Life in England: English for Speaking with Your Child's Teacher

Hi, welcome back to engVid with me, Benjamin.

Today's lesson is looking at useful phrases for parents looking round a nursery or kindergarten

and for having a parent-teacher meeting.

Why am I doing this, you might ask.

I've recently had the experience of being a parent in a country where I didn't speak

the first language, and it's quite hard work.

And to be able to do - to be able to operate in these kind of situations requires some

planning and some forward thinking and some preparation of key phrases so that you can

have the conversations that you want to have.

I'm going to teach you what I feel are the kind of things that you might want to say,

and I'm coming from the perspective of a parent and a teacher.

Okay, so if you're looking around a school or a kindergarten or a nursery, as we call

it in the UK, you want to get an idea for what is the school day going to be like for

my child.

Are they going to fit in here?

Are they going to be looked after?

Is it ordered?

Is it chaotic?

Is it small?

Is it large?

Is it quiet?

Is it noisy?

What suits your child, is this place it?

So, after a little bit of initial small talk, "Hello, very nice to meet you", "Lovely",

and then they'll ask you to come with you on a tour, and you're trying to imagine things.

So, you're like, "So, which room would he or she be in?

What's their - where would be their main place?"

And then you would expect the teacher to give you a bit of a guide of that room.

So, this is where they do the drawing.

This is where they have story time.

This is where they hang up their coats.

This is where they put their shoes.

This is where they go to the bathroom.

And if you have any questions along the way, then you need to ask them, so, "Do they get

any support in going to the toilet if they're very young?"

For example.

Okay, you start liking the look of what you're seeing.

You're thinking it might be the right place.

What days do you have availability on if this is a preschool setting?

Yep.

So, maybe they only have Monday mornings and Thursday afternoons, but it's good to know

this information.

Or, will she or he have a key worker?

One adult who is assigned to - has overall responsibility for monitoring the progress

of that child.

I'm more familiar with the English system than I am the American system, so I'm going

to be talking mainly in light of that.

What do they do each day?

So, what you're looking for there is the teacher to talk you through the school day.

So, they come in in the morning, they hang their coats up here, and then they can either

do this or this.

On Wednesdays we do this, on Thursdays we do this.

Okay, and again, you need to be asking questions like every step of the way.

So, do you play outside if it's raining?

Are children allowed to come in with their own toys from home or not?

Do we need to bring a spare pair of clothes?

A spare pair of clothes.

Yep.

Clothes that go into a pair, a spare pair of clothes.

How do you monitor?

How do you check their progress?

How do you make sure that they're getting better at reading, at writing, at numeracy?

Is there any homeschool communication, yep?

What will you tell me?

Are you going to tell me at the end of each day whether he or she has had a good day,

or are you going to write in a book?

Is it electronic?

How do I know my child is okay?

Right.

A couple more questions you might want to ask.

Do you take any pictures of them?

Are they used on social media?

Presumably they have some sort of form that you have to sign to give permission for that.

With this question, you're thinking about, well, what are the possible problems that

my child might have?

What is, like, the worst case situation that my child could get into?

What do you do if?

And then, you know, ask them.

What would happen if?

What would happen if?

If my son/daughter was da-da-da-da-da, what would you do?

So, you're thinking of the unique difficulties that your child may have, if they have difficulties,

and are they going to support them?

How do you try and support?

But you're trying to get a sense from the school.

Is it a happy place?

Are the teachers really passionate about what they do?

Are they going to try and make a difference with your son or daughter?

Okay, we're going to move on now to parent-teacher meetings.

So, parent-teacher meetings will be organized periodically by the school.

That means every now and again.

I would expect a couple a year as a minimum, or if you are concerned about your child,

you could organize one yourself.

So, you want to start off with quite general questions.

You don't want to go in too heavy-handed as a parent.

How's name of student, name of child getting on, then?

Are they okay?

What are your impressions?

How are they coping with the syllabus?

You might want to try and find out about their sort of emotional well-being.

Is he or she making any friends?

What do they do in the playground?

What do they do at break time?

Who do they sit with at lunchtime?

Are they happy?

Notice we're using the third-person plural here rather than the third-person singular,

but don't ask me why.

We just use it sometimes as a conversational convention.

How are things from your point of view?

What do you think?

Now, I probably wouldn't ask all of these questions because it would be a bit too many

questions about a similar idea, so maybe choose, like, "How are they getting on, then?"

Yeah, that's a nice general opener.

I probably wouldn't ask, "Are they making any friends and are they happy?" because they're

quite similar, they're linked.

And "How are things from your point of view?" is quite similar to this one, so I'd choose

this or this, and this or this, yep.

And now, this is talking about their attitude in lessons.

Do they get involved?

Do they contribute?

Do they ask questions?

Do they work well with others?

Are they behaving?

Yep.

Do they contribute?

Do they listen?

Do they ask questions?

Are they behaving?

Yep.

Are they getting the work done?

Now, if they're at all worried about your child, they might ask a couple of questions

to you to find out how the child is at home.

How are they at home?

They might ask you to talk you through a normal day at the weekend to try and work out if,

you know, if things are going well at home.

Are they well-rested?

Are they eating well?

It's all part of the picture.

Do they sleep well?

Do they get on well with their siblings, if there are siblings?

Now, as a parent, you should want to know what you can do to support your child at home.

You know, should you be helping with reading, with any of the homework?

So you could ask, is there anything we could be doing at home to help with, you know, if

they've mentioned a problem, Johnny is struggling with his maths?

Is there anything we could be doing at home to help with Johnny's maths?

Yes, it would be great if you helped with his homework.

I always make sure it's written in his home school diary or planner or whatever they call

it at your school.

If you are worried, you could say something like, "I'm a little concerned that", "I'm

a little concerned that he hasn't had any homework for the last two weeks", "I'm a little

concerned that his book hasn't been marked", "I'm a little concerned that he's not reading

at the moment", "I'm a little concerned that his handwriting is bad", "I'm a little concerned

that her English book has gone missing".

Yeah, say what you're worried about.

Now, these are three buzzwords.

Are they showing initiative?

Are they coming up with their own ideas?

Are they an independent learner?

Is your child making efforts to do a little bit of research?

This is talking about a slightly older age group now, going into sort of 11 plus, like

are they reading up about the subject, not just because they've been told to in homework?

Are they making progress, yeah, from the beginning of term to the end of term?

Can you see that progress?

If you want to make a request, you could use this.

Do you think there's any chance you could...

What might you want the teacher to do?

Do you think there's any chance you could make sure that he has or she has the homework

written down in their book?

That's one I've heard so many times.

Do you think there's any chance you could ask them more questions in class?

Do you think there's any chance you could change where he or she is sitting in the classroom?

Lots of different ideas, but I feel if you are a parent in a school where the native

language is not English, it's really important to try and prepare for talking to the teachers

and it's, you know, it becomes even more important to learn English so that you can try and help

with your child's education and get involved in it.

Thank you very much for watching this video.

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Thanks for watching, and good luck.