Lesson 5

Education Woes

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 Education Woes
Warm up

What springs to mind when you

hear the word education?

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 Education Woes
Warm Up

Education means:
is the process of facilitating learning, or the
acquisition of knowledge, skills, values,
beliefs, and habits.

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 Education Woes
Warm up

Do you agree or disagree?

Why?
1. School is important for success in life.
2. I love(d) school!
3. Not everyone is suited for high school,
so it's okay to dropout.
4. Not everyone is suited for elementary
school, so it's okay to dropout.
5. We learn a lot of useless subjects at
school, which will have no use later in
life.

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 Education Woes
Picture Description
Education Woes: Describe and Discuss
How can we make it better?

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 Education Woes
Picture Description
Education Woes: Describe and Discuss
How can we make it better?

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 Education Woes
Vocabulary Exercise
Matching Type

1. Dropout factory A. the power or skill to do something

2. Insulting B. existing in large numbers
C. qualities which are like the qualities of another well-
3. Urban
known person or group of people from the past
4. Numerous
D. courses of study taken at a school or college
5. Blue-collar job E. to give special attention to (something)
6. Emphasized F. of or relating to cities and the people who live in them
7. Ability G. large in amount or degree
8. Academic H. a high school with a very high number of dropouts.
9. Traditional I. the speed at which something happens over a particular
10. Degree-mills period of time
11. Massive J. A job that requires manual labor
12. rates K. is a company or organization who claims to be a
higher education institution but which offers illegitimate
academic degrees and diplomas for a fee
L. saying something that is offensive to (someone)

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 Education Woes
Reading
More than 10% of high schools in the US are "dropout factories."
This insulting nickname applies to schools where less than 60% of students
graduate.
Most of these schools are in large urban centers which also have a lot of
poverty. The neighborhoods may have high rates of crime, drugs, and violence.
However, some dropout factories are also located in areas with numerous blue-
collar jobs. These neighborhoods and towns often haven't
traditionally emphasized the importance of high school graduation.
Many of the students at these dropout factories enter with poor reading, writing,
and math skills. For example, some kids may enter ninth grade with a fifth grade
reading ability. Because of these difficulties, so many of these children don't have
opportunities as adults.
Japan faces a different problem. Private high schools are available to many kids
who don't have academic or social skills for traditional schools. These private
high schools are expensive, but very easy to enter. Students can fail tests, skip
homework, text friends, and even sleep in class, yet they will still graduate. These
schools have been called "degree mills."
Additional education woes come out of England. Although the government has
supported a massive program to raise reading rates, there hasn't been much
change. The reading rates are the same as the rates in the 1950s.
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 Education Woes
Comprehension

TRUE or FALSE

1. More than 10% of American high schools are "dropout factories.“

2. Most dropout factories are in large cities and poor areas.
3. According to the article, Japan has a similar problem as the US.
4. All Japanese students chat with friends, send emails, and sleep in class.
5. Reading has improved in England.

Post Comprehension
1. What is/was your high school like? Please explain.
2. How important is education for success? Why do you think so?
3. What can be done to improve education and graduation rates?
4. Are there similar problems in your country? Are there different problems?
5. Will children receive a better or worse education in the future? Why?

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 Education Woes
Speaking Activity

What's the best thing for today's students to study?

• environmentalism • single-family farming

• community relations • religious education
• English • maths
• health and sports • software programming
1. What was your favorite subject at school?
2. What was your least favorite?
3. Do you think academic subjects are more important
than arts? Explain.

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 Education Woes
Idioms and Collocations

Idioms we might use when discussing education

Matching Exercise
1. To have one's head or
nose in the books
2. To hit the books
3. Cut class or Skip class
4. Pass with flying colors
5. To learn something
off by heart
A. means to study hard.
B. to not go to class
C. To learn something in such a way that
you can say it from memory.
D. to be studying all the time.
E. to pass something easily and with a
high score.

1. Did you put your nose in the books when you were a student?
2. Have you ever cut class? Why?
3. Have you ever passed with flying colors?
4. What have you learned something by heart?
5. When do you usually hit the books?

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 Education Woes
Vocabulary related to education
Fill in the blanks with the correct word in the box.
Illiteracy Boarding Examiner Vocational Tertiary education Retake
Freshman Recess Doctorate Scholarship Apprenticeship Revise

1. ………. food and place to stay.

2. ………. the highest degree awarded by a graduate school or other approved
educational organization.
3. ………. a person who learns a job or skill by working for a fixed period of time for
someone who is very good at that job or skill
4. a student in the first year of high school or college
5. ……… to alter or edit
6. someone whose job is to decide how well someone has done in an examination
7. ……… a break from doing something, like work or school
8. ……… the inability to read or write.
9. ……… relating to the special skills, training, etc., that you need for a particular job
10. a grant or payment made to support a student's education, awarded on the basis of
academic or other achievement.
11. take again, in particular.
12. the educational level following the completion of a school providing a secondary
education.
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 Education Woes
Speaking Activity
What are the worst things about school?
Rate these and share your ratings with your partner:
0 = this is a huge worry; 1 = I’m not at all worried about this.

1. Noisy students in class

2. Homework
3. Boring teachers
4. School uniform
5. Canteen food
6. Rules
7. English lessons
8. Starting time
What do you think is the best way to discipline students?

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 Education Woes
Speaking Activity

1. What is the school system like in your country?

2. Does your country provide a public school system?
3. What was your school like?
4. Were there any teachers that you didn’t like? Why?
5. What subjects were you good at?
6. What subjects were you not good at?
7. Does your country have good public universities?
8. Are university fees reasonable in your country?
9. What do you think of home schooling?
10. Do you think education should be free?
11. Are you still friends with anyone that you went to school with?
12. Do you think it is good for schools to insist on students wearing uniforms?
Why?
13. Are foreign languages part of the school curriculum? If so, which languages?
14. Do you think private schools and universities offer higher quality education
or are they just prestigious?
15. What are some important factors in determining which university to attend?

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Pronunciation
Common Mispronounced Words
1. mishap /ˈmɪshæp/ (mis-hæp); the word is mis-hap, meaning mis-happiness, i.e.
misfortune or bad luck.
2. recipe /ˈr səpi/ (res-ə-pee); “cipe” in this case doesn’t rhyme with “ripe”; it consists
of two separate syllables.
3. lettuce /ˈl tɪs/ (let-iss); remember that lettuce doesn’t grow on a spruce; and it also
doesn’t rhyme with it.
4. womb /wuːm/ (woom), tomb /tuːm/ (toom); people tend to pronounce “o” as in
“lot”. Think about “tomb” as about “to”+”mb”. “Mb” may sound nice in Swahili, but
not so much in English, so the “b” is silent. The same applies to the other words in
which “mb” is a part of the same syllable, such as numb /nʌm/.
5. caveat /ˈkæviæt/ (kæ-vee-æt) (UK), /ˈkɑviˌɑt/ (kaa-vee-aat) (US); meaning “a
warning”, it is not so common in speech, but still appears in literature or official
documents. Just remember that you can’t eat a caveat.
6. colonel /ˈk ːnəl/ (kə-ə-nl) (UK), /ˈk rnl/ (kər-nl) (US); is there a kernel inside a
colonel? Well, at least in pronunciation, there is.
7. comfortable /ˈkʌmfətəbl/ (kʌm-fə-tə-bl) (UK), in US also /ˈkʌmftəbəl/ (kʌmf-tə-
bl); if you “come for a table” to a furniture shop, it will hopefully be comfortable,
although it doesn’t rhyme with it.
8. lieutenant /lefˈtenənt/ (lef-ten-ənt) (UK), /luˈt nənt/ (loo-ten-ənt) (US); the
American pronunciation poses no problem here; just notice the British one.
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The End

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