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