DAILY ACTIVITIES

Daily routine

There are some phrases that are useful to learn English in order to explain your daily activities to another person. In order to introduce these phrases, let me take you through a typical day in my life:

I wake up at 6 o’clock. I get up at 6.50. I make a cup of tea and iron my clothes. I take a bath and get dressed. I usually wear long pants, uniform or a batik blouse and boots or plastic shoes in rainy season, or a skirt, batik blouse and sport shoes in dry season. I brush my hair, put on my make-up and hijab. I pack my bag with all my teaching materials. I then put on my coat or raincoat and leave the house by my motorbike. It takes about 10 minutes to get to my destination 7 km away. But I always leave before half past 6 to take my daughter to school. It takes about 5 minutes to get to her school. I have to sign in and joint the morning briefing . Class starts at 7.00 and ends at 15.10

I have lunch at 12. I eat a nasi soto or sego rames at the school café. But, sometimes we order Go-food or simply bring food from home. I don’t teach continuously, sometimes I have only one or two classes a day. I usually prepare teaching material or finish correcting students’ assignments. Although students finish the class at 15.10, teachers and other employees finish the work time at 15.30 on Monday to Thursday and 16.00 every Friday due to longer break time for Jum’at Praying. I arrive home about 16.00 to 16.30 and prepare for cooking dinner.

Every Monday and Thursday, my daughter has additional class after school. She also  joins basketball extracurricular every Tuesday and Friday. My son is still in 5^th grade of elementary school. He finishes his school at 13.45 and usually arrives home at 14.00 -14.15. My husband often stays at home after picking up my son, but sometimes he goes to his office again. He has his own business, so nobody will get mad at him if he doesn’t appear at his office.

Then after we have dinner, I help my children with their homework, while doing the laundry. Sometimes I go on Facebook, read novels or online stories or watch TV until about 09.00. I also make sure my children do Isya’ prayer and brush their teeth before go to bed.

So there you have a typical day. There are lots of different types of English constructions used in describing a day, including many phrasal verbs like: ‘tidy up’, ‘wash up’, and ‘get up’. There are also lots of sentences with supporting verbs such as: “I have lunch”, or “I get dressed”, rather than “I lunch”. Notice the range of ways of saying the time too. See if you can describe your day using the same language forms. 

1. Pay attention to the simple present used in the above text. 

2. The adverb of time used: usually, often, always, never, seldom, rarely, every...(everyday, every Sunday, etc)