It's prom season! Welcome back to the Learn English Podcast. The podcast teaching English in context so you can learn naturally.
On today's episode, I want to talk about American school dances.
You have seen these in TV shows and in movies and they are a very important part of American school culture.
The most important dance of the year is prom, which takes place every spring.
the time period that we are in now.
So on today's episode I want to talk about these school dances, talk about the vocabulary that gets used when talking about these dances, and also talk about what those TV shows and movies get right and wrong about these dances.
So if you're interested in learning more about prom season then follow along because we're about to begin.
Before we get started, I just want to remind you to look at the description of this podcast episode.
There you will find links like how to take classes with me, and more importantly, the vocabulary list. The vocabulary list is the list of the words and phrases that I used in the episode so you can take them and build your English vocabulary.
Now let's talk about school dances.
A few things to know about the layout of schools in the United States.
The first thing that we have is primary school or elementary school as we call it here.
This is usually grades kindergarten through fifth or sixth grade.
Then sixth through eighth grade or seventh and eighth grade are called middle school.
And then high school is grades nine through twelve.
School dances usually start in middle school if you go to a public school.
These dances are not as formal, they're usually a lot more fun.
These are the dances that you will usually see in movies and TV shows, being in a high school gym.
Usually it's on school campus, usually it's in the gymnasium of the school because you have a big open space.
They put up decorations and some music.
Now in high school is where things get a little bit more serious.
So your final year is called your senior year, that is your 12th grade.
That is when these dances are extremely important.
When you are not a senior, when you are not in your last year of high school, they might be important, or they might not.
It really depends on the student.
There are three main dances that take place at a high school throughout the year, and they're designated by season.
The first one is called Homecoming.
Homecoming is the first dance of the school year, and it takes place in the fall.
Homecoming is the time traditionally when alumni from the school would come back and visit.
Think of Spiderman Homecoming.
If you have seen that movie, you might have seen that title.
And the homecoming means that you are going back to your So if you graduated from a school, it's kind of like your home, it's your home base.
It's where you went to high school.
And that's what that term means.
People who are at the high school currently then go to a homecoming dance.
So that is the first one and that is in the fall.
During the winter, there is something called a winter formal.
So the name comes from the season.
It's in the winter.
And the formal part means that you dress up.
So if something has formal attire, that means it's nicer than your everyday clothes.
You're not going to be wearing jeans, you're going to be wearing something nice.
And then the biggest and the most important dance occurs in the spring and that is prom.
Prom is by far the most popular dance of the year.
Maybe someone doesn't go to Homecoming, maybe someone doesn't care about winter or formal.
But if you're going to go to one, you're going to go to prom.
Let's talk about some of the things that you'll hear when it comes to these dances and some of the representations that you will see.
The first thing I want to talk about is the way that people dress.
You get dressed up for these dances.
You look very nice for them.
If you are asking someone to prom, if you have a date, you usually have some type of little flower arrangement that you give whoever your date is.
For example, if you are a female and you are going with a male then you would give the boy a boutonniere.
A boutonniere is a little flower arrangement, very very small and it goes on the jacket of his suit, on his suit jacket.
If you are a male going with a female you would give a croissage, a floral piece that goes around the girl's wrist that the girl wears.
These are also things that people wear during wedding ceremonies.
So that really just gives you an idea of how formal this is.
This is something that you wear, if you are part of a wedding party, and it's something that you wear at a high school dance.
Now you might not have a date and that is fine.
There are definitely people who just go with their group of friends, they will call that going stag, which means you just have your male friends, you might have also heard of a stag party, which is before you get married, I think in some places in England, I think.
I'm not 100 % sure on that.
But that's what that means.
It's just males together, you're just going to the party together.
Sometimes people will say that for females.
It's not as common though.
But you might just hear people saying that they're going with their friends.
And that's completely normal too.
That definitely happens.
One of the other things that you might have seen on TV shows and movies is that there is a king or queen of the dance that people vote on.
And that is also definitely true.
I can say that at the high school I teach at, they do have homecoming and the students at the school vote for who is going to be part of the Royal Court.
At the homecoming dance, there is a boy and girl from every grade.
So from ninth grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, and 12th grade, the seniors, the ones who are in their 12th grade, they are the king and queen of homecoming.
The other people, the ones who are in the lower grades, those have other names.
It's usually something to do with a royal court.
So I think there's like a Duke and a Duchess, and maybe a prince and a princess.
I'm not 100 % sure on the exact names, but those are there.
They're just not called king or queen, because that's only for the seniors.
It's only for people in their 12th grade year.
At my school, they actually vote online and then we have a pep rally in the gym where all of the students come and sit at the rally.
Again, you might have seen something like this in TV shows and movies.
I think Stranger Things showed a pep rally in one of their episodes.
That does happen. And I talked about that in a previous episode where I talked about how American high schools are like how they're shown in the movies at our homecoming rally at the pep rally in the gym.
They have the people who are nominated, go up and they actually get announced in front of everyone.
So you find out if you won or lost in front of every single person in the high school, which personally I would find horrifying.
I would hate that, but obviously people like it because people do it.
Same thing for prom.
There is a prom king, there is a prom queen, and you would have seen this being represented in TV shows and movies.
I think the movie Mean Girls, if you've seen that and in the movie Carrie, that also has a prom queen scene.
If you've seen that she gets tricked into being prom queen or gets voted on as a joke and then has stuff thrown at her.
I guess I won't spoil it if you haven't seen that movie, but those are two movies that have pretty famous scenes in them and that part's true.
They definitely do have prom queen, prom queen.
They have little crowns and that is another part of the whole culture.
When you go to ask someone to go with you to prom, that is a very scary thing for some people.
It's very nerve wracking.
I did an episode where I talked about idioms with nerve.
So if you want to watch that episode, you can check it out.
I'll leave a link in the description.
Nerve wracking is one of those terms. That means it's very scary.
Gives you a lot of anxiety, you get nervous when you're doing it.
As a teacher, I have seen a lot of people ask people to prom or get ready to ask someone to prom.
There is a trend on social media and it is called prom -posal.
So a proposal is when you ask someone to get married.
And a promposal is when you ask someone to prom.
So you're taking the pozle part of proposal and then putting prom at the beginning.
And that's how they get the word called promposal.
So promposal is kind of like it sounds like you're asking someone to go to prom with you.
And there's a lot of people who ask very extravagant ways, very fancy ways and try to make it look really, really nice.
then they post it on social media.
One of my students one year he dressed up as Spider -Man and he had a poster board and it said will you be the Gwen Stacy to my Peter Parker?
If the female is expected to ask out the male, if the girls are supposed to ask out the boys that is called a Sadie Hawkins.
These usually aren't for prom.
A Sadie Hawkins is a little bit more rare.
I think I've only seen it one time.
If they have a Sadie Hawkins theme, it's usually not for prom because prom is a little bit more formal, little bit more important.
Prom cost a lot of money.
Part of that money has to do with the cost of the ticket and then part of it has to do with how you're dressed and the activities of the night.
So the first thing is the cost of the ticket.
At my high school that I teach at and my old high school that I've taught at, they are not on school campus.
They are usually at a hotel or some really pretty venue.
Those venues can be very, very far.
I think one year, my high school had their prom at a place that was like an hour away.
It's going to cost money because the school has to rent that venue.
So the ticket prices can be expensive.
I think they're usually about 70 to $80 to go to prom because the school has to make its money back for the renting of the venue.
And then of course it has to pay for decorations and pay for lighting and a DJ to play music.
So all of that goes into the cost and the students are the ones that have to pay for it.
It's not free. So $80 is usually average.
Sometimes it could be less, sometimes it could be more but expect that price.
And then why prom is important to the local economy really has to do with the females.
We've talked about corsages and boutonnieres but those usually aren't that expensive.
And a lot of boys can just wear whatever suit they have. That's usually not that important, but the females are the ones who really get dressed up and that gets expensive.
You have to have a new dress for prom.
Sometimes you can just pay a hundred dollars and that's fine.
But if you get a designer dress, those can be hundreds of dollars.
You could pay maybe even $500.
dollars. Besides the dress, then you also have to have shoes, you have to have heels, which is the formal type of footwear for women, even though it's very painful to walk in those and dance in those.
But girls will wear heels.
They'll also wear jewelry.
So you might have to buy some accessories.
And then of course, you have to get your hair and makeup done.
This is why prom is so important to the local economy because Hairstylists will get booked.
Makeup artists will get booked.
And a lot of time, girls will also go and get a manicure or a pedicure.
I had one student who said she spent $100 just doing her nails for prom.
That wasn't the dress, that wasn't the hair and makeup, that was just her nails.
She spent $100 on that, so expensive.
And then there's the cost of actually getting to the venue.
If your venue is an hour away, like it's been at my high school before, you have to drive there or you have to get a driver.
Sometimes people will get a limo.
You might have seen that on TV shows and movies of high schoolers in a limo going to their dance.
That of course isn't free.
If you have a lot of people you can split the cost, but that is something that does cost money.
So, sometimes people will get a limo or they'll just get a car rental.
They'll have a driver take them there.
Or if they're old enough, maybe they can just drive themselves, but even then you still have to pay for gas.
So it does cost something to get to whatever venue the dance is at. And that's what I'm talking about when I say that if you have a student who is from a family that doesn't have a lot of money, who maybe is from a poor family, they really can't afford that.
If you are a female and you're trying to go to prom, you're looking at maybe 200, 300, $400, that's a lot of money.
That's a lot of money for me, and I'm an adult who works.
I can't imagine if I was from a family who didn't have a lot of money.
There's just no way I would be able to afford that.
There's no chance. When it comes to TV shows and movies, we've already talked about some of the things that are true about how they represent these high school dances.
One thing that I think is definitely true is the parents taking pictures.
If you have a date that you're going with and you go and pick up the date from her house, they always have the parents in the TV shows and movies, like, taking pictures of the couple when they're together.
You probably have seen this if you've seen a TV show or movie about high school, and that's definitely true.
So we talked about the pictures before you go when you're at your parents house and you're getting ready or your date is picking you up.
But the other one is when you are actually at the venue, the schools almost always have a professional photographer and everyone has these photos.
Every person I know has prom photos.
It's so common in the United States that people will have these photos from their high school years.
So there are a few poses that are very standardized where no matter where you are in the country, no matter who your photographer is, they have you stand in the same positions and they have very very similar backdrops and they just have a very similar look to them.
My friends and I took pictures, my boyfriend and I took pictures, that was very common to do and that's definitely something that my students do now.
Something else that is common is having teachers there.
Teachers chaperone these events so in TV shows and movies when they show the teachers standing around, that's true.
Personally I do not supervise the dances.
I do not want to go to prom or homecoming or anything.
That is my personal preference.
But I do know some of the teachers who like going.
And the reason that I don't like to go is because these dances can get a little bit crazy.
What I mean by that is you might have seen in TV shows and movies some representation of these students maybe drinking and partying before they go to their dance.
And that is definitely true.
That definitely occurs.
Now high schools do the best that they can to prevent that from happening.
But teenagers sometimes just want to party, want to drink alcohol and that can occur.
One thing that I will say that they don't tend to show is that at these dances they will have security guards.
So students get searched before they go in to the venue they search for any alcohol or drugs because sometimes students will bring them in and they also check to see if students have already been drinking.
If they do something like that they are not allowed to the venue.
I don't think they even get refunded the cost of their ticket.
They just get the ticket taken and they're not allowed to go in.
So it really ruins their night.
That definitely happens.
So schools try their best that they can to prevent any type of craziness, but it definitely can happen.
I'm sure there are students who got away with it, who didn't get found out, even though they were doing something before the dance that they shouldn't have been doing.
The other thing I mean, when I talk about it getting crazy, is that students dance in a risque way.
It gets a little risque.
What risque means is a little bit adult, a little bit sexual, maybe not appropriate for children.
That's what risque means and that definitely can happen.
So at the school that I used to teach at, one of my coworkers had to be a supervisor at prom And she was going around with a flashlight, checking everywhere in the venue to make sure no students snuck off somewhere.
And she came upon a closet that had two students in the closet, with the door closed.
I think you can assume what was happening.
And I don't need that.
So that's something I think that's usually not shown by Hollywood.
And I think also in TV shows and movies, like, the prom can be very calm.
You can hear characters talking to each other, people are just dancing normally.
I would say that's one of the things that hollywood doesn't get 100 % right.
The dance floor is usually very loud.
It is packed with students, at least at the high schools that I have taught at and the videos I've seen of it, there's a lot of people on the dance floor.
There's very loud, loud music.
There's no way people are just talking and having regular conversation at prom because it is a huge party.
So those are some things that I would say are not so accurate when it comes to Hollywood but of course it makes sense if they really play the music as loud as it is at these school dances.
They wouldn't be able to have characters talk to each other on screen and the entire point is the characters interacting with each other.
So it makes sense that that part isn't a hundred percent accurate.
If you are interested in watching some tv shows and movies that have dance scenes that have these high school dances.
I'm going to give you some recommendations.
I already mentioned Gilmore Girls, Mean Girls, and Carrie.
Those are all some that you can check out if you are interested.
On Netflix more recently, there was Wednesday and I know that's not really a traditional high school but it still has that school dance scene.
The TV show Glee also had episodes, actually multiple episodes, where they had different school dances.
Also the TV show Euphoria had an about a winter formal.
Boy Meets World is an older show from the 90s but it also had some dancing so that one I would say is a lot more innocent than Euphoria for example.
For movies probably one of the most famous dance scenes is from Back to the Future.
The ending of that movie really focuses on a high school dance and the character Marty and his parents.
Twilight from 2008 also has a high school dancing, but it's probably not a hundred percent accurate for high school dances.
It is in there though.
If you like the Twilight movies, you might know what I'm talking about and if you want to check it out, of course you can.
From movies from the nineties, there's She's All That, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Never Been Kissed.
And then from the 80s, there is Pretty In Pink and Footloose.
Those have prom scenes as well so you can look at those.
Those are probably the oldest movies I have on this recommendation list. But if you're interested, you can check those ones out as well.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
I hope you learned something about high school dances.
If there is a similar culture in your country, of course, please leave a comment.
Tell me how it is the same, tell me how it's different.
or just tell me how you enjoyed this episode.
I really tried to cover a lot of vocabulary.
So just a reminder to check out the vocabulary list of this episode there, you will find the list of words and phrases that I used in the episode.
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