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Tapescript 1 (p.22)
Dear Lilly,
I haven't received your letter yet, but I've decided to write just a few words to you.
We went back to school on Monday. I like school when I do well and get good marks, but I hate it when the lessons are boring. I also don't like it when the other students distract me from working. What do you think of school?
I got into trouble yesterday because I was late for school. Dad couldn't start the car and I was half an hour late. My class teacher got really angry at me. I think she should have been angry at my dad! How do you get to school? Are you ever late?
This is a picture of me in my school uniform. I really hate it. What do you wear to school? Do you wear a uniform? What's it like?
Please, write soon and tell me about your school. I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
Love,
Amelia Jones
Tapescript 2 (p.34)
Dear Fred,
How are you? Thank you for your letter. You want to know about school in England. Let me tell you. My school is open all day. Well, school starts at 9 o'clock when we all have to come together in the school hall for Assembly. At Registration our Form Teacher makes sure that everyone is there. We have Morning Registration at 9:15 and Afternoon Registration at 2 o'clock.
Each teacher has her own classroom that she always teaches in. Some of the rooms look very interesting. We don't get much homework. We usually get homework in 2 subjects each day. We only have real tests at the end of the school year, in June. Then we do tests in every subject. This is not bad, really. In History you usually get 15 or 20 questions and you only have to answer 2 or 3 of them. But in some subjects, like Maths and Physics, there is usually one important question that everyone has to answer.
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I'm in the school swimming team. There are competitions in all the other important sports.
Are things very different at your school?
Best wishes,
Bob
Tapescript 3 (p.48)
Alan Alexander Milne was born in London in 1882. At the age of 11 he won a scholarship to the Westminster School. Then he went to Cambridge University and became an editor of the university paper.
By 1906 he had worked as an editor at Punch, a classic British humour magazine.
When World War I started, he joined the army and served in France. Here he wrote his first play, which was produced in London in 1917.
By 1919 Milne completed one book and several plays. Some of his plays were staged in London and one of them even in New York City. Milne became well-known as a popular London playwright. In 1920 his son Christopher Robin Milne was born. It was the event that changed the history of children's literature. In 1923 Milne began to work on a collection of poems for children. The result was When We Were Very Young, published in 1924.
In 1926 he added to his success with the publication of Winnie-the-Pooh. Milne was always saying that it was his wife and his young son, who inspired him to write the poems and stories for children.
Sometimes it seemed to Milne that he should write something more important, like a detective story. In fact, in 1922 he wrote a detective novel, The Red House Mystery, as well as many novels, essays, short stories and poems. He wrote over 25 plays and his autobiography It's Too Late Now, published in 1939.
When he died, 30 years later, there was already no doubt that Alan Milne achieved the world-wide popularity not as he wished due to his plays and novels, but to the adventures of Winnie-the-
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