Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 505, Teaching Children About Safety.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 505.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
Go there to download a learning guide for this episode to help improve your English even faster.
This episode is called Teaching Children About Safety.
It's about a teacher, Ms.
Sanchez, who goes to class thinking that she needs to tell her students all about safety, but she gets a surprise at the end.
Let's get started.
Okay, kids, I'm Ms.
Sanchez, your substitute for this week.
I'm taking all of you on the field trip tomorrow.
Listen up.
There are some ground rules we need to go over.
First, each of you will have a partner and you will hold hands while we cross the streets.
Ms.
Sanchez?
I'll take questions later.
Let me get through all of my instructions first.
Remember, don't talk to strangers.
There are predators out there who are looking to lure children away from their family and friends and to abduct them, so don't let your guard down.
Ms.
Sanchez?
As I said, I'll take questions later.
If you need to step away from the group, ask permission first.
If a stranger tries to accost or waylay you, run away as fast as you can.
Uh, Ms.
Sanchez?
Yes?
I think you've got the wrong classroom.
We're the 8th graders.
The first graders are on the second floor.
Where are my glasses?
Oh, here they are.
Oh, you're not my first graders.
Why didn't anyone say anything earlier?
Our dialogue begins with the teacher, Ms.
Sanchez, saying to her students...
Okay, kids, I'm Ms.
Sanchez, your substitute for this week.
Substitute here stands for a substitute teacher, who is a teacher who teaches a class temporarily when the regular teacher is sick or for some reason cannot be in class.
Here in the United States, most school districts, most schools have a list of teachers they can call in the morning and say well, we need someone to teach this class.
And the substitute teacher comes in and takes over the class for that day, not necessarily teaching the class.
Often you get substitute teachers who don't know anything about the topic, but at least there is an adult standing in front of the children, so they don't I don't know jump out the window.
In this case, Ms.
Sanchez is the substitute teacher for the week.
She says, I'm taking all of you on the field trip tomorrow.
Field trip is an experience where students go somewhere outside of the school.
They go on a little trip organized by the school so they can learn something.
They may go to a museum.
They may go to a park.
They may go to see some performance, a play, for example.
All of these would be field trips.
Students always love field trips because they don't have to stay in their regular boring class anymore.
Ms.
Sanchez says to the students, listen up, meaning everyone listen.
There are some ground rules we need to go over.
Ground rules are basic rules, things that everyone must do.
She says we need to go over these ground rules.
To go over is a phrasal verb meaning to review, to talk about something together and make sure that everyone understands it.
Go, as you know, has many meanings depending on the preposition you put after it.
Take a look at our learning guide for some more phrasal verbs with to go.
Miss Sanchez says, is one half of a pair.
One person with another person, those two people are together.
We could call them partners.
You can be married and call your wife or husband your partner.
But in school, many times children work in pairs.
Two children work together or are together, sit together.
In this case, the children are going to have partners and they will need to hold hands while they cross the streets.
To hold hands means to put your hand into someone else's hand.
And in this case, you're going to hold the other person's hand while you walk across a street.
This is especially true for young children, so that the children don't run off in a number of different directions when they're crossing the street.
That would be dangerous.
So, one of the students in Ms.
Sanchez's class says, Ms.
Sanchez, trying to ask a question, but Ms.
Sanchez says She continues To get through.
Something is a phrasal verb meaning to finish something, to complete something.
Ms.
Sanchez wants to get through all of her instructions, all of her rules first.
She then says, A stranger is someone that you don't know, someone who you have never met before.
It's very common, again, for young children to tell them not to talk to strangers.
Parents are afraid of what other adults might do with their children.
She says there are predators out there who are looking to lure children away.
A predator, P-R-E-D-A-T-O-R, is a person who tries to chase or tries to hurt another person.
Usually here, when we're talking about children, we're talking about someone who may be a sexual predator.
So obviously this would be very dangerous.
So Ms.
Sanchez is telling them that they need to be careful.
Of course, you wouldn't use the word predator with a young child.
A good teacher would not use that word since the children wouldn't know what it meant.
Moreover, you probably wouldn't want to go into the reasons for children not talking to strangers, at least not too much.
But Ms.
Sanchez is not a great teacher.
She says there are predators out there who are looking to lure children away.
To lure L-U-R-E means to get someone to do something, especially if it's bad or wrong, by making it seem fun and exciting.
Well, she's warning against predators who try to lure children, who get the children to leave their family and friends in order to abduct them.
To abduct someone means to kidnap them, to take someone away when he or she does not want to be taken away.
Ms.
Sanchez says The expression to let your guard down means to stop being careful or cautious for a period of time.
She's telling the children, Ms.
Sanchez says Once again gets a question from a student, but she says that she'll take questions later and she continues talking.
She says to the children, if you need to step away from the group, ask permission first.
To step away from means to leave an area or a group of people and go in another direction.
She tells the children to ask permission.
Permission is approval that someone gives you to do something.
Your boss or your parent or your teacher may give you permission to do something.
That is, they are saying it's okay for you to do that.
Ms.
Sanchez says if a stranger tries to accost you or waylay you, run away as fast as you can.
To accost, A-C-C-O-S-T, means to walk up to someone in a threatening way or an aggressive way.
Often to walk up to someone because you want to hurt that person.
The person may try to accost or waylay you.
To waylay W-A-Y-L-A-Y means to stop someone from going where he or she had planned to go, usually by talking to that person, or perhaps even attacking and hurting that person.
The instructions Ms.
Sanchez gives is that the children should run away as fast as they can.
Finally, the student is able to ask Ms.
Sanchez a question or tell her something.
The student says to Ms.
Sanchez, I think you've got the wrong classroom.
You're in the wrong classroom.
Were the 8th graders...
The first graders are on the second floor.
An eighth grader is a group of students who are at a particular level in school, in this case, at the eighth level.
So they would be about 14, 15 years old.
The first graders would be five or six years old.
It's obvious that the instructions that Ms.
Sanchez is giving are for young children, not for a 14 or 15-year-old.
So the student is telling Ms.
Sanchez that she's in the wrong class.
Ms.
Sanchez asks, where are my glasses?
She says, oh, here they are.
Oh, you're not my first graders, realizing now she's in the wrong place.
Why didn't anyone say anything earlier?
Of course, someone did try to say something, but she wouldn't let the student talk.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Okay, kids, I'm Miss Sanchez, your substitute for this week.
I'm taking all of you on the field trip tomorrow.
Listen up.
There are some ground rules we need to go over.
First, each of you will have a partner, and you will hold hands while we cross the streets.
I'll take questions later.
Let me get through all of my instructions first.
Remember, don't talk to strangers.
There are predators out there who are looking to lure children away from their family and friends and to abduct them, so don't let your guard down.
As I said, I'll take questions later.
If you need to step away from the group, ask permission first.
If a stranger tries to accost or waylay you, run away as fast as you can.
Uh, Ms.
Sanchez?
Yes?
I think you've got the wrong classroom.
We're the eighth graders.
The first graders are on the second floor.
Where are my glasses?
Oh, here they are.
Oh, you're not my first graders.
Why didn't anyone say anything earlier?
We did not have a substitute script writer for this episode.
It was our regular wonderful writer, Dr. Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time on ESL Podcasts.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2009 by the Center for Educational Development.
