Interviews

High-intermediate

What are some common reasons why students don’t complete their homework? Which ones are valid, and which seem to be excuses?

1. Most students give excuses because they didn’t plan well.
2. Teachers can usually tell when an excuse isn’t true.
3. Technology problems are often used as excuses.
4. Personal issues are a valid reason for missing class.
5. Some students give excuses even when they don’t need to.
6. A good excuse should still lead to consequences.
7. Students should always be honest, even if the truth sounds bad.
8. Some teachers are too strict about excuses.
9. Late work with a good excuse should still get full credit.
10. Making excuses is a part of learning responsibility.

Here are some words and expressions that appear in the video:

salvage (verb): rescue or save
– I need to complete these assignments to salvage my grade. I don’t want to fail.

crisis (noun): a difficult or dangerous situation
– Some students are facing a financial crisis because they don’t have sufficient resources to pay for school.

called into work (verb phrase): be asked to work on your day off
– Several people were called into work because other employees called in sick.

Now, watch the interview and answer the comprehension questions. You can also turn on the automatically-generated captions for the video once you start it.

Randall: In this video, Aubrey, let’s talk about great excuses and terrible excuses that you could give a teacher for not doing your homework. What would they be?

Aubrey: Yeah, like I was a student until recently. So I’ve definitely, you know, had my share of excuses. Right? You know, you’ve got terrible excuses, like where you tell them that you were sick. And then on social media, you posted that you were at a party, which is just silly because it’s easy to find out that that’s what happened. There’s the old my dog ate my homework excuse, which my dog ate my homework one time and I brought in what I was able to salvage of my homework. And the teacher thought it was hilarious ’cause the dog ate the right half of my homework and I taped the left half together and was like, this is all I have. I’m so sorry.

Randall: You were able to salvage at least part of it.

Aubrey: At least part of it. You can’t see any of the answers on the worksheet ’cause you only get a few of the words. But yes.

Randall: And what about good excuses? You have a particular excuse you give to the teacher and you’re hoping they will understand your particular circumstances.

Aubrey: Yeah. So, I mean, good ones would be like, you know, you got in a car accident, you had, you know, some kind of personal crisis. Um, maybe you had you ended up having to get called into work. Um, you know, it really depends on the circumstances.

Randall: Well, good. Well, thank you for sharing that. I think those are good things to keep in mind.

Discuss times in the past when you didn’t do or complete your homework. What were the circumstances, and how did things turn out for you?

The following activities deal with related topics to give you additional language practice.

• Student Excuses – Emily