TEENENGERS THEN AND NOW

Jill Davies is an accountant. She’s 42, she’s married, she has two children, and she lives in a small village in the north of England. But 25 years ago she was an 18-year-old teenager. It was the 1980s and she lived in Manchester.

‘I hated being a teenager,’ says Jill. ‘Now, I look back, and I think, ‘Wow, what a fantastic time!’ but then it was terrible. I didn’t like my hair or my clothes. I thought my dad was great, but I didn’t like my mum. She told me what to do all the time but I never listened! I wanted to be cool, but I wasn’t. I didn’t have a boyfriend and my clothes were terrible. I wore short skirts and tight jeans and a lot of make-up. I listened to New Romantic pop music – Duran Duran and Boy George were my favourites – and at the weekend I went out to discos and didn’t come home until two or three in the morning.’

‘Today, everybody goes to university when they leave school, but when I was young, this wasn’t true. My friends and I left school at 18, and there weren’t any jobs. I worked in a shop for three years. I was 22 when I went to college and trained to be an accountant.’

Emily Johnson is a student, and she’s going to be 18 next week. She lives in Stockport, a town near Manchester, with some friends. Her parents and her younger brother live in a house nearby.

‘I like being a teenager,’ says Emily. ‘I have good friends and a really nice boyfriend. I don’t go out very often, but I text my friends all the time or we chat online. On weekdays, I meet my friends in a café near college, or I watch DVDs at my boyfriend’s house. Sometimes we go to the cinema on Saturday night. I usually wear comfortable clothes – T-shirts and jeans. And I download a lot of music from the Internet. I love listening to Kate Nash and Lily Allen. They’re really cool.’

‘I study French at school, but I’m going to do Spanish at university next year. I love languages and I want to work in different countries.’

QUESTIONS

Example:    Is Jill married?   Yes   ü     No         

1   Does she have any children?                   Yes          No         

2   Does she live in Manchester now?          Yes          No         

3   Was she happy when she was 18?           Yes          No         

4   Did she like her father?                           Yes          No         

5   Did she have a boyfriend?                      Yes          No         

6   Did she go to university?                         Yes          No         

7   Does Emily live with her parents?           Yes          No         

8   Does she often go out at the weekend?   Yes          No         

9   Is she at university at the moment?          Yes          No         




Answers
            1   Yes

2   No

3   No

4   Yes

5   No

6   No

7   No

8   No

             9   No