50 English Phrases for the Classroom: Advanced Vocabulary Lesson

Vanessa: "Oh no, we have a test today? I  

forgot to study." Has that ever happened to you? I  think it has happened to every student across the  

whole world. Well, never fear. Today, I would  like to help you learn the top 50 phrases that  

you will hear and use in a classroom in English.  I'm sure that you'll pass this test with flying  

colors. We're not just going to be talking about  items in the classroom, but also phrases that  

teachers often say to students, and phrases that  students often say to teachers. So whether you are  

a teacher or a student, this lesson is for you. Hi, I am Vanessa from speakenglishwithvanessa.com.  

And today, I have created a free PDF worksheet  for you, just like a good classroom teacher would  

do. And you can download this free worksheet  with all of today's 50 important expressions  

for the classroom. You can download it, check out  the phrases, the definitions, sample sentences,  

ways that you might use them. And at the bottom  of the worksheet, you can answer Vanessa's  

challenge question so that you never forget what  you've learned. You can click on the link in the  

description to download that free PDF worksheet  today. All right, are you ready to start studying  

for the test? Let's get started with our first  category of classroom words, which are 10 items  

that you'll find in a classroom. The first one  is, of course, a desk. Every student has their  

own desk in the classroom. Notice the grammar of  this. I said, "Every student," which is singular,  

and then I said, "has their own desk."  I used that plural their. You can say,  

"Every student has his or her own desk." But in spoken English, we just use that plural  

word, their. "Every student has their own desk."  This is very common in spoken English, so you can  

use it too. A chair. "I was so embarrassed when  I fell out of my chair in the middle of class."  

A notebook. "I forgot my notebook. Can I borrow  some paper for class?" Just a little note that  

in the US, a notebook is always paper. I know in  some countries, they call a laptop a notebook.  

But in the US, especially in the classroom, we  call that just a notebook with paper. A pen or  

pencil. "I like using a pen, but usually teachers  like you to use a pencil for tests." A chalkboard,  

a blackboard, a whiteboard, or a smart board.  "The students were so excited when we upgraded  

from a whiteboard to a smart board. There were  so many fun things that we could do with it." 

Just to let you know, a blackboard and a  chalkboard are used interchangeably in the  

us. They're both things that are used with chalk,  and you can use either word. A paperclip. "I made  

sure to put a paperclip on my report because there  were 10 pages." You can also use this as a verb.  

"Make sure you paperclip your report together."  A cubby or a locker. "I forgot my notebook in  

my locker. Can I go get it?" Usually the word  cubby is used for elementary school children, so  

younger children, and the locker is used for older  children, at least that's how it goes In the US.  

Tape. "I tore my homework, so I had to use some  tape to tape it back together." Notice how I used  

this both as a noun, "I need some tape," and as a  verb, "to tape it back together." Highlighters. "I  

use colorful highlighters to help me remember  what I'm studying." This is also a word that  

you can use as a noun or a verb. "I'm using a  highlighter," or "I like to highlight my notes." 

Scissors. "I need to cut the paper. Can you  pass me some scissors?" Notice that the C is  

silent. Scissors. Scissors. Our next 10 classroom  expressions are expressions that the teacher will  

say. "Hi, my name's Ms. Vanessa, and today we  are going to be learning about math." Thankfully,  

I'm not a math teacher. If I walked into  your classroom as your math teacher,  

you should probably be afraid. Math is  not my strong suit. But here in the US,  

this is a common thing to say, "Hi, I am Ms.  Vanessa." It's becoming more and more popular  

to just use Ms. with a woman teacher, because  M-I-S-S means you are not married, Ms. Vanessa,  

and Mrs. Vanessa means that you are married.  But people are now kind of liking to not share  

if they're married or not. It makes sense. So they  want to just use the form Ms. It sounds the same  

as M-I-S-S, but it's spelled Ms., Miss Vanessa.  And some schools will use a last name as well. 

They might say, "Ms. Prothe," or "Ms. Vanessa."  I think it's becoming increasingly more popular  

to say Ms. with a first name of the teacher,  at least here in the US. "We can't get started  

until everyone is in their own seat and quiet."  Laying down the law. "Open your book to page  

10," or "Open your workbooks to page 10." "We're  going to split up into groups for this project,"  

or "We're going to split up into groups for  this exercise." Sometimes the word exercise  

is used in the classroom, but it doesn't mean  physical exercise. It's just a project or an  

activity. "Keep your eyes on your own test,"  or "No discussing answers." This is something  

a teacher might say To prevent cheating or to  remind you keep your eyes on your own test. Don't  

look at other people's tests as you're taking it. And every student's favorite thing that a teacher  

says, "Today, we're going to have a pop quiz, so I  hope you did your homework." Nothing strikes fear  

into a student's heart more than the phrase pop  quiz. The word pop means surprise quiz. "Today,  

we're going to have a pop quiz." Oh, a terrible  feeling. "You will have 15 minutes to finish  

this quiz. No talking, and turn your paper face  down when you're finished." This phrasal verb  

face down means simply turn your paper over. That  way, no one is tempted to look at your answers.  

Turn your paper face down when you're finished.  Here in the US, teachers like students to come up  

with their own answers and not just memorize  something from the book, at least that's the  

ideal situation. So when a teacher asks a question  and a student just reads the answer from the book,  

the teacher might say, "Wait, tell me in your  own words." In your own words means just create  

your own answer. Don't read it directly from the  book. Tell me in your own words. And this is also  

a great idea for learning English as well. If someone asks you, "What's your favorite  

movie?" Well, you could read the back of  the movie or read a description online,  

but it's better practice to just tell them in your  own words, to create those sentences yourself and  

test your skills. "All right, time's up. Pencils  down." This is what a teacher will say at the end  

of a test or a quiz. Time's up, that means time is  finished. And pencil's down, you're all done with  

the test, I hope. And at the end of the day,  the teacher will say, "That's all for today.  

Don't forget to do your homework tonight. Bye."  Our next category of important phrases for the  

classroom are 10 phrases that a student might say. "Ms. Vanessa, I don't have my pencil." Teachers  

hear this all the time, or "Ms. Vanessa, I  don't have my book. Ms. Vanessa, I don't have  

my homework." Well, how the teacher responds  is always up to that teacher. For me, when I  

was a classroom teacher, I always kept a jar  of pencils that any student could use. Ideally,  

they would return them at the end of the class  period. That didn't always happen, but it's common  

for students to forget things during the day in  the class. "Ms. Vanessa, my dog ate my homework."  

This is the most stereotypical excuse for  forgetting your homework. Maybe your dog really  

did eat your homework, but this is something that  you will absolutely hear in movies and TV shows.  

And if you're in the classroom, you might even  hear a student so bold enough to say this excuse,  

"Ms. Vanessa, my dog ate my homework." "Ms. Vanessa, I don't understand,  

or "Ms. Vanessa, I don't get it." This phrase,  I don't get it, is a little more informal,  

and potentially rude if you say, "Ms. Vanessa, I  don't get it" with this kind of attitude, like I  

don't really care, I'm annoyed. But if you say  this in a polite way, "Ms. Vanessa, I don't get  

it. Can you explain it again?" That's perfectly  fine. You can tell the difference in my attitude. 

"I need to cram for this test if I'm going to  get a good grade." The verb to cram is used  

a lot by students, and it means to study a lot,  usually the night before, maybe a day in advance,  

possibly. But it means you need to push all of  that information into your brain. You need to  

cram the information into your brain. You can also  use this verb in a physical way. If you're packing  

for a big trip and you have too many clothes to  fit in your suitcase, you might say, "I need to  

cram all of my clothes into this small suitcase." That's the physical way we can use this verb.  

Unfortunately, I said this next one in college  a lot. "I haven't studied for the test tomorrow,  

so I'm going to pull an all-nighter." Can you  guess what this means? To pull an all-nighter  

means to stay up all night studying. It's really  never a good idea, but it happens. You might ask  

your classmates, "Hey, can I borrow your notes?  I was sick yesterday." And if your classmate is  

nice, they might let you borrow their notes. "You  know Sam, he's a real teacher's pet. Ms. Vanessa  

is always picking him to write on the whiteboard."  This phrase, "A teacher's pet," seems like a nice  

thing. It's the teacher's favorite student. But in  reality, it's usually a term that other students  

use to make fun of someone. "You're such a  teacher's pet." Usually it's not a good thing, but  

in reality, what's so wrong with being one that a  teacher likes? Well, students just don't like it. 

"Ms. Vanessa, are there extra credit points? Ms.  Vanessa, are there bonus points?" If you're not  

doing so well in a class, you might ask that  question. "Ms. Vanessa, I'm totally lost." If  

you are so confused, you have no idea what's  going on, it's a great phrase to use. And our  

final phrase that students say in the classroom  is one that unfortunately I used with many of my  

poor teachers. "Teacher, when are we going to use  this?" If you've ever sat in a math trigonometry  

class, just cramming information into your brain  and feeling so overwhelmed and frustrated because  

you just didn't get it, that was me, you  might ask your teacher this, "Excuse me,  

when am I going to ever use this?" And the idea  is, when am I going to use this after school, in  

the real world, in my job? A lot of people don't  use trigonometry in their job. Some people do,  

but a lot of people don't. So students often feel  frustrated if they can't see a link between what  

they're learning in the classroom and what  they're going to be using in the real world. 

So that's something that I try to do here  on my YouTube channel. A lot of you learned  

English phrases in the classroom that just weren't  relevant, that were just not really used in real  

life. So here on my YouTube channel, I'm trying to  teach you what people really use in the real world  

because that is what you're going to use when you  speak with people at your job, when you travel,  

or just friends that you make around your city. The next 10 classroom expressions are questions  

that a teacher might ask, and then we'll talk  about some questions that a student might ask.  

A teacher might ask, "Can anyone tell me?" or "Who  can tell me?" And she's asking the classroom to  

give her some feedback and answer the question  to see if they have that knowledge. "Can anyone  

tell me what is the best way to learn English?  Any questions?" This is a great question by a  

teacher because it's important that they give  students the time to ask questions as well. 

When students are all taking turns doing  something, the teacher might forget who  

has had a turn and who hasn't had a turn. So the  teacher will ask this question, "Who hasn't gone  

yet? Who hasn't gone yet?" I know we're using  the word go here. Who hasn't gone? We're using  

that in the past. But really, the question is, who  hasn't had a turn yet? But the most common way to  

say it is this, "Who hasn't gone yet?" The next  question, a teacher or a student might ask this,  

"Whose turn is it?" If you forget whose turn it  is, could ask this. "Whose turn is it?" Let's  

go on to some questions that students specifically  ask. "Ms. Vanessa, what page are we on?" Sometimes  

this makes a teacher roll their eyes. Weren't  you paying attention? But it's a common question. 

"Ms. Vanessa, can you repeat the question?  Ms. Vanessa, when is the test?" And possibly  

the most common question of all time, "Ms.  Vanessa, will this be on the test?" Nothing  

makes a teacher more angry because, of course,  the teacher wants the students to enjoy learning  

all the information and to readily soak it in.  But really what the students want to know is,  

do I need to learn this? Do I need to memorize  this, or is this just something extra? "Will this  

be on the test?" When there's a group project, one  student might ask another student this question,  

"Do you want to work together? Do you want to  work together?" As we know, students are always  

forgetting something, so it's best to ask your  classmates before you ask your teacher. You might  

ask your classmates, "Can I borrow a pencil? Can  I borrow a book? Can I borrow some paper, please?" 

And our final 10 phrases that are used in the  classroom are phrases that are used for feedback.  

So a teacher will say this to students to give  them some feedback, positive or negative feedback,  

or to give some encouragement to students. On a  math test, you might see the teacher write or say  

this, "Show your work." What does this mean? This  means that you can't just write the answer. You  

need to show how you got to that answer. You need  to write out all of the processes that you used  

to get to that answer. Show your work. This also  helps the teacher know that you're not cheating.  

You're not just looking at Vanessa's paper. Don't  look at my paper. It probably has the wrong math  

answer. But when you show your work, it tells  the teacher that you know how to do that problem. 

A similar phrase that you might see on a test or  you might hear the teacher say is, "Explain your  

answer." This works for math, but this also works  for other subjects as well. If you get something  

wrong and the teacher doesn't want to just say,  "No, that's wrong," the teacher will probably say,  

"Almost. Try again." This is a really polite thing  to say. I often say this to my kids actually,  

because sometimes they're close, or it's not  exactly correct, but it's not a serious thing,  

so I'm not going to say, "No, that's wrong."  Instead, you can just say, "Almost. Try again."  

A similar expression is, "You're on the right  track." A teacher will say this to a student  

who isn't exactly giving the perfect answer, but  it's close to the correct answer, and they want to  

encourage the student to keep exploring that idea  further. "You're on the right track. Keep going." 

A kind teacher might also say, "Keep practicing.  You almost got it. You almost got it." If you take  

out the word almost, it means you have the  correct answer, you got it. But oftentimes,  

students don't have the correct answer the  first time, so a teacher might say this,  

"Keep practicing. Keep trying. You almost  got it. You're so close." So to take that  

expression and use it in the positive way, a  teacher might say, "You got it. Keep going.  

You got it. You are doing great. You have the  correct answer. Keep working." If the teacher  

wants to give a little hint or some feedback about  a future test to students, the teacher might say,  

"Here are some things that you'll want to focus  on before the next test." They might even say,  

"Wink, wink," or "Nudge, nudge," or "Just to  let you know, here are some things that you  

might want to focus on before the next test." They're not saying these things will be on the  

test. They're kind of using a more indirect  expression. "These are the things that you  

might want to focus on." The next question  could be used by students or teachers. It's,  

"What about..." Here, we're using it to suggest  something. So a student might use this in response  

to a teacher. Let's say that teacher, Ms. Vanessa,  asked the class, "Class, do you know why there  

are waves in the ocean?" This was actually a  question that my kids were talking about in  

the car a couple days ago. It's very familiar  to me right now. The teacher asked, "Why are  

there waves in the ocean?" Well, the students  might not be extremely certain of their answers,  

so they could use this great question, "What  about wind? What about the moon? What about..." 

Here, they're suggesting an answer. Even though  they don't know the exact correct answer,  

they don't feel certain of it, they can use  this question. And a teacher can also use this  

question by giving suggestions to students. So  let's say students are answering the question,  

"Why are there waves in the ocean?" And they  throw out some ideas, and the teacher wants to  

also throw out some ideas to see what the  students think about it. They might say,  

"What about whales? What about sharks?" Maybe  they're making the waves due to their big size.  

I'm not sure. But here, this is the teacher giving  suggestions, or the students giving suggestions.  

Do you know what the correct answer is? Why  are there waves? Well, the answer is wind. Very  

cool. You should look it up. There's some very  interesting videos about why there are waves. 

The next phrase a teacher might say  to give encouragement to a student is,  

"I can tell you've been working hard on this. I  can tell you've been working hard on this." This  

doesn't mean it's perfect or this is the best in  the entire class. It just means for you, I know  

that you put a lot of effort into this, and that's  what I want. I want you to put a lot of effort  

into it because that's the only way you're going  to improve. "I can tell you put a lot of hard work  

into this," or "I can tell you've been working  hard on this." And our final phrase that you'll  

hear in the classroom is one that we all want to  hear, "You passed with flying colors." This is  

a beautiful idiom. That means you got a 100%.  You had perfect answers for every single one.  

You passed with flying colors. Congratulations. And guess what? You passed this lesson with flying  

colors. Hooray. I hope that this lesson helps  you to go into the classroom with confidence.  

You can speak with your teacher, or if you are  a teacher, you can speak with your students,  

or if you're a parent, you can speak with  your student, your child, and the teacher with  

confidence. Go into the real world and conquer it.  Don't forget to download the free PDF worksheet  

with all 50 of these important classroom  expressions, definitions, sample sentences,  

and ways that you can use them in real life.  You can click on the link in the description  

to download that free PDF worksheet today. Well,  thank you so much for learning English with me,  

and I'll see you again next Friday for a  new lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. 

But wait, do you want more? I recommend watching  this video next, where you will learn to break  

all the rules that you learned in the classroom.  Well, maybe not all of them, but some important  

rules that you can break so that you can speak  real natural English. I'll see you there.