My disappointment in school

During the holidays, I checked my marks at school on the website. I had a homework to do in English about the "Myths and Heroes", it was a 5 minute recording of myself when I had to speak about what we studied in class. It was the first time I had something to do and to give back to the teacher DURING the holidays. I did it and sent it to him a little bit early. I was proud of myself because I had prepared the script and I had used the best accent I could have, even if it wasn't so "English".

So, I saw my mark and it was 14.5 out of 20. I was a little bit disappointed but I said "okay, let's go on, I'll do something better next time".

However, there were two other marks, one about an oral comprehension and the other about my participation in class.

Firstly, the oral comprehension. It was about James Bond! For practice, we saw a video about him and Ian Fleming but this time, we had to understand part two of the documentary by ourselves  (shown in the videos). I found it hard because a man spoke about a gun in the video, it was the major part of it but I don't know anything about the gun vocabulary! However, I thought I had understood a big part of it, with some interesting details. I had 16.5 out of 20, a good mark for me, because the system for comprehension correction is strict.

Now, my real disappointment is about my oral participation in class. The teacher explained the system at the beginning of the year, to have the best mark, we have to have 6 "sticks" (ticks?) per lesson. To have a stick, you have to speak : a sentence is 2 sticks but with two verbs it is 3. Thus, we just have to speak twice during the hour to have the 6 sticks. I did it everytime! The problem is that it's the students who put the sticks on the paper. Once, I'm almost sure, the student didn't know my name, so I think he didn't put the sticks I should have. I really wanted 20 for my participation because I did what the teacher wanted to but I only had 16.5! I would like some explanations because I spoke enough everytime to have the 6 sticks. That's why I hate the oral participation, it's always like that!

But I wanted to be precise, I know it's only marks, it doesn't really matter about my work or something like that. I know it but then, if I make all this effort for nothing, it's useless so I should keep my energy to do other things for other subjects!

Thank you for reading this, And thanks a lot if you correct it ! :)

Hello Lea,

This was quite a long writing but I was able to follow it all - I can understand your frustration at trying so hard and not getting the marks you expect. I have reordered 2 phrases to make them better and the last one the collocation is to 'make an effort'. Just a few other mistakes which I think you will understand when you look at them.

Hope this helps

Bob