Unit in the yard

UNIT 2. At school
S chool Life is the best time of our life as we make new friends, learn new things and build our career there. School time is the only time which we enjoy most, and when we enter college, we always miss our school life. School life teaches us lots of new things and prepares us to face all the challenges of life. I love my school life and really enjoy it. I have lots of friends, and all my teachers love me. I love my school and enjoy going there every day to meet my friends and learn new things. 
Everyone keeps on saying that school life is the best time of your life. When listening to these phrases from their elders, the school students think about what is good about this life. All we do in the entire day is to attend the classes and to do the homework. But once school life gets over, the students realise that school life was the best time of their life.
Apart from learning great things in school, you make new friends, play different sports and create memories for the rest of your life. The students also learn many life skills like teamwork, good manners, etc., and understand what they want to become in their life.
About My School and School Life
I study in the reputed private school in my city, and I am glad to be a student of this school. My school is one of the most renowned schools in my town. It is very beautiful and huge. My school has all the facilities for sports, study and other activities. Built-in a three-storey building, it is a Co-Ed and Senior Secondary School having Science, Arts and Commerce stream. The atmosphere at my school is delightful. We have a huge playing ground where we all students play different games like Badminton, Basketball, Cricket, etc. We have a separate Basketball and Tennis court, as well as a small and beautiful garden for kids.
The students practice these sports every day. The school also has a big swimming pool and sports area for indoor games. In this area, the students can play Table Tennis and Chess. There is also a big skating rink. Different physical training teachers train us for all these sports. These sports not only keep us fit but also increase our stamina and coordination.
School life is not just limited to studies and sports. There are also other activity rooms such as the music room, art room, and dance room. The Art room is a big hall with lots of colourful charts and various types of paints. The students can portray their imagination and can create beautiful art here. Dance and music are also very important in school life as they help the students express themselves in a new manner. The different movements in dance help the students in unwinding themselves.
My school has a big library where we all read different kinds of books, novels and comics. Apart from the library, my school has well-equipped scientific labs where we all practise various experiments of Chemistry, Physics and Biology. I have learned a lot of things in these labs. My school also has a big computer lab with trained technical staff that help us to learn everything about computers. I love playing on the computer and learning new things in the computer lab. In the computer lab, the students learn about using MS Word and PowerPoint. The computer lab is also called the ICT lab. The ICT teacher teaches the students about the internet and how to use it safely.
All the staff at my school are very polite, educated and experienced. Our teachers not only teach us but also prepare us for various competitions, and every year, my school wins many prizes in various competitions. I have even represented my school in a hockey championship and scored the second position.
The classrooms are big and decorated beautifully with different artwork done by the students. Various projects and models are kept in the classroom for the students to keep on revising their concepts. The teachers use smartboards, and every day a new word is taught to enhance the students’ vocabulary. Every day one student presents the ‘Thought for the Day’. These positive thoughts keep us motivated.
All the teachers at my school are very dedicated and punctual. They always teach us discipline and ask us to come to school on time. Our teachers love us, and they teach us in a very simple and easy way. Whenever we fail to understand anything, they try to make us understand it again without shouting at us. They give equal attention to all the students, and that is why my school has an excellent academic record. 
The teachers are well qualified. They use different techniques to teach us the concepts. The atmosphere in the school is fun-filled and fruitful at the same time. The school’s entire staff, from the security guard to the teachers, is very helpful and polite.
We learn many life skills also in school. Discipline, hard work, and punctuality are some of them. During sports classes, we learn teamwork and work together to win.
The best part of my school is its auditorium where all the school events and competitions take place. Our school auditorium is one of the best auditoriums in the town with a great sound and light facility. It is fully air-conditioned with lots of seats. Every year, my school organises an annual cultural festival which lasts for two days. Many cultural events take place within these two days like singing, dancing, debate competition, etc. I love to participate in a poem writing competition every year, and many times I have won prizes as well. Every year, the toppers of our school get awarded on this annual cultural day and we all students love to participate in various events of the annual cultural day.
We also have school assemblies in our Auditorium. Sometimes the students from other schools come and participate in the different competitions organised in our schools. These events are called inter-school competitions. These events are very good as we get to learn new things from other students and make many new friends.
Grammar
The use of pronouns, especially they, can be problematic for learners whose native language has different forms for they (a masculine form, a feminine form, a neutral form) or for languages who do not always require a subject pronoun for a verb. In the case of your Brazilian learners, whose first language will be Portuguese, there is a bit of both things going on. What follows is a full grammatical explanation of they and them (and all their contexts of use) followed by some teaching tips.
They and them are both pronouns, that is words which are used in place of nouns or noun groups. They and them are always used in place of plural nouns or noun groups in the third person. However the fundamental difference between the two in grammatical terms, is that they is a subject pronoun, and them is an object pronoun.

1) They
They is used to refer to the subject of a clause. 
In other words, it usually represents the ‘doers’ of the action described by the verb, and usually refers back to two or more people or things that were mentioned earlier:
The children were kind. They gave me a present.
Jan and Tom aren’t coming. They said they couldn’t make it.

Note that grammatical subjects aren’t always ‘doers’ of an action, but as a rule of thumb, the subject occurs at the beginning of a sentence, so this is the typical position of they:
Those cakes are delicious. They were made by my grandma.
They is sometimes used at the beginning of sentences to refer to people in general or to refer to a group of people who are unknown or whose identity does not need to be stated:
They say that it will take several months to recover.
They’ve given Pablo another pay rise.
They is also sometimes used instead of the pronouns he or she to refer to non-binary people or an individual person whose gender is not known or mentioned (see Teaching Tips for further information). This pronoun takes a plural verb, despite their singular referent:
One of the teachers was supposed to be coming, but they were ill.

2) Them
Them is used to refer to the object of a clause. In other words, it usually represents the group of people or things that have ‘experienced’ the action described by the verb, and refers back to two or more people or things that were mentioned earlier:
I’ve bought some apples. I’ll put them on the table.
Them can be used as both a direct object pronoun as shown in the example above or an indirect object pronoun. An indirect object refers to a third participant in the action described by the verb, often someone who receives something as a result of it. eg:
The kids were really excited. Jack gave them presents.
In the second sentence above, them is the indirect object and presents is the direct object. Like other indirect objects, them can be introduced by a preposition and placed after a direct object, e.g.:
Jack gave presents to them.

Them is also sometimes used instead of the object pronouns him or her to refer to an individual person whose sex is not known or mentioned:
If someone phones, tell them I’m not here.
3) Teaching tips
They/them = singular?
This is the most complicated use of they and them, as in If someone phones, tell them I’m not here, and one which was considered incorrect not so long ago. This is an example of language change. Michael Swan wrote in English Teaching Professional that ‘oral media have done much to rehabilitate the grammar of speech, and this is influencing written norms’. The use of them / them / their for a singular reference, he goes on to say, ‘has existed in informal speech for centuries (and) is becoming increasingly acceptable in more formal styles’. The use of they / them for a singular reference is also an example of a societal change. They and them are seen as gender neutral and are used by some non-binary or gender queer people. You should decide if your Elementary students will find this information helpful or not, but it’s definitely worth pointing out this use of they to Intermediate or higher students.
4) Working on pronouns
One way of making students notice how different pronouns work in English would be to use a text in which several pronouns occur. Ask the students to underline the pronouns and discuss who or what each one refers to. Aside from raising awareness of pronoun use, it’s worth noting that this kind of exercise occurs in exams like the TOEFL (in the reading section), and therefore would be useful for students who are thinking about taking that exam or a similar one.
A good follow up to an exercise like that would be to give the students the same text but with some of the key pronouns (including a fair mix of he / she and they) removed. The students then try to put them back in.
You could also make your own worksheet to practise this. Choose two well-known people for your students, a man and a woman. Make sure they have something in common. Write some sentences that can only refer to the man, some that can only refer to the woman and some that can refer to both. Here are examples for two internationally famous Brazilians, the football player Ronaldinho and Gisele Bundchen.