IELTS Speaking for Success - ⛔️ Rules (Part 1) + Transcript

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

2026 New Year Sale: https://successwithielts.com/sale Do you prefer to have more or fewer rules at school? Have you ever had a really strict teacher? Do you think students would benefit more from more rules? Are there any rules for students at your school? Tune in and have a great day! - Book a class with Rory here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://successwithielts.com/rory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Our course on Phrasal Verbs: https://successwithielts.com/podcourses Transcript: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://successwithielts.com/s13e06 Find an IELTS Speaking Partner: https://links.successwithielts.com/ieltspartner Our social media: https://linktr.ee/successwithielts © 2025 Podcourses Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, Sunshine. I'm Maria. My name is Rory and we're the host of the IEL Speaking for Success podcast. The podcast dreams to help you improve your speaking skills as well as your listening skills along the way. We started this podcast to give you gorgeous grammar and fabulous vocabulary for your higher school. Your bad night score. Oh, Rorino, I think next year we'll have much more listeners. Oh wow, Maria, it's many. Not much. People are countable. Many more are based on a strange way.

It is a rule. Shall we talk about rules? Yay, let's talk about rules. Rules, dear listener. Did you prefer to have more or fewer rules at school? I think like most kids, I'd have preferred to have fewer to follow. It was hard to keep track of all the different policies and procedures they came out with. I mean, even the teachers couldn't keep up. Have you ever had a really strict teacher?

I think all of them came down pretty hard on their classes, and given that there were 27 of us per class, there wasn't any other way to do it. They always had to be on our cases, or there would have been anarchy. Do you like following the rules? Well, I think I like them now more than I did in the past, since I can understand the ends and outs of things related to them, but I really only stick to the ones that make sense.

There are some that are almost completely nonsensical. Were there any rules for students at your score? Oh, loads. Like I said, we were basically buried under paperwork for them. And I think students continued to be, well, buried under them to this day, sadly. Will you follow more rules in the future? I mean, I certainly hope not. It's bad enough that there are a million guidelines and procedures for everything,

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So, dear listener, rules. Yeah, here we talk about rules at school, at work. just following the rules but usually about studies so when you were a student at school or if you go to school now so what rules do you have there or maybe university

university rules we say follow the rules and also we say more rules or fewer rules so careful we don't say less rules less people no no no fewer people in real life even educated

Native speakers say less rules, less people, but in the exam it's grammatical incorrect. So we still follow the traditional rules of grammar. So fewer rules. Less money, less energy, but fewer. People fewer rules. And you can say, I'd prefer fewer rules to follow. Or I'd have preferred. Ooh, what is that? I would have preferred. It's Ben 9. Perfect aspect. Yeah, because like when I was at school, I had many rules to follow, but I would have preferred, because we're talking about the past, which is over.

It was hard to keep track of different policies. So at school we have different rules, regulations and policies, not politics, but policies. So it was difficult to remember all the things. policies or to keep track of different policies and procedures, dear listener. The role could even as an example of a school policy. Oh, I don't know. Don't bully other students, for example, or what happens when you misbehave in class or you're rude? Yeah, usually it's about like guidelines, is in other word, about safety, about learning, anti-bullying behavior. Yeah, like, don't

beats other people. And you can say that we had a lot of policies and procedures, so it was difficult to keep up. To keep up, like to remember everything, to be up to date with different rules. So we have synonyms already, Deleisna. Policies, procedures, regulations, guidelines. All of them we have to follow and keep up with.

If you follow the rules, you obey them, If you keep up with them, then you understand what is current and what is not. And if you don't follow the rules, you break the rules. Some questions could be about teachers, like a strict teacher usually follows all the rules. And you can say, I've never had any strict teachers or I had a couple of strict teachers. And Rory used a phrase or verb. So some of them came down pretty. hard on their students. Roy, what did you mean?

Oh, that just means that they enforced the rules very harshly. These teachers insisted that everyone should follow the rules and, for example, students had to be on time all the time. Yeah, so you said like enforce a rule. We can also say impose. So teachers imposed different rules. So they kind of gave different rules. They introduced different rules. You can also say, like, now we have to follow rules or stick to different rules and play by the rules. So we play by the rules, we follow rules. You can also say obey the rules, follow the rules. And also, this is super important for your essays as well. A very common situation is when we write about rules, so all these verbs. Rory likes following the rules, Rory likes playing by the rules.

Do I? But Rory sticks to the rules that make sense. So you can say, yeah, I usually follow the rules, but I stick to the ones that make sense. So they make sense, they're sensible, so I follow one. And there are some rules which are completely nonsensical. Nonsensical. What are nonsensical rules? Could you give us an example with dog game stand? I don't know.

Like whenever someone says, oh, you have to work hard, that's a rule. And I'm like, well, what does that look like? What does hard work even mean to some people? That's a bit of a silly rule. It doesn't really say anything. It's maybe more of a value. Yeah, nonsensical rules are about some like old laws, regulations, something bizarre, very strange, something about, I don't know, ducks and chickens.

Could be about like legal regulations. Oh, for example, some schools have a policy against students wearing nail polish. Some school rules, so you can't have nail polish. or, for example, open-toed shoes. So in some schools, they prohibit open-toed shoes. That, you know, like shoes that show your toes. So you have to wear closed shoes. Here, you can say like, oh, we had loads of rules.

So we were basically buried under paperwork. So many rules, we were buried under paperwork. Paperwork, all these papers, those rules. So we are like full of them. And you can say that, yeah, like in real life, there are a million guidelines and procedures for things. So rules are everywhere seriously. Yeah, Rory, and could you give us an example of the most stupid rule you had to follow?

Maybe at uni or when you taught at primary school, something like you really disliked. Ha ha. Oh, we had a great one where all the teachers were talking about being accountable. And so they would say like, oh, if you say you're going to do something, then you should absolutely 100% do it. And none of these people did what they said. They would say, and it was just like, okay, that seems like a really stupid rule to have if you're not capable of enforcing it. And of course, there were some students that were just completely allowed to.

to get away with not doing what they said they would as well. So that was interesting. And that is why, well, that is one of the many reasons why I am no longer a primary school teacher because I'm not working with people who are like that. And Rory, do you have like in Scotland or maybe just like in the world, do we have such a rule like a five second rule? So if you're eating a sandwich and you drop some food on the floor and you just like pick it up within like three seconds and you can eat it.

So no problem. It's a five-second rule. That's what people say, but I don't think anyone actually does that because that's crazy. Oh, I do it. We do it. And as children, we did it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, you drop some food on the floor, even in the streets.

It just like, like, push. Such a change in the tone there. Like, you were like, I do it. I mean, I did it in the past. I did it, yeah. But sometimes I actually do it. At home, though, I don't do it in the street. That's disgusting.

Do this, like, I'm wondering, do you have this five-second rule? It's about dropping stuff and then eating it. So if you drop stuff and it's there for more than five seconds, you can't eat it. But if you just pick it up right away, it's okay to eat it. Do you only hear a really crazy rule? Oh, yeah. There is a primary school teacher in my hometown who faked having cancer for over two years. And so she didn't have cancer.

She told her students and her colleagues she had cancer and she faked it and she came in with a wheelchair and a fake leg. She said that she had her leg removed due to cancer. It was crazy. Anyway, the organization that's responsible for the standard of teaching in my country, they said, you are not fit to be a teacher

so you cannot teach anymore. And then afterwards, they said, But you can reapply in two years' time. That is a stupid rule. Why is anyone allowed to reapply after two years after that? That is insane. Why is that rule there? And how did they find out that should you have any cancer?

Because she faked her own death. And she couldn't do that properly. So people discovered that she was still alive and didn't have cancer. But she told people she pretended to be her parents and told her boss that she said, She died. Whoa. How crazy is this? I was reading this story in the newspaper on Monday and I was like, oh my God, what?

Delisina, you see, crazy stories, huh? If you think that you're having a bad day, okay? Just remind yourself that at least you did not pretend to have a fatal illness and fake your own death. Yeah, Deleisina, and we should wrap it up with a... a very stupid joke. So brace yourselves. The stupid joke is the General Teaching Council of Scotland who have this rule where she can reapply in two years time. That's amazing, don't you think? Like, we should give people a second chance. It's insane. So, dearest not.

The rules about singing in the bathroom. Do you sing in the bathroom? No. While taking a shower. So, the first rule, the first rule of singing in the bathroom. is the twetted brush must never be used as a microphone. Okay, dear listener, thank you very much for listening. We love you, we hug you. Bye. Did you prefer to have more or fewer rules at school?

I think like most kids, I'd have preferred to have fewer to follow. It was hard to keep track of all the different policies and procedures they came out with. I mean, even the teachers couldn't keep up. Have you ever had a really strict teacher? I think all of them came down pretty hard on their classes and given that there were 27 of us per class, there wasn't any other way to do it. They always had to be on our cases or there would have been anarchy.

Do you like following the rules? Well, I think I like them now more than I did in the past since I can understand the ends and outs of things related to them, but I really only stick to the ones that make sense. There are some that are almost completely nonsensical. Were there any rules for students at your score? Oh, loads. Like I said, we were basically buried under paperwork for them.

And I think students continued to be, well, buried under them to this day, sadly. Will you follow more rules in the future? I mean, I certainly hope not. It's bad enough that there are a million guidelines and procedures for everything, now, never mind what might lie ahead.