#46- 15 Words for School & Being In the Classroom

Welcome to episode #46 of The Real Life English with Gabby Podcast! In this episode, I’ll be teaching you 15 phrasal verbs, slang words and idioms all about school and being in the classroom. In American culture and most cultures around the world, it’s very important to know how to talk about school and being in the classroom. For this reason, it’s important to know vocabulary related to this topic. After listening to this episode and using this Study Guide, you’ll be able to speak being in the classroom confidently and be one step closer to speaking English like a native speaker.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] On today's episode of The Real Life English with Gabby podcast, I'll be teaching you 15 phrasal verbs, slang words, and idioms for school and being in the classroom. You'll be learning vocabulary like "goof off," "ditch class," "pop quiz," "ace a test," and more.

Let's get to it.

Hey there! Welcome to The Real Life English with Gabby podcast. I'm your host, Gabby, your fun and friendly English teacher from the one and only New York City. My goal is to teach you phrasal verbs, idioms, and slang that will help you speak English confidently and understand real American conversations.

Are you ready to improve your English skills? Let's jump right in.

Hello, hello! Welcome to episode number 46, which is all about being in school. Greetings from [00:01:00] New York City! Here in New York City, we are in full spring mode right now.

It's going to be raining for the next five days. We have an expression here—it's kind of like a proverb, or I guess we could say more like an idiom: "April showers bring May flowers." "Showers" in English means a steady, consistent rain. Spring here means nice temperatures in the 60s Fahrenheit, kind of like from 15 to 20 Celsius for most of you. Sometimes it's a bit warmer. However, we get tons of rain, which is actually a good thing because last year we had a bit of a drought, even earlier this year—which is a lack of rain. So it's good that we'll be getting a lot of rain so that we don't go into a drought when summertime comes.

If you'd like to learn more [00:02:00] vocabulary for spring storms and other weather vocabulary, listen to episode number 13, where I teach 22 slang words, phrasal verbs, and idioms for spring storms and weather. That was a really fun episode for me to make! I love talking about weather and the rain. I'm a spring baby—my birthday is at the end of this month, on April 27th—so I love spring, and I love rain. That episode has been downloaded almost 10,000 times, which is awesome! Thank you to all of those who contributed to that.

Now, these next two episodes, number 46 and 47, will be focusing on education. This episode is more about lower education, which covers everything before university. Of course, a lot of these words can be used in university as well, but [00:03:00] episode 47—the next episode—will focus more on university and college vocabulary. These topics are very popular in American and international conversation, especially now that things are changing so much in the USA regarding education.

This episode will focus more on vocabulary that you can use to talk about school rather than current events concerning our education system. However, since many of you responded to a few of my episodes on racism and the government—saying you liked hearing about current events—before we get into the vocabulary, I'm going to give you a little update on what's happening right now in the United States regarding education.

President Trump has recently cut the DOE. The [00:04:00] DOE, or Department of Education, is the department of the government that controls funding for all American schools. They control how much money schools get, which programs get approved, curriculum, etc. This means that the power now goes back to the individual states. So the 50 states, plus D.C., now have all the power for education.

Now, let's talk about this for a second. You should know that education funding in the United States is very strange, and it's much different than most other countries in the world. Education here is funded mostly by property tax in your neighborhood.

This means that every home or building owner in the [00:05:00] United States has to pay yearly property taxes. These taxes pay for certain neighborhood features, but mainly for schools. Everyone's property tax is based on a percentage of their mortgage. So if you have an expensive home, you pay higher property taxes.

Now, do you see the problem here? If a school is located in a neighborhood that has bigger, more expensive homes, that leads to higher property taxes, which leads to better schools. So here in the United States, if you want to go to a good school, you have to live in a nicer neighborhood. And the best schools in the city are typically found in richer neighborhoods.

This causes a lot of disparity in the school [00:06:00] system, creating what we call a poverty cycle. Lower-income families live in low-income neighborhoods and attend low-income schools, meaning their education and access to education is worse. Richer schools in richer neighborhoods have more programs. For example, they'll have free after-school programs, better test preparation for college, more sports, more art programs, and chess programs. Unfortunately, there's a lot of inequality within our education system.

I was amazed talking to one of my former students who is French—shoutout to Hugo if you're listening to this! He teaches right outside of Paris, and he was telling me that the schools in the worst neighborhoods get more government funding. And I said to [00:07:00] myself, "That makes sense, and that's how it should be." But it is not that way in the United States.

Now, in big cities like New York City, for example, students can go to specialized schools through testing or auditioning, which makes things a bit more fair. However, rich kids will also have the benefit of private tutors and training to get into these schools. New York City and similar cities have a lot of schools to choose from, especially for middle school and high school. Most of these require tests or auditions if they're art schools. Every neighborhood has neighborhood schools, so whatever street you live on determines which neighborhood school you attend. But there is more variety [00:08:00] for middle schools and high schools. However, in many states, there's one school per town, which means that most kids are stuck attending their neighborhood school—whether it's good or not.

For example, my cousins who live in Florida live in a small city outside of Tampa, which is a bigger city. All the kids in their neighborhood attend one school. If the school's good, cool—you’re lucky. If it's not good, well, you're not lucky.

Neighborhood schools did have some help from the federal government, but mostly for special programs, like free after-school programs and programs for disabled students or students who needed extra support. For example, students with autism have extra therapy classes for free. These are most of the services [00:09:00] that will get cut first, so a lot of parents of special needs students are very afraid right now. These programs will be cut first.

This is why, in the United States, the state that you live in is extremely important. Luckily, people who live in states like California, New York, Oregon, and Washington—richer states—will be somewhat okay with funding. But the ironic part is that the states that will suffer the most are red, Trump states—states that largely voted for Trump. Most of these are the poorest states in the United States with the worst education systems. So it's very ironic.

The scary part [00:10:00] is that now each state will have complete control over what they teach their students. Before, we had a bit of control; now, they’ll have full control. It’s very scary

So it's very scary. However, some people do believe that now corporations will step in to fund schools, which is a very scary thought because they'll be able to control the curriculum and other aspects of daily school life. So let's see what happens.

My husband and I actually do something with my older son called homeschooling, where he's a part of a homeschool co-op. I teach my son some subjects, and then he takes outside classes and small group classes. So it's a very private form of education that we do, where we can pick the curriculum, we pick the programs, but it's really [00:11:00] cool.

And this is growing in popularity in the United States. For example, my son takes science classes from a scientist. He takes this really cool engineering class, and his teacher was a NASA engineer. And, you know, they have other things like art classes at the Met—the Metropolitan Museum—which is one of the most famous museums in the world.

And so this is what we do. It's non-traditional education here in the United States, and we love it. That's what we do because we do not really like the education system. Myself being a teacher, it's really amazing. I teach my son reading, writing, and grammar, and it brings me a lot of joy to be able to do this.

All right, so today's words, like I mentioned, focus on ways to talk about school and your classes. So here are the 15 words and expressions that you'll be [00:12:00] learning:

Goof off, class clown, fall behind, ditch class, pop quiz, to bomb a test, drop out of school, GED, slack off, brush up on, hit the books, catch up on, ace a test, straight-A student, teacher's pet.

Before we get into the story, which has all 15 words in context, I just wanna remind you that there's a free study guide with this episode that will help you study and remember everything you learned in the episode. It has vocabulary, definitions, examples, practice activities, the transcript, and something new—the link to a Kahoot—which is [00:13:00] a really fun quiz that you can take to test your knowledge.

All right, here we go with the story.

Liam had a terrible second year of high school. He always goofed off in class and was known as the class clown for always making jokes instead of paying attention. Instead of studying, he played video games and watched TV. He didn't do his homework, and he started to fall behind in almost every subject. Sometimes Liam and his friends would even ditch class to hang out at the mall. When the teacher gave a pop quiz, he never knew the answers. He didn't study for big tests either, so he would always bomb his tests. His grades were so bad that his parents had to meet with his teachers. [00:14:00] They told him that if he didn't change, he might have to repeat the year or even drop out of school and take his GED instead.

That summer, while in summer school, Liam realized that he needed to change and work harder if he wanted to have a good future. So he decided to brush up on his math and English by reading books and watching online lessons. When the new school year started, he was ready to make a change. Instead of slacking off, Liam started to hit the books every night. He studied before bed and even asked for extra help after school. He had to catch up on everything he missed, but he didn't give up.

At first, his classmates were really surprised at his change of attitude. They used to think of him as a troublemaker, but [00:15:00] now he was serious about school. His teachers noticed too.

"Liam, you're doing great," his math teacher said one day. "I think you might ace the test next week."

Liam kept working hard. By the end of the year, he had become a straight-A student. Some people even called him the teacher's pet, but he didn't care. He had learned that success comes from hard work and that it was never too late to improve, and he was proud of how far he had come.

The end.

I will say that there are a lot of negative things about education in the United States, but one thing that I love is that it's never too late to redeem yourself. The way that it works here is that you can always finish school, always get a degree, no matter how late you do it.

So if someone dropped out of high [00:16:00] school and they never got their high school diploma, guess what? If they're 50 years old, they can take a test, get it, and attend university. It's actually amazing because when you attend university, there are actually people of all ages, which is so cool.

So you're not just in university with people your age; you're in university with lots of older people, especially if you take evening classes. A lot of students in the United States work and go to school at the same time. Especially for grad school—when you go to graduate school here—you definitely will have classes with a lot of older people.

I remember when I was in college, I had people in their seventies and eighties who were finishing university because their lifelong goal was to get a degree. We'll talk more about this next episode when we talk about university.

Okay, now let's review the vocabulary [00:17:00] that you just heard and talk about these definitions.

First up, we hear the phrasal verb goof off—that Liam loved to goof off and he was known as the class clown.

Goof off is a phrasal verb, and it means that you waste time instead of working, studying, or focusing on more important things.

For example: "I used to goof off in class instead of paying attention."

Goofing off is often connected to being the class clown. The class clown is a student who always makes jokes and tries to be funny in class.

For example: "Jake is the class clown. He's always making everyone laugh."

Next up, we have fall behind.

Fall behind is when you fail to [00:18:00] keep up with work or progress. So you do not complete what needs to be completed, and now you are behind.

An example would be: "I fell behind in math because I didn't do my work."

The opposite of fall behind is catch up on. It appeared later in the story when Liam was trying to improve himself.

Catch up on is a three-word phrasal verb, and it means to do work that you have missed so that now you're at an even level.

So once you fall behind, the only way to improve is to catch up on your work and assignments.

For example: "I was sick last week, so I need to catch up on my work."

Next up, we have the expression ditch class. We also say skip class or skip school.

To ditch means to not do something that you were supposed to do—you don't show up.

So in the context of school, we say ditch school or ditch class. This means that you [00:19:00] do not attend your class without permission.

We have people here in the United States called truancy police. Truancy is when you continuously miss school. And so if they see students outside of school, they’ll take them back to school. It's very interesting.

Now, we can use the verb ditch in other social situations, like:

"I was supposed to meet my friend, but she ditched me," meaning she either canceled last minute or didn't show up and didn’t tell anyone.

An example sentence of ditch class would be: "A lot of students ditched class yesterday to go to the mall because of the new sneakers that were being [00:20:00] released."

Next up, we have the expression pop quiz.

A pop quiz is a surprise quiz or a surprise test that teachers give with no warning.

So you show up in class—boom!

"All right, class. We're having a pop quiz today."

Here's an example: "Our teacher gave us a pop quiz today, and I failed because I wasn't ready."

Next up, we have the expression to bomb a test. To bomb something is to do very badly.
 In this case, you do badly on a test. You can also bomb an audition. Like if you wanted to get into a special program and you did poorly, you would say, Ugh, I totally bombed that audition. I did poorly. Maybe you want to try out for a soccer team, and you bombed it.

Next up, we have the expression drop out.

[00:21:00] To drop out of something means to quit or stop attending before it finishes. For example, He dropped out of college to start his own business. We can also say, My sister, my brother dropped out of high school, and they never finished.

Next up, in the story, you hear that his school tells him he may have to drop out of school and instead take his GED.

A GED is what we call a General Educational Development test. This is a certificate for those who did not finish high school. It's a test, and if you pass the test, you can get your high school diploma. Some students who do online school or things like that want to finish early.

They take their GED exam and get their diploma early so that they can attend college. To attend college or university here in the United States, you either [00:22:00] need a high school diploma or a GED.

For example, After dropping out of high school, he studied hard and passed his GED.

Next up, we have the phrasal verb slack off.

Slack off is when you avoid working, studying, or doing anything that requires effort or energy.

For example, I slacked off all semester, and now I'm failing three classes.

So this is just a lack of focus, a lack of dedication, and a lack of doing work.

Next, we have a three-word phrasal verb: brush up on.

[00:23:00] To brush up on something means to review or improve knowledge of something.

For example, I need to brush up on my Spanish before I take the test.

We can actually use this for university as well. So if someone signs up for a British literature class, for example, you might say, Ooh, I have to brush up on British Lit before I start the course.

Maybe you're taking a higher-level course, so you need to review or improve your knowledge of something.

Maybe you're even going to see a Broadway show, or you're going to see your friend perform something, and you want to get a little bit of a review before you see it so that you're not totally clueless.

A good example would be if you're having dinner with someone from a company and want to network with them. You might say, Ooh, I have to brush up on my knowledge of this company so that I come in knowing what I'm talking about, not being clueless.

Next up, we have the idiom to hit the books.

This means to study hard. You focus completely on studying for a specific amount of time.

For example, I have an exam tomorrow, so I need to hit the books tonight.

To ace a test is the opposite of bomb a test.

[00:24:00] It means to get a perfect or high score on a test. We can also use ace for auditions or tryouts for a team.

For example, Oh my gosh, I aced that audition, and I got the role! Or, I got on the team because I aced the tryout.

An example here would be: I studied all night, and thankfully, I aced my test.

Next up, we have to be a straight-A student.

This is a very common expression used for students who always get high grades in all of their subjects.

If you are a good student and a straight-A student, this means that whatever the top score is, like an A, you're achieving that in all of your subjects.

For example, Her sister is a straight-A student because she always works hard.

And lastly, we have the teacher's pet.

[00:25:00] I love this expression—I love teaching this expression!

A teacher's pet is a student who seeks or receives special attention from the teacher.

So let's talk about the first part—a student who seeks attention. They want attention.

Maybe this is a student who's always doing extra work. They always ask the teacher if they can help. They’re always looking for ways to get on the teacher's good side.

They want special attention from the teacher.

Sometimes a teacher's pet can be genuine—they're just a good student. Other times, it might be someone we call a kiss-up—someone who's being fake.

They just want the teacher to like them so they can get special privileges.

Sometimes the teacher's pet is just a person the teacher really likes. It doesn’t even have to be the top student.

[00:26:00] The teacher just gives them special attention.

For example, Jake is such a teacher's pet—he always volunteers to help in class.

So guess what? You just learned 15 popular vocabulary words and expressions related to school!

For homework, I challenge you to download the study guide and practice what you heard because repetition is the key to improving your English.

Try to use these new words in your daily conversations this week—even if you just start with one new vocabulary word per day.

Well, that’s a wrap for today’s episode of The Real Life English with Gabby podcast!

[00:27:00] Be sure to download today’s study guide so that you can learn how to use this vocabulary confidently.

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