Humanising Language Teaching
Year 2; Issue 1; January 2000

Excuse Notes Parents send to Teachers

ETAI Newsletter Vol VI No 3 carries some hilarious notes that parents have written to teachers, asking for their offspring to be let off this or that. ( It seems that in Israel there are parents who write their excuse notes in English, rather than Hebrew.)

My son is under the doctor's care and should not take P.E. to day. Please execute him.

Dear School, Please Eckuse John being absent on Jan 28, 29,30,31, 32 and also 33.

Please excuse Gloria from Jim today. She is administrating.

Please excuse Roland from P.E. for a few days. Yesterday he fell out of a tree and misplaced his hip.

John was absent yesterday because he had two teeth taken off his face.

Carlos was absent yesterday because he was playing football. He was hurt in the growing part.

Mary could not come to school because she has been bothered by very close veins.

Please excuse Ray Friday from school. He has very loose vowels.

If you have an upper intermediate class give them these sentences to read and laugh with. You can then do some memorable contrastive vocab teaching: