always do it with a pencil. This way, if I have underlined too much, I will still be able to erase those parts.

Ruler

Do you want to make straight lines? It' s almost impossible to do it without a tool. You need a ruler for that, and it's gonna be useful, especially in your geometry class.

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