Hi everyone, my name's Emma and this video is going to be some more advanced listening
practice.
If you're practising for the FCE, the CAE, maybe IELTS, then this should be useful, I
hope!
Basically, what I'm going to do is talk completely unscripted about a topic.
I do have a couple of notes just to keep me on track then I don't go off on a tangent,
but it's gonna be, as I said, completely unscripted besides just a couple of notes that I've got
here.
[INTRO] The listening task itself should last no more than five minutes, I'm gonna keep
it short, and then at the end I'm gonna do a listening comprehension quiz then you can
test to see how much you've understood.
So, let's get started with the listening practice.
So the topic of this recording is gonna be about the British Education system, particularly
the one in the UK... the one in England, sorry.
Depending on where you're from in the UK, whether you're from Wales or Scotland or from
England or Northern Ireland, the Education System changes very slightly, so I'm just
gonna focus on the one in England cause that's the one I know more about.
I grew up in the North of England.
I grew up near a city called York, in Yorkshire.
No, I don't have a particularly strong Yorkshire accent, it's quite weakened now.
But when I was very young, my mum chose to not send me to playgroup.
Now, playgroup is where typically preschool children go, normally with their parents,
you engage in some activities, you play games mostly, and it's completely optional in the
UK, you do not have to go to playgroup.
And my mum, really loved me, and she didn't want me to go to playgroup, she wanted me
to stay home, I don't know why, maybe just as company cause she... she loved me, I was
her new little bundle of joy, and she didn't want me to go.
However, at the age of five I went to primary school.
Typically in the UK, primary school lasts from the age of five til about eleven or twelve
years old.
Typically the schools are quite small in England, primary schools are quite small.
I remember I had a class of, well, in my school it was a little bit different, I actually
went to two private...
er... two not private schools, I went to two primary schools.
My first primary school was quite small, the second one, however, was a lot bigger.
So, I... yeah...
I remember being in a class of about thirty other children, while the first primary school
it was maybe about twenty/twenty-five, but I do know people who have had smaller classes,
and some with even larger classes.
So, that's primary school.
However, once you hit about twelve years old more or less, twelve or eleven, depends on
how old you are, when your birthday is, you then go onto secondary school.
Now secondary school is typically a lot bigger, and it's where you start preparing for your
GCSEs.
Now your GCSEs are the exams that you take when you're about sixteen years old.
You typically take them during the summer so it's always super super hot when you take,
well, hot for us anyway.
It's always quite hot when you take them in the summer and this basically determines the
kind of university you'll be going to and the future if you choose to go to university,
that is.
So, when I was in school, I chose BTEC Art for my... for one of my subjects, and I also
chose Drama Studies.
Now I really liked these two subjects, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life so
I just chose these two, hoping that they would get me far in life [laughs], and I guess,
you know, my creative side does come out every so often.
But I remember, you know, taking my exams and they were quite difficult.
They were really hard.
And I took them when I was sixteen.
I never really wanted to continue and go on to college.
Now don't confuse this with college in America, which would be university in the UK.
College you go to between the age of sixteen and eighteen or sixteen and nineteen, depending
on the kind of course that you're doing, and you would choose... mmm... four subjects in
your first year.
So these would be your AS levels.
I chose English Literature, English Language, Media Studies, and Art.
And I chose Media Studies over Drama because unfortunately there was a clash in the timetable,
so I wasn't able to continue with Drama, but I still enjoyed Media Studies, it helped me
quite a lot, opened my eyes to "the media".
I was quite interested in that.
And then after the first year, when you've finished your AS exams, you can drop one of
the classes, so I decided to drop English Literature because I wasn't really that into
literature.
I enjoyed reading but I didn't enjoy analysing the books and kind of going into the stories
any deeper than just reading them for pleasure, for enjoyment.
So, I decided to drop that.
In the end I didn't do too badly on my A level exams.
I remember, my best grade was actually, I think it was English Language, I got a B.
But the others were not too good.
But still they were okay enough to get me into university.
I just wasn't a very good student back then.
I was maybe a little bit lazy or I didn't quite know where I wanted to go in life so
it was a confusing period.
Now, my story is a little bit different because I didn't go straight on to university, but
I'm gonna skip that little part of my life story and jump straight to when I went to
university.
So, typically people between, well, I was gonna say between the ages of, but anyone
can go to university in the UK, so long as you've got the grades to go.
Typically you need A levels to go.
So, I studied English Language and Linguistics.
I studied that for three years.
During my second year I went abroad to Spain and that was pretty much it [laughs].
Nothing much more to say about that.
Universities also depend, erm universities also change a little bit, like the course
structure changes depending on the kind of university you want to go to, so my university
focused more on coursework, while other universities focus more on exams.
So, it completely depends on where you go, the subject that you're doing, that kind of
thing, as to whether you do more exams or more coursework.
Let me see what else.
I think that's pretty much it, you know, once you finish your degree you can then go on
to do a masters, you can then go on to do a PhD, etc., and that's something I'm thinking
about doing in the future, but I'm not too sure yet.
I do have a masters degree which I finished in 2018, and erm... well I graduated in 2018
but I finished in 2017, so I am thinking about doing a PhD in the future, it just depends
cause typically PhDs are quite expensive in the UK, so [blows raspberry] I'll have to
see how that one goes.
Now what I'm gonna do is give you a little quiz.
I'm also gonna leave a worksheet down in the comments which you can have a look at, you
can download, and you can check your comprehension, see how you did.
Now, I was speaking at a completely normal pace, well, completely normal for me anyway.
So, if you weren't able to understand then don't worry I have fully subtitled this video.
So, go back, watch it with the subtitles in case you missed anything and download the
notes and the comprehension questions and check to see how you did.
[shows quiz - download the full quiz in the description].
Why not tell me a little bit about your education system in your country as well.
Tell me down in the comments what it was like growing up in your country.
Is the education system different in your country as well to the UK.
Let me know, I'm interested to see if it's the same.
Don't forget to like and subscribe, and if you enjoy this, don't worry there'll be more
videos in the future every single week.
You can also follow me on Facebook and Instagram where I post videos and speaking practice
activities to help you improve your British English pronunciation and listening skills.