A Person I Admire

251 words

I enjoyed reading the autobiography of those historical figures since I was in the elementary school. I could always learn good examples and warnings from them. No matter the comments of them are positive or nagative.
From all of these autobiographies I have read, a person I admire most is Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the thirty second presient of the United States. He was elected as the position for four times. Despite he suffered from polio, he still had the will to overcome the disease. He even set up a charity to those people who also suffer from the same disease. He implemented some some economical policies to save the years of the Great Depression, which almost ruined the whole world’s economy. He brought back the hope and posperous society to people again. In the World War Two, he led the army to resist the invasion of Japan, Germany and Italy. Therefore, the peace of the world was able to be maintained. But the most pitiful thing was that he had not seen the final victory then passed away.
There is a sentence he said which I really agree with very much: “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” If a person, especially a leader, hesitates too much things before his acts, he will lose many good chance. Now I am the leader of a student club, I have to intensify my judgment ability. So I will have the effciency to do many things well.

The Movie Reflection – Departure

325 words

I watched a movie called “Departure” (送行者–禮儀師的樂章) last weekend. It is a Japanese film which is just released this February in Taiwan. It also wins the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars this year. The main characters are Masahiro Motoki, Ryoko Hirosue, etc.
The plot is about Daigo Kobayashi, a professional cellist, lost his job because of dissolution of the orchestra. One day he noticed a job vacancy is an “Assisting departures” for “NK Agency.” He is recruited immediately by the president when he goes for interview. But the NK is a Japanese abbreviation for “encoffinment,” and he is instead to assist the “departed,” so the president persuades him to work by paying him five-million salaries per month. At first, he always works with a nagative attitude. He dares not to tell his wife about the job, even his wife dislike him when she learns his current job. However, Daigo finds more deep feelings to human lives by engaging this job. Therefore, he is also encouraged to face the love between his father and himself.
In the beginning, I think the way Daigo finds the job is funny, especially when he conceals his wife about his job. After watching this movie, I really touched by the procedure of the etiquette, because it is the last journey for the dead person. Every action, such as make up and wearing, should be very careful and polite. It is also for all live people to show the respect the dead person. In my opinion, the most important purpose for this job is to console the dead person’s family. Instead of the sorrow feeling, they should have a peaceful and joyful attitude to hold the funeral.
To sum up, the most important message the movie gives me is have a not to fear for death. Most culture takes death as a terrible thing. If only we can change this opinion, anything will continue better and smoother.

How to Use a Computer

333 words
With the progression of modern technology, communication is one of the most revolutionary of all human inventions. These things are closely connect with our daily life. The most distinguished and influential invention to human is the computer. Therefore, it is very important for everyone to know how to use a computer.
In the early time when computers were invented, it was used for military purposes. But nowadays, almost each familiy has a computer at least. Many companies also use them to edit documents for business. No matter what purpose we have when we need to use a computer, the process is always the same. First, we have to power up the computer. Until the computer’s preparation are all set, we can open a file or document if we we have to enter the information. We can edit it by opening a program like Wordpad, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, for example. If we want to keep it, we can save our work in a certain file then close it. We can delete those documents we don’t need any more, too. When we want to start a program, we can click the icon of it on the tabletop or program section. If we want to get more information, we can also search the data from the internet, Internet Explorer. When we find a piece of information we need, we can cut or copy it and then paste on the program where we are aditing. Finally, when we finish all of the works, we should shut down the computer.
All of the above are the most basic process to everyone. But for all walks of live, they still have to use some professional programs which are related to their job. Some enterprises or college even require their staff to have the certificate of bacic computer concepts. So, as a modern citizen in the global village, we really need to have much knowledge to the computer. The more we have, the better to our competition ability.

The Practical Training of English Teaching

302 words
We went to Jeso Elementary School in Fu-Hsing to teach English on one Friday morning last semester. Most of us already had some experiences in teaching these nauty children last semester, but their voice and energy were still overwhelming.
The whole class was devided into some groups, each groups had to prepare different teaching topics. My group was charge for alphabet teaching and story telling. The visiting professor, Linda, also came with us. After a one-hour journey, we arrived in Jeso at 10:15. I heard some familiar voice of those students. My feeling was happy and anxious half-and-half, because I was not sure if I can control the order in class this time. When the first period began, they were noisy all the time. Some of them even have conflicts with each other. They only scare their teacher to punish them. So that’s why my teaching plan couldn’t catch up with the actual teaching. What’s more, I noticed the dissatisfied expression in our teacher’s and their teacher’s face, we could feel much pressure anytime. During the alphabet teaching, the English in the school corrected my wrong pronunciation of “L”, I felt really embarrassing. I also heard a funny thing. The class where Linda stayed in was quieter than other class, obviously those student were afraid of foreigner. I hope Linda can stay in our class in the next teaching.
After the two periods’ teaching, we all felt exhausted and relaxed. In the retrn journey in the tour bus, I kept thinking about how to improve my methods and their learing attitude. I know it’s hard for us to stop those energetic aboriginal children, but if I want to be a professional teacher, this mustn’t be kept as a problem. It’s time for me to think some effective ways to correct their attitude.

The Reflection of Toastmasters Division E Club Officer Training

375 words

This is the second time I join the Toastmasters officer training. I was very pleased some new officers promise to join me, but it is also quite a big trouble some important officers couldn’t attend this training.
The atmosphere was really relaxed when I enter the meeting room. Instead of memorizing those annoying scripts or lines, everyone was chatting happily. Compare with Lunghwa, I couldn’t help recall the same situation our meeting: it was so bored that can choke audience to die! Sigh! The situation is hard to improve during my duty of president. What James, Mike and Grace said were similar to the first officer training this February, the only difference were they talked many about their new duty range. I want to agree all what they said, but it is quite impossible to persuade most members to earn the awards for themselve. As the club president, I have to lead by my example to set goal: to get competent communicator award within one year. If the club members are reluctant to earn the awards, not to mention attracting new members to the club. In the club discussion report, I tried to calm down my nervousness, the time was so short but too many things I have to absorb. Mike specially, whenever I speak in front of him, he always pose a smelly face. It only makes me feel more nervous, and it seems I owe him lots of money. If the speaker were Nikki, he must pose a face with a big smile. Then I tried to involve the other presidents in the club officer discussion, but they used too many words which were so unfamilliar to me. The president of NCU merely uttered four sentences, too. Moreover, it also reflects my current intermediate grade of TOEIC: able to join English meetings, but not able to express and debate different opinions smoothly in English.
Mencius ever said, “If poor, those scholars attended to their own virtue in solitude; if advanced to dignity, they made the whole kingdom virtuous as well.” Now that I promise to get the CC award, I will do my best to achieve it. Finally, I bless myself could survive during each preparation and bring more laughing to club members.

My First Job

308 words
When I just graduated from the junior high school, my mother found a part time job for me in the summer vacation. I worked in a car-refit factory in Sanshia, which is owned by my uncle and aunt. I had been working there for one month and the time is from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. everyday.
In the first day of my work, my uncle introduced me to others workers. He also assigned a young foreman who was in charge of my work. His face looked fierce and his talk sounded a little bit rude, but he was a responsible man. Whenever I was confused about doing something, he always repeated to me patiently. Such as warpped some materials and classified those products. I still remembered once he took me to the other factory, I asked him where we are going to. He said he would take me to be sold, I couldn’t help but laughing. Because he knew that I am the niece of his boss, I was sure he would n’t sell me. By the way, my uncle and aunt were both so kind to me. They always cared about my eating and hoped to feed me become fatter. My aunt even sometimes bought a ninety-dollar dinner box for me. I felt I am so lucky that I can work in my relatives’ company. Of course, I appreciated them very much. I have learned how to get along with different people and correct attitude of working.
After that time, I never have any jobs. My parents want me to find a non-relatives related job by myself in vacations. Now since I have some English specialties, they hope me to find an English teaching-related job. Although I still have many skills should be improved, so I make up my mind to do it better and harder.

My Learning Environment at School

286 words
As a full time college student, I spend most of my time at school in work days. The environmentof Lunghwa is quite better than those schools I have ever studied in.
Except those common classrooms, there are many places which I never seen in the vocational high school and junior high school. The most obvious difference is that every department and faculty has their own office. I can consult my teachers about my questions in their office anytime. In the department office, I can meet the kind chairperson and responsible assistants. Whenever I come to borrow CD players, keys or chat with them, they all passionately help me and talk to me. Those professional laboratories are also the things make me curious about. Those equipments in each of them are really high-level, too. The library is the place where attract me most. It collects more than books and also many movies. We only have to take our student ID card to borrow the film you want to watch. The study in the second floor is where I frequently go. I can barely hear any noise in there, even when term exams coming. If I don’t have class, I will spend my time there to prepare my tests. The library also offers some free English learning websites for students, I sometimes use them when I at home. They are really helpful for my English ability.
With such a good learing condition in Lunghwa, I think learning can be easier and more interesting than before. I really have to take the advantage of these environmentsand free resourses. I hope I can find a good job or go to a better graduate school in the near future.

Report of English Teaching Practicum in AMC Language School

1000 words
During the learning of English teaching courses in the past one year, I am really happy to finish the mission teaching students in Jeso Elementary School. In the end of last semester, some classmates of mine and I were picked by our teacher, Ms. Chiuping Huang, had the chance to pratice in AMC. With those experiences in Jeso, I have been familiar with several principals and procedures of teaching, especially some do’s and don’ts when we face those innocent children.
Our teaching place is in a cram school, which is totally different from common school in my first imagination. The purpose of cram schools is making profit of course, which really made me feel nervous at first even before my practice. The manager, Mr. Tony Wu, had an interview with us at beginning. Few days later, we were distributed to different branch schools. Luckily, I was distributed to the branch that only cost me five-minute ride and one of my classmates work with me in the same branch. The manager, Mr. Hsu Jer, gave us a flexible schedule to choose our available time. I went working for four days per week, and six weeks in total. There were two days for junior high school, one day for children, and one day for daily conversation. I was amazing that I could teach to different age group; therefore, I could observe the different teaching method on the one hand and find their different learning obstacles on the other hand.
In junior high courses, the teacher, Mr. Moset Yeh, who gave me considerable time to observe his teaching and even much chance to teach on stage. Those students are all third grade, so they all have to prepare for the approaching Basic Competence Test next year. Due to the test-oriented learning, teacher mostly uses grammar translation method. The type of question includes many common vocabularies, phrases, grammars, etc. There are all multiple choice questions, but it is devided into two parts: single questions and group questions. The latter is more difficult to students, because the there will be always a paragraph like letter, time table, map or messages or statistics. According to my observation by correcting their test sheet, some of students will be easily misled by wrong statements because of their carelessness or misunderstanding to sentences. Moset also assigned many kinds of exercises except multiple choices, like verb varietion and vocabulary dictation. Only the minor of them were not familiar enough with those basic words. All they have to do are memorizing vocabulary by heart and answering questions as careful as possible.
Children course is the area that I want to learn most, because it was exactly related to what I have been learning currently. They are all elementary school student, too. Compare with the children in Jeso, they are more obedient. They have more talent, motivation and resource in learning English. Even some of them are beyond expectation, especially the proficiency to alphabet and its pronunciation. Iden Lin is the teacher, who gives reward and punishment fairly. For example, anyone who forgot to have their communication book signed or bring their homework was punished by her. Of course, she also gave rewards like drinks or presents when they won any prize in a contest. Therefore, I think it is a sample which every teacher should be like that, to children especially. Despite I wasn’t required by Iden to teach in front of students as frquently as Moset, she always invited me to comment on their oral and written expression, such as pronunciation, reaction, spelling and writing. It made me to realize more criteria to fair judgment. The methods used by teacher are direct method and audio-lingual method. The former is the way that teacher uses to explain the meaning of a word; the latter is to train their speaking and listening ability. There was a test held for students to upgrade to the higher level, one student didn’t pass it. I found she had a problem in spelling words: she couldn’t remember each pronunciation of the alphabet well. Therefore, it affects the grade of listening directly.
Conversation course was my favorite time in the four days. Because I could both practice my English speaking with foreign teachers and enjoy their interesting teaching methods. They are in elementary school student or junior high school. Teachers mostly used audio-lingual methods and total physical response to teach. All of them don’t speak Chinese, so they sometimes posed funny actions or postured to explain what they want to say. To make the class funnier, different teachers used different ways to keep students’ interests. Occassionaly, interpretation is also an important work to me when students were still confused about the teacher said. Because Moset is also the director of all English courses, he assigned homework for students every week. But it is optional, they could also don’t do it. What’s more, he said this is a free course, so students have to pay the book fee only. One thing confused me was that every week comes a different teacher until the black, Kenny, showed up. I once heard Moset mentioned about that; in short, it was their attitude to this job. But whatever, it is also a good chance students can try to listen to different accent of English.
In the last two days, many teachers and I were had to send DM at the main gate of neighborhood elementary schools. I finally knew that how hard it is when working under a big sun, and not every person accepted the DM. Luckily, we finished the painful work. Now the new semester has begun, I don’t have time to do such important and responsible work. I feel I was really lucky when I heard from other classmates said they didn’t do so much like me. So here I give my best regard to teachers at Lunghwa and AMC Language School, I will cherish the rare experience from the rare chance and keep sharpening my teaching skills.

The AFL International Week

308 words

Last semester, the chairperson declared a series of speeches and activities during the class meeting which was held in a ceritain week. Therefore, there would be four speeches, four contests and the graduate performance in that week. Although the schedule of some courses had been delayed, I believed that we have learn more extracurricular knowledges from those well-organized activities.

The series of activities was started by a speech on Mondy moring, which was about a new kind of English proficiency test. I thought this test is much cheaper and easier than other common tests, so that the speaker was invited to the school. In the afternoon, It was another speech to evauate our English ability. The purpose of the speech was to tell the seniors and juniors about how’s the English ability they should have after they graduate. On Wednesday late morning, there was a speech which talked about working ethics. I have been the speaker’s speech for many times, and the topic is more suitable for the seniors, too. So I decided to continue the original schedule of the course. On Thursday night, the graduate performance was the one activity I expected to see most. Because this is the tradition of the Department of Applied Foreign Language, we also had to performance a stage play like that after two years. So it was a good time for us to both appreciated the play and learned the peformance skills. Finally, the Spelling Bee was the most important contest for me. Because I was one of the contestants, and I had also kept my record I got in last year’s contest – the champion.

Behind these meaningful activities, I really thanked the chairperson and teachers in the department, with their efforts and cooperation so we could have such a valuable opportunity to get so many extracurricular knowledges from these activities.

The Self Evalution and Accreditation Day of DAFL

358 words
There was an important and busy day for the faculty of the Department of Applied Foreign Languages last semester. Many senior scholars and professors from English department of other universities were invited by the chairperson to evalute the department. Some students of the department were also “invited” to have an interview with those professors.
I had heard that some of my classmates have to go for the interview in the afternoon of that day. Originally, I thought they would ask questions in Chinese, but some of them told me that they were asked and answered mostly in English so they felt a littie bit scared. It didn’t make me surprised, because we are English major. Then in the first period of the afternoon, many students didn’t show up, the thecher thought they must be asked to the interview. After waiting for a long time, he decided to let us watch a film in class. However, I recived a phone call from the assistant of the college, she asked me and two more classmates to go for the interview. When I was waiting for the interview, two juniors reminded me “Don’t misgive too much, just tell them whatever you want to say.” I knew what they meant was to express any aspects of dissaitsfaction to the department. Then the professor interviewed a freshman and me in the same time. I immediately indentified him was the chairperson of Hsuan Chang University. I didn’t feel any pressure when I talk with him during the interview. He also recommended me to study the master program of the department which he services. I was so lucky that I have met another English professional as well as Professor Huang.
The other day in the class meeting, the chairperson told us about something the self evalution and accreditation. She also said next time will be the Ministry of Education’s turn to evaluate, we must more cooperate with those officers, so that we can receive a better evaluation after we graduate. I agree with her comment, but I think we have to improve ourself’s ability is more important than the fame of the school you from.

A Funny Class about English Story Telling

368 words
I took a course called “English Teaching Material and Methods” last semester. Compare with the English teaching course I took two semesters ago, it is much easier and more interesting. The teacher invited an English teacher from a cram school to teach us how to tell English stories perfectly.
The teacher’s name is Debbie. I felt that I was watching the YOYO TV channel during her lecture. All of us had been infantilized due to her skillful expression and performance which treat us like children. She took many stories for example then demostrated each of them individually, like Little Mermaid, Three Little Pigs and so on. Our sounds of laughter was always accompany with it. I really agree with one sentence that she said “In stead of teaching, telling stories is acting. The story teller has to lower her figure, so that the children will be fascinated by her story.” Because I am not a girl, I do not have those misgivings. So it is quite easy for me to attain this basic require. She also said that many children become more confident since they have learned how to tell a story well. I immediately thought about my speaking experiences in the Toastmasters meeting, which usted to frustrated me many times. Maybe this is a good chance for me to find back my confidence. She also assigned some student to demostrate to talk a part of story. A junior and I were assigned by her. I even didn’t know what was going on in the first acting, and then we acted much better in the second time. It was so interesting and I did not feel nervous like delivering a speech.
In order to tell an English story perfectly, the oral expression and vocal variety are as important as the acting skill. These aspects are also needed when we delivering a speech, but I find the greatest difference between two of them – the audience, so I have to use two different ways to talk individually. Moreover, each group of the class would have to do the teaching demostration in Jeso Elementary. My group’s duty was telling stories. With this experience, I could do it more proficient and better.

Two Aspects of Education

294 words
There are many differences between my high school and college life. Some of them are obvious after my long-term observation, such as teachers, classrooms, students, dorms and food.
The most obvious one is classroom. We usually used the only classroom which belongs the certain class in high school. But in college, we change classroom even laboratories regularly for some certain subjects. Next is about students and dorm, all my classmates and schoolmates were from Northern Taiwan in high school. They commuted everyday, and the school didn’t offer the dorm for students. Now in college, some of them come from central, southern or eastern areas. So they have to live in the dorm or rent a house outside the school. Another important difference is about teachers. Most teachers in high school had college degree; on the contrary, teachers in college have four academic levels, which represent their teaching experience. Courses are also cared by every student. If a student fails a compulsory subject both in high school and college, he has to retake it or he couldn’t graduate. The food is an important issue, too. There is a restaurant and a convenience store in my college. They offer buffet, quick meals and a variety of snacks. But in high school there was just only a practice shop but no restaurant. Students had no many choices. It could only reserve lunch boxes which was made by out-school restaurant.
Now I have entered the collage for two years, I have gotten used to most of them. I think one thig I have to adopt is the temper of teachers, because each of them has their special types of teaching and tempers. If we can keep a good relation with teachers, we will learn more than our expectation.

The Celebration for My Sister's Academic Achievment

282 words
I have a younger sister, her name is Annie. She is a senior in a senior high school who had also struggled for the College Entrance Exams for a long time. Two days ago, she was just admitted by her first-choice university and department. My family was happy and decided to celebrate her achievment on Sunday.
In the morning, we drove a car to Guandu, her furure school – Taipei National University of the Arts for sightseeing. Actually, we had come here for once due to the flower exhibition few years ago, the campus is also big and beauiful as usual. The feeling of art can be easily found everywhere. We also took lots of pictures. The parking fee is cheep, too. Then we visited the Department of Music buildings, where her colorful life will happen in the future four years. At noon, we went to Minder Vagetarian Restaurant in Carrefour Lujhou Store to have a lunch for celebration. The expense was a little bit expensive, 250 dollars per person, but the food and dessert was quite delicious. I even ate too much and felt sick. During that time, we chatted many things about her plans in the university life. In order to have our food digested faster, we went shopping for a while and went home. We really had a good time.
Doutlessly, her academic and music professional performance are both perfect. But the most serious problem is that she has cut too many classes now. Eveytime my parents receive the absence inform of her from school, they always have a fierce fight. So I hope her that she can restrait herself before she graduate, even the four years in the university.

Did I Offened Somebody?

263 words

There were two strange things really made me feel confused and curious last semester. I take them as a behavior that somebody wants to take revange on me, but I did not offened anyone recently, even since I entered Lunghwa.
The first thing happened on Tuesday, March 3rd. As soon as I sat down, I heard the teacher said that I clicked the link of administration of the writing blog again. Due to my naughty behavior to click the link two weeks ago, the blog was almost ruined and about to rebuild a new one. I felt very sorry about that, and I never did it anymore. But I was found to click the link again last week, that’s very strange because I didn’t do that. The second thing was that the school website showed I was “absent” in attendance record in the last two periods on Wednesday, March 4th. The teacher asked us to go to the computer classroom to search some websites. Some people and I could not come back to the classroom in time, but only I was marked absent. But the teacher’s attendance sheet showed that I was present. Finally, the teacher had the wrong record on the website corrected after that. According to the two events of the above, I think it must be someone who has some “opinions” to me.
So here I want to ask any person I know that if I have ever offened some certain people. If I did, please generously tell me. I will both introspect myself and apologize to you with sincerity.

My Third Foreign Language Course

265 words

In this semester, sophomores in some departments should take a course of humanity area in general education. I heard my Spanish teacher said French and Spanish have many aspects in common, but you will not feel confused when you learn them in the same time. So I take French as the third foreign language.

In the first week of the class, the teacher told some rules about the class. Of course, attitude and attendance are both important, but eating and sleeping is accepted. She even said that many students passed this course in a very high score. I was very happy that I have chosen a right course. Everyone should choose a French name, too. I chose Benoît as my name. Then she introduced the French living, culture and taught alphabet. Some of their pronunciations really like Spanish’s, but some voices should use the strength of the throat, that is a little bit difficult to pronounce. In the second week, we started to learn the numbers and vocabulary. The rule of number’s variety is as similiar as Spanish, too. Then, we practiced the addition and subtraction in French for a moment and greeting. It was quite tired for me to pronounce it accurately, but I still felt funny.

Most people said that French is a romantic language, I agree with their opinion basically. Now I am still a beginner, so I need a bit of time to be familiar with these difficult pronounciations. By doing this, I can at least read essays in French fluently. This is the main goal that I set for myself.

The Oral Expression Ability of College Students

313 words
I took a course called Oral Expression Arts last semester. My original motivation to took this couse was to improve my ability of English speech, because I always feel nervous when I stand on the stage to speak something.
In one week, the teacher let the whole class watched a TV program episode she recorded. The program’s name is “Have You College-Studentsed Yet?” (大學生了沒) In that episode, hosts and guests were discussing about the oral expression ability of college students. Some college students were also invited to the program to be tested. They pointed out three main mistakes of oral expression which current college students usually make. First, they couldn’t get to the main points. It has a lot to do with their chatting with their friends, because they didn’t need to think seriously before they say. Second, their basic Chinese ability is not good enough. Therefore, they couldn’t say something useful or logical. Third, they speak lispingly all the time. Now some famous singers speak like this way. Their bad examples have been immitated by young people. After their discussion, it’s student’s turn to performance. Some of them had to read a sentence, and some had to simplize a short paragragh, and some had to give an immediate comment to a topic. Those activities train students not only their thinking but also organizing ability. I feel some of them are quite difficult for me even in Chinese, not to mention English. But luckily, I am the member of the speech club, so I can train these abilities in two languages.
Although sometimes I will make those mistakes I mention, I have tried to avoid as possible as I can. Next week I will have an oral presentation in class. After my English speaking experience and haf-semester’s learning of oral expression, I believe I can do it better than before, even than in English.

My Experiences and Feelings in English Writing

319 words

If my memory serves me right, the first time I wrote English composition was in the children’s English class when I was in the fifth grade in elementary school. And the orders of the tenses which the teacher taught us were present, past and future.

Comparing with my feeling of writing in Chinese, it was quite difficult in that time, because I always relied my mother to think sentences for me. On the contrary, I can easily write in English. Except the textbook was easy, I think the main reason was that we didn’t have many grammar and vocabulary concepts, and the the teacher emphasized more in the sentences than the whole paragraph. So I think the first time I formally wrote a composition in English was in the first grade in vocational high school. My English teacher registered the GEPT elementary level for the whole class. Due to the three-year’s learning in junior high school, I was familiar to plenty of grammar rules and vocabulary so that I could write it fluently. However, until the third year of vocational high school, I found out that English writing in college entrance exam was terribly harder than ever before. I got only about half of the full mark in this part, both simulate and formal exams. The topics were so difficult for me to develop. Althogh I felt a sense of desperation then, but fortunately, I have met many good writing teachers in the university. I have learned more skills in writing from them. To improve my writing skills, I wish I can take one of their writing courses in following two years.

Now, I wish I can attain some improvements in English Writing. For example, writing in a logical organization, using appropriate proverbs and giving effective comment. One year later, we will have to prepare the research project. These will be the important steps in doing a successful project.

An English Love Letter to Miss Wendy Hsu

346 words

February 22nd, 2009

Dear Miss Wendy:
It had been a long time since I saw you last year, how have you been? The one thing I am can sure of is that you are still energetic, because you still have to teach English to those naughty children, right? Ha ha! But much beyound to my imagination surprise, you were as “young” as before, I didn’t see any more wrinkles in your forehead! And the bright smile was always appearing hanging on your face. It seems that I came back to my childhood again, and I really miss those days I was learning in your English class.
After I finished learning the "Let’s Go Book One" in Mr. and Mrs. Courson’s church, my mother arranged me to learn English in your class. Although you used the same textbook which I had learned, I didn’t feel boring at all but even got more interests on it. During the past four years I study in your class. Although sometimes it was terrible when you are angry because of other students' late submission of somebody’s homework or low achievement on test, you were always generously to treat us to eat or drink something. That was really so kind of you. However, after the level seven, my attitude was not so active anymore. I was always stayed (stay up or stay on bed?) until very late in preparing almost every tests or exams. I even said I forgot one of the final exams and gave up many chances to correct my graduate exam sheet. But I think you know that all of those were my excuse to shirk face the the exam results. Now every time when I recall those these memories come up, some of them I felt both happy and some, shame and stupid.
Although my English ability was not qualified to gradute from your class, I still have confidence on myself.to it. Therefore, I could easily pick up English from junior high to vocational high school. I still remember one of the question which you like to ask frequently was us most, “Do you love me?” All of us always answered it shyly, but now I am not so shy to express anymore. “I love you Miss Wendy.”

Happy Valentine’s Day
Your student, Burt

My Winter Vacation of 2009

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Last winter vacation was not an easy time for me. Normally, it’s not longer than summer vacation, but I felt it’s shorter than those winter vacations I took before.
In the first weekend, I went to National Chengchi University for the Toastmasters Camps Union. There were so many representatives from famous universities. Because I was the only one for Lunghwa, I was scared by that scene again. I am glad that I was survived after the meeting, but It seems that I had found the value which I participating these regular meetings. Several days later, I took my younger brother to see a free movie “Ink Heart.” The plot is very good and the main character’s tongue is really amazing. Of course, the highlight of the winter vacation was the Chinese New Year. In order to prepare for a “new” year, I helped my parents to clean my house from indoor to outdoor. I got a great amount of red envelopes since the New Year’s Eve, and then I celebrated it with my family. In the second day of the New Year, we took a trip to Banciao, the home of my mother’s family’s, to celebrate with my grandmother, uncles, aunts and cousins. In the evening, we had a big dinner in a restaurant. But I ate too much and felt sick. Then we accepted more red envelopes, so my cousin and I used some of them to buy some firecrackers and play them. After the New Year week, I took my younger to the National Palace Museum. We spent about four hours in the museum and appreciated those ancient things. Some of them are not real ones, but they are still beautiful.
After the winter vacation, I can temporarily relax myself. Now the new semester has begun, I still have to work hard so that I can have a more relaxed summer vacation.

Inauguration of My Blog!!!

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The annoying final exam has eventually ended, let’s acclaim for the coming of summer vacation first. Hip, hip, hurray!!! The second acclaim is for my blog, Linguist’s Lab, which I just established yesterday. Hip, hip, hurray!!!
The main purpose of the blog’s establishment is to compete for the English blog writing contest holding on September. The first three prices will get $NT 3000, $NT 2000 and $NT 1000 respectively. Here, I want to appreciate my teacher, Sylvia, again for giving affirmative comments to my writing skills. She even said anybody participate this contest and win the price will be added extra scores in the course she teachs next semester. It really sounds a good temptation; moreover, the person will get both scores and money if he or she wins the contest. So that is quite a rare chance we can kill two birds with one stone.
As for the reason why I use “Linguist’s Lab” to be the title of my blog, I want to edit in the three kinds of foreign languages I have learned so far: English, Spanish and French. The meaning of the word “linguist” is to describe a person who is proficient in many languages. I hope I can be a master like this on day. Of course, most of the topic will be editted in English. Due to my current level of Spanish and French, they will be focused in edditing daily common vocabularies and conversations. There are some topics I plant to write as follows: diary, assigned writing topics, in-class notes, language teaching and learning, and other foreign languages. The diary in the most important part of the blog, I will write about many funny daily events of mine. The assigned writing topics include those topics I had praceticed in writing class this semester and those reference topics given by Harris. The in-class notes are to commemorate Professor Tzyh-lai Huang, the most respectable instructor in the department, who will retire in this July. The content is about the five courses what I have learned from him. Language teaching and learning is about the two practical couses I took in language teaching and learning. I will make summeries from the two books: “Language Learning Strategies” and “Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching.” As a linguist, once he or she has the abilities of teaching and learning in language, it will be more professional than others. The other foreign languages will be editted in Spanish or French, the content just as I mentioned before.
Finally, the third acclaim is for my success in editting my blog and victory of the blog writing contest. Hip, hip, hurray!!!