Because she was correcting homework and planning lessons, Britany went to bed late – and then she overslept!

She had a quick shower but she didn’t have ________ 1 time to put on her makeup. Luckily, she doesn’t wear much anyway, but she had wanted to put on some lipstick at least. Too bad! She made herself a coffee and checked the mail. But ________ 2, it seemed, had remembered her birthday – except for John and Clare whom she had invited for dinner later in the day.

At school, ________ 3 of her colleagues seemed to have remembered that it was her birthday either and that made her miserable, but at least the children in her second grade class were in a happy mood. It cheered her up, and so every time one of them did ________ 4 good or gave her a correct answer, she gave them a gold star. They loved that. Luckily, she had enough stars so ________ 5 went home with at least one!

When she got home, Britany was still tired, so she lay down to have a bit of rest but she didn’t get much sleep because her parents rang from the UK to wish her a happy birthday. At least _________ 6 had remembered! When she finished the call there was ________ 7 time left for sleeping. She had to get dinner ready.

A few minutes later the doorbell rang. She opened the door. There were a lot of people outside. All of them were wearing party hats! A few of them were carrying plates of food. Most of them were colleagues from her school, but there were many others, too. And then they started to sing ‘Happy Birthday …’.

In: HARMER, Jeremy. Teacher Knowledge: core concepts in English language teaching. Pearson Education limited. Essex, UK: 2012