English for Parents: Speak with Your Child’s Teacher | Vocabulary, Questions, Tips

Do you feel nervous when speaking or writing to your child’s teacher? In this special English lesson, I’ll give you tips, vocabulary, expressions, sentences, and questions you can use in a parent-teacher meeting, or in other situations where you’re interacting with your child’s teacher. You’ll learn what to say and how to understand the teacher more easily. We’ll review common phrasal verbs to describe academic performance, such as: “to keep up“, “fall behind“, “clam up“, “tense up“, “cope with“, “catch on“, and more. I know you love your children and want the best for them. I’m happy to help and make your lives in a new country more successful. Keep improving your English with my course: More videos like this one: Polite English: Ask Better Questions (and get better results) 8 English Idioms Hiding in Questions In this lesson: 0:00 English for Parents: Talking with Teachers 0:35 Talk to your child 1:19 Prepare questions for the teacher 2:08 Share your concerns 2:44 Sentences parents can use 4:57 Phrasal Verbs for Parents 6:24 keep up 7:08 fall behind 7:34 call on 7:55 clam up 8:09 tense up 8:47 catch on 9:01 sink in 9:31 cope with 10:03 left out 10:43 join in 10:57 Phrasal Verb Review TRANSCRIPT Hi, I’m Rebecca from engVid, and welcome to this lesson on English for Parents. In this more practically-oriented video, I’m going to explain to you some of the things that you could keep in mind when you’re preparing for a parent-teacher interview, okay? Or a parent-teacher conference. These are some tips that will help you to prepare before you go and while you’re there, and also to understand the teacher more easily when he or she starts to explain about what’s going on with your child, okay? So let’s get started. So first of all, before you go, talk to your child, okay? Depending on your relationship with your child, maybe your son or daughter tells you a lot about what’s going on in school, and maybe not. And also understand, of course, that school is much more than just the academic subjects; it’s also the social environment, and so on. All of this matters, so try to get as much information from your child about how he or she is feeling in school, if they’re having any special difficulties, if they’re having a hard time, if anybody’s bothering them, is anything going on, okay? As much as possible, it will help you to participate more fully in that conference, okay? Next, prepare some questions in advance. And why should you do that? Because maybe there are some words, some vocabulary that you’re not familiar with in English, but if you think of your questions in advance, you have enough time to look it up online, find the translation, and then you’ll have the words that you need to ask the teacher some questions. Maybe you don’t have the exact grammar, but at least if you’ve used the right vocabulary or the right words, then the teacher will understand what you’re trying to ask about, okay? So do that. It will help you, it’ll help you feel more confident, and it’ll help the teacher to know that you’re really trying and caring, even if your English isn’t perfect, but you really care about your child enough to want to participate fully, okay? Next, also, in most English-speaking schools, you are expected to share your concerns, okay? Teachers appreciate it when you share your concerns. It’s not only what the teacher is going to tell you about your child, it’s also what you can share with the teacher about your child, okay? So be a little more open, share any worries or concerns about how they’re doing, okay? How’s Johnny doing in math, or how’s Susan doing in gym? You know, she’s having a hard time this year. Feel free to share those concerns, okay? Now, here are some actual sentences and questions that you might want to use during your conference, okay? So, first of all, be very open, and friendly, and polite to the teacher. It’s always good and diplomatic to start off with a thank you. You know, thank you very much for helping Johnny. I really appreciate it. Johnny really likes your class, he feels so comfortable in your class, he enjoys being in your class, something like that. And thank you so much for helping him, I really appreciate it, okay? You can use this sentence again and again in all kinds of situations. I really appreciate it. I really appreciate your helping Johnny. I really appreciate everything you’re doing to help Johnny. It means so much to us. Thank you so much, okay? Be sincere, that sincerity comes through, doesn’t matter what, especially when we’re talking about our children, right? Okay. Next. If you don’t understand something that the teacher is saying or said, you just ask politely. Could you please repeat that? I’m sorry, I didn’t... I didn’t understand or I don’t understand what that means. […]