My most memorable teachers

I wrote this true short piece for students to introduce "used to" and "would" to talk about repeated actions and states in the past.


I used to go to a small school in South Africa for boys only. I went to the same school for twelve years.  I used to love Biology but I didn't use to like Latin.

At first, my favourite teacher was Mr Howard, my Biology teacher.  During the school holidays, he used to travel a lot . When he returned, he would show us amazing photos of animals and plants from his trips.  My love for nature, travel and photography is thanks to him.

When I was older, my favourite teacher was Miss Jones, my Maths Teacher.  She was young and pretty and she used to wear a different coloured ribbon in her hair every day.  Each day before she came into class, we would try to guess the colour of her ribbon.  The whole class had a crush on her. We’d usually behave badly in class but we were like meek puppies when she was around.

My scariest teacher was Mrs Ford. She was always bad tempered and she would sometimes shout at us until our ears hurt.  If you did something wrong, she used to stand behind you and pinch your ear lobe till you begged for mercy.  I remember her well.  I still sometimes see her in my nightmares.

[Note: The final teacher is fictional but is inspired by Mam Suttle who did indeed pinch our ear lobes from behind if we misbehaved!]