Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, number 189, Getting Home Late from School.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, episode 189.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Be sure to visit our website at eslpodcom for a learning guide to this podcast, which contains all of the vocabulary definitions, culture notes, additional uses of some of these words that we don't talk about on the podcast and a complete transcript of this episode.
Today's podcast is called Getting Home Late from School.
Let's get started.
Where have you been?
Do you know what time it is?
I'm sorry, Dad.
I lost track of time.
Lost track of time?
We've been worried sick about you.
You were supposed to come straight home after school.
I know, but Janet was showing me something in her locker when a fight broke out in the hallway.
The vice principal, Mr. Lopez, finally came out and broke it up.
That still doesn't explain why you're late.
And I don't want any excuses.
Well, one of the guys in the fight was Dan, Janet's brother.
Mr. Lopez called their parents, and I waited with her until they got there.
I never liked Dan.
He's trouble.
I don't want you hanging around with him.
I don't.
I'm friends with Janet, not her brother.
I didn't do anything wrong.
Oh, really?
Really?
You missed curfew last week, and now you're late again.
Just wait until your mother hears about this.
You're grounded for a week.
Dad, that's not fair.
None of my friend's parents are as strict as you are.
That's enough.
I won't have you talking back to me.
Now, go to your room.
This podcast is about a father and a daughter having a conversation.
And it begins by the father asking his daughter, Caitlin, Where have you been?
And you know from the way he says that that he's angry.
He's mad.
Where have you been?
Where were you?
Of course, he's asking her if she knows what time it is because she's late.
And that's a common way of saying to someone, you're very late.
Do you know what time it is?
Or if someone arrives very late and you were going to yell at them.
Like a father would perhaps yell at or speak very strongly to his daughter.
To yell, Y-E-L-L. usually means to shout or to talk very loudly.
So to yell at someone is when you are angry with them and you talk very loudly.
Caitlin says, I'm sorry, Dad.
I lost track of time.
The expression to lose track, T-R-A-C-K, of time means that you didn't realize what time it was.
You didn't realize that you were late.
You were usually so busy doing something else listening to ESL podcasts or reading a good book that you lost track of time.
You didn't pay attention to what time it was.
And dad says lost track of time as a question, meaning he doesn't really believe her or he isn't very happy with her answer.
He says we've been worried sick about you.
The expression to be worried sick means that you are extremely worried.
You're very worried.
You don't know what happened to the other person.
You think something bad might have happened to them.
And so we use the expression to be worried sick, worried so much that you almost feel sick.
Dad says you were supposed to come straight home after school.
You were supposed to, S-U-P-P-O-S-E-D, 2-0, means that that was what you were told to do.
That is what you had to do.
That is what you should have done.
You were supposed to.
We use that expression a lot, supposed to.
I'm supposed to go to school today means that they are expecting me at school.
I have an obligation to go to school.
Dad says that Caitlin was supposed to come straight home after school.
The use of the word straight here S-T-R-A-I-G-H-T means immediately, without stopping somewhere else.
So, if you tell someone, I'm going straight to the hospital.
That means I'm not going to stop at the store or at the post office and then go to the hospital.
I'm going to go directly to the hospital.
So here it can also mean simply directly home.
Caitlin says I know, but Janet, who we can guess is one of her friends Janet, she says, was showing me something in her locker.
She wanted me to see something in her locker.
A locker, L-O-C-K-E-R, is a small box, usually a metal box, that you can lock.
That's why we call it a locker.
And it's where you keep things.
In most American high schools there are lockers in the halls, in the space between the rooms where the students walk the hall or the hallway.
We would say all one word H-A-L-L-W-A-Y.
There are lockers, and each student usually gets their own locker.
They may have to share their locker.
It's a place where they can put their coats in the morning.
They can put books, extra books they don't need, and they can go back to their locker.
They can put their lunch, if they bring their lunch, in their locker.
You'll also find lockers at a gym where you can put your clothes while you are exercising.
And there are lockers in many airports where you can leave something and take the key.
Well, Caitlin says that her friend Janet was showing something in her locker the locker that belonged to her when a fight broke out in the hallway.
When we say a fight broke, B-R-O-K-E, out, we mean that it began, that it started.
We often use that verb to break out when we're talking about something like a fight, something that starts suddenly.
A hallway we've already talked about is the path or the place where students walk to go from one classroom to another in a school or in any building.
The vice principal, Caitlin continues, Mr. Lopez finally came out and broke it up.
The vice principal, V-I-C-E, principal is P-R-I-N-C-I-P-A-L.
The vice principal is the person in the school who works for the principal.
The principal is the leader of the school.
We use that word principal for high schools, for junior high schools, for grade schools or elementary schools.
We don't use it for colleges.
We don't say the head of the college is the principal.
We only use that for high school or younger colleges.
Well, the principal is the boss of the school, and he or she has usually one, and sometimes three or four people who are vice principals.
And they do some of the work that the principal doesn't have time to.
One of the things that a vice principal does is take care of discipline problems.
Discipline, D-I-S-C-I-P-L-I-N-E.
Discipline is the same as behaving or behavior in this case.
When we talk about discipline problems, we're talking about kids who are doing things wrong and the vice principal has to punish them or tell them that they are doing something wrong and give them some punishment, some price they have to pay.
Not a price in the sense of money, but often they have to stay in school after the school day ends.
That would be a punishment that the vice principal might give a student who is causing problems.
The vice principal is often called the assistant principal, or just AP, and that is the same person.
Of course, sometimes students do things that are more serious, and so the assistant or vice principal has to give them a more serious punishment.
Staying in school after the day ends is a pretty good punishment, though.
It's saying that school is such a painful place to be that if you have to stay there longer, that's a punishment.
Well, that's the way most students think of the situation.
Mr. Lopez, the vice principal, came out and broke the fight up.
To break a fight up means to stop a fight, to stand in between the two people who are fighting and separate them.
That's to break up a fight.
The police can also break up a fight or break up an argument.
Well, Dad says that Caitlin's story doesn't explain why she was late, doesn't say or give the reason why she was late.
Dad says that I don't want any excuses.
An excuse.
E-X-C-U-S-E is a reason why you did something, usually a reason why you did something wrong or something incorrectly.
And it can just mean the reason, but often it means a bad reason.
Someone says, don't give me any excuses.
It means don't give me any bad reasons or false reasons why you did something wrong.
Caitlin then explains that one of the guys in this case one of the boys in the fight, was Janet's brother Dan.
Mr Lopez called Dan and Janet's parents and Caitlin waited with her friend Janet until Janet's parents came to the school to pick them up.
Well, Dad says, I never liked Dan.
He's trouble, meaning he causes problems.
He causes trouble.
Somebody says, she's trouble, means she causes problems.
He tells Caitlin that he doesn't want her hanging around with him.
To hang, H-A-N-G, around, A-R-O-U-N-D, with someone means to spend time with them as a friend.
Caitlin says that she doesn't hang around with Dan.
She hangs around with Janet, Dan's sister, and that she didn't do anything wrong.
Now we can guess that Caitlin is a teenager, and most teenagers think that they never do anything wrong.
So Dad says, oh, really?
He doesn't believe Caitlin.
He tells her that she missed curfew last week.
Curfew C-U-R-F-E-W is the time that, in this case, children or teenagers have to come home.
So if your curfew is 10 o'clock, that means that you have to come back home from wherever you are by 10 o'clock at night, and many parents give their teenage children a curfew so they don't want them coming home too late.
The idea, of course, is that they will stay out of trouble.
Dad says just wait until your mother hears about this.
Just wait until.
This is a very common expression that a parent may say.
Just wait until your father hears about this.
It means that your father or here in this story your mother will be very angry when she finds out.
Just wait until your mother hears about this.
You're grounded for a week.
To be grounded, G-R-O-U-N-D-E-D, means that you can't leave the house to do anything fun.
You can go to school, but when you're done with school, you have to come home right away immediately, and not go anywhere else.
And that, again, is a common punishment that parents will give their children.
They will ground them for a week or ground them for a month.
To ground means to tell the child they can't leave the house.
And Caitlin, of course, is not very happy.
And she says that's not fair, which is what every teenager says to their parent.
That's not fair.
They're not being just.
They're not being fair.
Caitlin says none of her friend's parents are as strict as her father is.
To be strict.
S-T-R-I-C-T means that you have lots of rules and that you expect your children to obey or to follow all of these rules.
If you have lots of rules and you tell your children they have to follow all of them, you may be called strict.
Dad says, that's enough.
He doesn't want to hear Caitlin talking anymore.
That's enough.
I won't have you talking back to me.
I won't have you means I am not going to allow you or permit you or let you talk back to me.
To talk back means that someone is usually a child is arguing with their parents and saying things that are not respectful of the parent.
And that is to talk back.
It's usually something we use with a child talking to the parent in a way that is not one that the parent likes.
Finally, dad says, go to your room.
Again, this is a very traditional punishment for children if they do something wrong.
We tell them to go to their room, meaning go to their bedroom, and don't leave.
They can't watch television or do other things.
That's the idea.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a native rate of speech.
Where have you been?
Do you know what time it is?
I'm sorry, Dad.
I lost track of time.
Lost track of time?
We've been worried sick about you.
You were supposed to come straight home after school.
I know, but Janet was showing me something in her locker when a fight broke out in the hallway.
The vice principal, Mr. Lopez, finally came out and broke it up.
That still doesn't explain why you're late, and I don't want any excuses.
Well, one of the guys in the fight was Dan, Janet's brother.
Mr. Lopez called their parents and I waited with her until they got there.
I never liked Dan.
He's trouble.
I don't want you hanging around with him.
I don't.
I'm friends with Janet, not her brother.
I didn't do anything wrong.
Oh, really?
You missed curfew last week and now you're late again.
Just wait until your mother hears about this.
You're grounded for a week.
Dad, that's not fair.
None of my friend's parents are as strict as you are.
That's enough.
I won't have you talking back to me.
Now, go to your room.
The script for today's podcast was very well done by our own Dr. Lucy Say.
To email us a question or a comment about these podcasts.
You can send your email to eslpod at eslpodcom.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
This podcast is copyright 2006.
