Good Read 1 / Final Journal
It is really unbelievable that one year has passed. Our English writing class for the first grade is going to end. In the past year, I actually learned a lot. I think the lessons which John teaches in class are very substantial. You let us do many helpful things in the class, such as learning writing tips, doing grammar practice, practicing sentence pattern, correcting mistakes, and so on. These actually improves our English ability a lot. In addition, learning in your class is very funny and interesting. We never feel bored. Instead, you can hear our laughing all the time. I really enjoy the lessons in your class.
Through many ways, I think that using blog to write journals is the most special learning ways for me. I never experience that way to learn English before. However, writing a journal twice a week lets me progress a lot. I consider that writing journals frequently can help us accumulate the experiences on writing. Now, I find that I can write more than before, and the content in the journal becomes abundant. The using of grammar becomes more correct. The sentence making is more smoothly. The mistakes on writing gradually decrease. I truly learn many skills by writing journal. Besides, I can surf our classmate’s blog at any time. I can learn some skills and also train my reading ability. Thus, this way of learning English is really good for us.
Through this class, I learn a lot of writing tips. Regarding the grammar, I finally realize the difficult part, and I also gradually make less grammar mistakes. About the sentence making, I can make it long and smoothly. Moreover, your correcting on my journals is really nice. I can know where I made mistakes and also learn from my mistakes. Finally, I have to thank for your teaching for the past year.
Good Read 2 / Final Journal
Taught by you for a year, I think I’m very lucky. Your teaching style will not make students feel a lot of pressure, but students still can learn many things from you. The assignments that you gave us can really help us to improve our English writing skill and English reading ability. Although I sometimes didn’t do the home works that you gave to me, you wouldn’t get angry. You just mention it casually that it may have bad consequences, but it’s enough to scare me to death. Because of your humor, I never feel bored during your class; instead, I cherish more every class I have. Another point that I feel very great is you not only teach us English writing but also give us some suggestion about how we can do in the future, which are your personal experiences. You even tried to let us to report on the stage, and explain to other students. It makes me feel that I’m a real university student. If I want to be a teacher in the future, I wish I can be a teacher like you. You don’t know how pity I feel that I can’t be your student anymore. In the end, I wish you can success in your study.
Good Read 3 / Final Journal
Time flies like an arrow. My freshman life in Chaoyang is about to end. I have taken the course “Basic English Composition” for one year. Within one year, I had to get up early on every Friday in order to catch up with the class. Although I usually felt tired, I have never been absent. Basic English Composition was a relaxing class. The atmosphere of the whole class was good. It was not so serious like other classes. Besides, the interactions of teacher and students were also fine. Sometimes, teacher was humorous during the class. It would make me feel relaxed.
In addition to the good atmosphere of the class, I liked the way of teaching. For example, teacher used class blog to teach. I thought that it was a good way of teaching. Class blog was convenient and useful for us. We could make use of leisure time to look through other people’s journal and learned advantages from journal that were kept by peers. Moreover, we could get information from the class blog right away if there were any homework and teaching materials. We could also post comments in the class blog to ask for teacher if there were any suggestions and questions.
Furthermore, the teacher ordered that we should hand in a piece of writing biweekly. I thought that it was helpful for our abilities of English writing. It could train our skills of English writing. It could also help us make it a rule to keep a journal. I believe our writing will make great progress as long as we practice English writing continuously. On the other hand, the teacher provided some websites for us to get acquainted with foreign friends, such as Lang-8. Some foreigners could visit our blog and read our journal. They could help us find out mistakes on journal and revise it. It was a good opportunity to make new foreign friends.
To sum up, I have learned a lot of things among the class, such as grammar, writing skill, structure of article, and so on. I even learned some things that I had never known in the past. Within a year, I worked hard to improve my skills of English writing. I made use of material that was taught by teacher to revise my article. Now, I think that I have greatly advanced in English writing.
Good Read 4 / Final Journal
When I was studying in high school, I thought nothing and no one could ever help me to learn to compose a good English journal. It was because my high school teacher said it would be hard for me to compose a good piece of writing. I didn’t know why she said so but neither did I ask because I was too shy to ask questions. Because of her saying so and my lack of confidence, I felt frustrated every time in writing class. However, what I think of writing had changed after I entered college.
I would like to point out a few thoughts. First, I want to say that I was surprised when John, my college writing teacher, said I am quite good at writing. Well, maybe I did compose a good piece of composition that is worth his saying so. What I’m trying to say is that after these days in John’s class, I found out that there are actually some useful methods to compose a well organized composition. I just need to follow the rules. I’m so glad I have learned so many skills and methods during the past year. Besides what I’ve realized, I’m thinking that it is likely for me to get more progress if I keep on writing journals but not just for assignments. I would like to figure out a helpful strategy that keeps me motivated on doing this. For example, I can have someone to keep a diary in English with me.
Regardless of what I have mentioned, the most important of all is that everybody in the class puts what he/she has learned in use. We have been taught to use blog and the Internet to help ourselves learning, and we have learned how to compose a well organized article. Thanks to everything we have been taught, I can now tell everyone that I, who didn’t even know how to make a sentence, am able to compose a good article.
Good Read 5
Book: Tuesdays with Morrie
Chapter: The Curriculum
The last class of my old professor’s life took place once a week in his house, by a window in the study where he could watch a small hibiscus (木槿) plant shed its pink leaves. The class met on Tuesdays. It began after breakfast. The subject was The Meaning of Life. It was taught from experience.
No grades were given, but there were oral exams each week. You were expected to respond to questions, and you were expected to pose questions of your own. You were also required to perform physical tasks now and then, such as lifting the professor’s head to a comfortable spot on the pillow or placing his glasses on the bridge of his nose. Kissing him good-bye earned you extra credit.
No books were required, yet many topics were covered, including love, work, community, family, aging, forgiveness, and, finally, death. The last lecture was brief, only a few words.
A funeral was held in lieu (場所) of graduation.
Although no final exam was given, you were expected to produce one long paper on what was learned. That paper is presented here.
The last class of my old professor’s life had only one student.
I was the student.
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Good Read 6
A narrative writing piece:
Title: The worst thing that has ever happened to me
Title: The worst thing that has ever happened to me
As a matter of fact, many terrible things have happened in my life so far. I can’t really tell you which one of them is the worst. However, if I must name one, I think I will share with you what happened to me 5 years ago when I was enrolled as a postgraduate student.
I can still remember that this unpleasant event happened on a sunny day. My classmates and I were sitting in a classroom, and we were listening to one of our classmates’ presentation. The presenter, who was standing in the front, asked the class to use five simple sentences to make a riddle for others to guess. At the same time, the lecturer, a foreign devil, was standing at the back of the class listening. I finished my part first, so I proudly read my riddle to the rest of the class. When I finished reading the last sentence: There is a foreign teacher in the classroom, the most terrible thing in my life happened. The foreign devil went mad.
The foreign lecturer, who was also known as the foreign devil as aforementioned, shouted at me saying “there is no foreigner in the classroom.” I didn’t understand why he said so because there was indeed a foreigner and it was he. At the first place, I thought I made some mistakes in my sentence, so I just repeated what he said. He became even furious after hearing me repeating. He then thundered at me and he criticized that I was not even qualified to be a postgraduate student because I discriminated foreigners by saying “there is a foreigner in the classroom.”
“Is calling a foreigner a foreigner offensive? What on earth is he talking about?” Even though I thought to myself that way, I was really afraid to see him this mad because, on the one hand, I had never met any single normal person who shouted at me like that before and, on the other, I was afraid to be flunked by him. While I was being afraid, he left saying, “I will never teach the class again.” The first thing, actually a word, came to me was – what? And the second thing crossed my mind was I was in big trouble. Somehow, I realized I had to fix this right away, so I immediately ran after him in order to get him back. Without shoes, I ran downstairs to this crazy man’s office. I apologized for my mistake; yet, he said “I don’t care you’re sorry.” (Yes, he was a crazy foreign devil!) Shocked as I might look when hearing that, I still apologized again and invited him, the devil, to continue lecturing us. I was very glad that I took that action at that moment because things got better after he returned to class. I can’t imagine how ugly this would have become next if I had not chased him back.
When the lecture was over that day, I cried out of humiliation that he put on me, the concern that I might be flunked, and the worry that my classmates might hate me for ruining their lecture. Since the event happened, I had never felt happy whenever I went to class until the day I learnt that I passed his course by a 90 and I didn’t need to attend his class ever again.
Years has passed, but I still remember clearly what happened that day and how unfairly and badly I was treated by that crazy foreign devil. Every time I recall this, I still feel hurt.
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