About half of 16 and 17 year old in the United Kingdom have got jobs, and three quarters of this age group also go to school. They do part-time jobs before or after school and at weekends. The most common jobs are babysitting(very popular with girls) and paper rounds(popular with boys). Cleaning and working with a shop are also popular jobs.In the UK school students are not allowed to work more than two hours on a school day, or more than twelve hours in total during a school week. They are not allowed to work before 7 a.m. or after 7 p.m. (but babysitters can work later). They must have at least two weeks’ holiday from school each year when they don’t work at all. Teenagers do part-time jobs because they want to earn some money. However, they don’t usually earn very much. In the UK there is a minimum wage for adults: 5-6 pounds an hour. For 16 and 17 year olds, it is 3.5 pounds an hour. For children under 16 there is no minimum wage, so many teenagers work for 2-3 pounds an hour.
Post-Reading Activity.
Exercise 1. Answer the questions.
1) How many young people aged 16 and 17 have jobs in the UK?
2) What are the most common jobs for teenage girls?
3) What are the most common jobs for teenage boys?
4) How many hours in total can young people work during a school week?
5) Why do teenagers do part-time jobs?
6) What is the minimum wage for a 16 year old…for a 15 year old?
Exercise 2. Match the words in bolds with their definitions.
1) looking after children while parents are out
2) get money for working
3) jobs that you do for a few hours a day
4) the smallest amount of money you can get for working
5) cannot do smth.
6) delivering newspapers to people’s home
1. She said that she watched 2 or 3 hours of television a day.
2. She said that at weekends she watched 4 and even more hours of television.
3. She said that if there was nothing good she would sit down and wait. She said that she wouldn't turn off TV.
4. She said that she always left TV on even if she was doing her homework.
5. She said that she always turned TV on when she came home.
6. She said that she hadn't watched TV the day before. She had had a lot of homework to do.
7. She said that she had already looked through a TV guide to plan what to watch.
8. She said that she wouldn't turn off TV if guests came.
9. She said that she was not a couch potato, but she liked watching TV.
10. She said that she had never thought that watching TV too much was bad for her health.