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Peer Pressure
Peer Pressure

Learn English with this peer pressure English lesson

Date: Dec 26 2018

Themes: Friend, School

Grammar: Past Progressive Tense

Intro

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“I’ll do it if you do it.” How many times has someone said this to you? From a very early age, we learn that it’s not OK to do something unless our friends are doing it, too. It’s normal to want to conform to the cliques at school. But it’s not always a good thing to be at the whim of your friends.

When peer pressure has an influence over you, it’s easy to let group dynamics change how you really think and feel about life. Unfortunately, letting others make choices for you can lower your feelings of self-confidence and self-worth. Thinking for yourself may be hard sometimes, but the self-respect you experience will be awesome!

Jessica and Lily have both experienced peer pressure, and sometimes still do. Find out more in today’s English lesson about behavior.

Dialog

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2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Jessica

Jessica

Lily

Lily

Jessica:  Lily, it can be so hard sometimes to ignore all of the pressure around us and just make our own decisions. I just get so tired of peer pressure sometimes and the influence it has on me.

Lily:  Tell me about it. When I was in high school, it felt like I was completely at the whim of all these different cliques. I was constantly being influenced by my friends or people that I thought were my friends to do what I thought was cool. I felt like I had no self-respect at all.

Jessica:  It can be so hard sometimes to feel like we need to conform to what other people are expecting of us, or the group dynamics of those around us.

Lily:  It’s true. I wish that in school we were taught more about how to be self-sufficient. And not necessarily self-confidence, but more just self-worth, so that we could all be our own people and feel like that’s enough.

Jessica:  Exactly. Like that’s a part of the norm.

Lily:  Yeah.

 

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Discussion

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Lily and Jessica are talking about feeling the need to do what the people around them are doing. They agree that it can be hard to have the self-confidence to make choices when friends and family are expecting them to act a certain way.

Lily remembers this being especially difficult in high school, where she made decisions that she thought would make her cool. She wishes that her teachers had taught her to take care of herself and not worry about what other people think. It doesn’t sound like Jessica and Lily think there’s less peer pressure now that they’re out of school.

Does peer pressure affect you? If not, why not?

 

Comments

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Javi_920

Javi_920

Argentina

In a certain way, it does. I’m pretty much at the whim of my boss, ‘cause if I say something different he starts like asking “why? why?”, it’s annoying and not matter how long the talk is; at the end, “he is right”. So now, even when I realize that what he is saying is not correct, I don’t care and I say “ok, ok”.

04:18 AM Jan 16 2015 |

S&W

S&W

China

Peer pressure is like trouble ,Remember that song” trouble will find you no matter where you go” So you can’t get rid of it then treat it as your friend which need us to do everything in a positive way.Do not like Peer pressure control you.


I had affected by peer pressure when i was in high school.Eager to make friends with cool people and try to break rules.Refuse to be common.The result is i was accepted by cliques but not happy .Getting lost is more terrible than to be alone.

11:03 AM Jan 15 2015 |

xin7

xin7

Chile

I think peer pressure is a constant in the whole life.


At my age everyone is asking me if I will get married and have children soon. I just listen to them and reply “I’d like to, but it’s not the right time yet”. It’s better to be true to oneself instead of trying to conform.

01:29 AM Jan 15 2015 |

lostpoem

lostpoem

Turkey

# family pressure 


# school pressure 


# peer pressure


# workplace pressure


# society pressure



# LIFE ..how much pressure you have. 

12:09 AM Jan 15 2015 |

3 people like this

yuminaga

yuminagaSuper Member!

China

Peer pressure  I felt in school life ,mignt be you would call it aggressive,you wanted to win ,you wanted to prove how great  you are ,you are the best  ever  but you could never ignor all of pressure aound us ,sometimes yon have to take it that you dont like it and would say : what a outrageous thing ,even now  nothing changed ,I am feeling the same way .

10:28 PM Jan 14 2015 |

Mehdi23

Mehdi23

Iran, Islamic Republic Of

the most important thing is that do you know yourself well or not?
we have some bad habibts and some good habits. therefore we can change our bad habits with being in group and dont let the group to change our good habits . this manner increase your confidence because you dont let them to change your good behaviour and also you can get ride of bad habbits.
of course you have to try… “No pain. No gain”


02:03 PM Jan 14 2015 |

 julito

julito

Argentina

I don`t like to ” swim with the current”.  A lot of mistakes that  people  make is trying to imitate  what others are doing , what if they are misguided and we as fools  are following the wrong path .  Sometimes people  may try to comform to  a group dynamics , partly because  they  are afraid of loosing their  peers respect  if  they   put a distance  from them and follow their  own criterion ,but this a risk involved    if we want to preserve our own identity.  

01:55 PM Jan 14 2015 |

Julie3

Julie3

Russian Federation

I do agree with Albasel1975. Just would like to point out that it’s normal to want to be included into this or that group and being included u have to be under the pressure. This is called a society (social relations). The matter is that if a person strong minded enough to pressurise but not to flow with the stream.


Obviously I was affected by peer pressure at high school once or twice but my rebellious nature doesn’t allow me to be affected any more. Probably it is called maturity and now I can say I am self-confident, self-worth and self-sufficient.


But I don’t agree with Lily that it is a responsibility of school to teach how to be more self-sufficient, there is a little part but most must be given in the family, by the parents. 

06:13 AM Jan 14 2015 |

Mahtab.bp

Mahtab.bp

Iran, Islamic Republic Of

Is it strange if I say I was never affected by peer pressures in my school time?!


Yes there was clique in my school by I was always trying to keep my distance with them! Why?


They were just far from my taste , thoughts and sentiments! :)


I dont say I had high self- confidence or self-respect but I usually had one or two very close friends and I was happy with them without wanting to conform myself to any one or any cliques!


I was like so in my university time and now in my life too!

06:00 AM Jan 14 2015 |

albasel1975

Germany

I think all of us experienced to be under peer preasure even for once or twice or more in our lives. Sometimes we regret,sometimes we find it was helpful and sometimes we feel ourselves as if we were like a lost boat in a stormy night going here and there with the strong waves.


Peer pressure is the influence you feel from a person or group of people to do something you might not otherwise consider doing.


It’s not uncommon to want to be part of a group and feel like you belong in a community, especially if you are new or less experience than the people around you.


Peer pressure often happens because you don’t want to be alone or left out. So you go with what other people think in order for them to include you. A peer can be anyone around the same age-as you, like a friend, classmate, or even someone you seen on TV and admire. You might try to live up to people’s expectations, but it’s important to be mindful to not have other people’s expectations cloud what you want.


Now,for me, I think it’s very difficult to be affected by peer pressure because I think I am a mature enough to take my own decisions.


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