Balou Breaks Away

Balou is a Teddy Bear. He is forty years old. He has twelve children and twenty-four grandchildren. He has thirty-seven mouths to feed. He lives in the jungle with his family and he is very poor. He doesn’t have any money and he doesn’t have a job. His children and his grandchildren are hungry.

Balou goes to Sao Paulo to find work. He gets a job in a toy shop and he works very hard. He wants to buy food for his children. But his boss is not honest and he doesn’t pay Balou. Balou is angry, so he leaves the toy shop.

He sees Bill Gates. He asks Bill Gates to give him $2,167 dollars. Bill Gates turns his head and looks the other way.

In desperation, Balou roams the city. He sees an old grey Volkswagon and steals it. He goes into a bank with a gun. He steals 987 dollars. He tries to escape, but he doesn’t get far in his old car. The police gather round him.

Balou cries.

The End

One of my students, a muscular rugby player, told us that he has a teddy bear that is 40 years old which he inherited from a cousin. So we made him the hero of a story. Much of the vocabulary in the story is found in Elvis Presley's "In The Ghetto".

The Strike

Yes, I am on strike. I am on strike because it seems to be the only way I can protest the government's action in education. Where other governments are attacking the economic crisis by investing in education with more and better paid teachers, France is reducing the number of teachers, policemen and hospital personnel. Five years ago in our lycée we arranged for all the English classes in "seconde" to be taught in small groups. Students got more attention from their teachers and more opprotunities to practice and progressed. But year after year the number of hours diminished and the program could not be continued. Is it honest to call reducing the numbers of teachers and increasing the numbers of students a "reform"?

My name is Jeff, Jeff Bond.

I'm forty-two years old. I live in London. My unique childhood memory is when one morning when I went to my high school, I saw nobody. Finding this strange, I went to look in the classrooms to see if there was somebody. In the room, I saw students held hostage by a man wearing a cowl and carrying a gun. It was in this way I discovered that the high school had been taken hostage by gangsters. I learnt that the leader of the band was in the staff room because one gangster who called him told him that he controlled the first floor. By learning it, I skipped into the air duct which goes to the staff room. The exit of the air duct was above the leader of the band. I opened the ventilation cover and I jumped on him from above, knocking him out. With his talky-walky I told all the gangsters to come to the staff room. When all the band was in the staff room, I locked the door and I called the police. This is how I saved my high school from the gangsters.

Student's Stories