Suppose you work in a big firm and find English very important for your your job because you often deal with foreign businessmen.Now you are looking for a place where you can improve your English,especially your spoken English.

    Here are some advertisements about English language training from newspapers.You may find the information you need.

Global English Center

●General English in all four skills: listening,speaking,reading and writing.

●3-month (700 yuan),6-month (1,200 yuan) and one-year ( 2,000 yuan) courses.

●Choice of morning or evening classes,3 hours per day,Mon.—Fri.

●Experienced college English teachers.

●Close to city centre and bus stops.

Tel: 67605272           Add: 105 Zhongshan Road,100082

Modern Language School

●Special courses in English for business,travel,banking,hotel management and office skills.Small classes (12-16 students) on Sat.& Sun.from 2:00-5:00 pm.

●Native English teachers from Canada and USA.

●Language lab and computers supplied.

●3-month course: 1,050 yuan; 6 month course: 1,850yuan

Write or phone: Modem language School,675 Park Road,100056

Tel:67353019

The 21^st century English Training Center

●We specialize in effective teaching at all levels.

●We offer morning or afternoon classes,both of which last three months and a half at a cost of 800 yuan.

●We also have a six-week TOFEL preparation class during winter and summer holidays.

●Entrance exams: June 1 and Dec.1.

●Only 15-minute walk from city center.

Call 67801642 for more information

The International House of English

●Three/Six-month English courses for students of all levels at very low cost: 60 yuan for 12 hours per week; convenient class hours: 9:00-12:00 am.and 2:00-5:00 pm.

●A four-month evening program for developing speaking skills (same cost as day classes).

●Well-trained Chinese and foreign teachers experienced in teaching English as second/foreign language.

●Free sightseeing and social activities.

●Very close to the Central Park.

For further information call 67432308

    A city child's summer is spent in the street in front of his home, and all through the long summer vacations I sat on the edge of the street and watched enviously the other boys on the block play baseball. I was never asked to take part even when one team had a member missing—not out of special cruelty, but because they took it for granted I would be no good at it. They were right, of course.

    I would never forget the wonderful evening when something changed. The baseball ended about eight or eight thirty when it grew dark. Then it was the custom of the boys to retire to a little stoop(门廊) that stuck out from the candy store on the corner and that somehow had become theirs. No grownup ever sat there or attempted to. There the boys would sit, mostly talking about the games played during the day and of the game to be played tomorrow. Then long silences would fall and the boys would wander off one by one. It was just after one of those long silences that my life as an outsider changed. I can no longer remember which boy it was that summer evening who broke the silence with a question: but whoever he was, I nod to him gratefully now. “What's in those books you're always reading?” he asked casually. “Stories,” I answered. “What kind?” asked somebody else without much interest.

    Nor do I know what drove me to behave as I did,for usually I just sat there in silence, glad enough to be allowed to reain among them; but instead of answering his question, I told them for two hours the story I was reading at the moment. The book was Sister Carrie. They listened bug-eyed and breathless. I must have told it well, but I think there was another and deeper reason that made them to keep an audience. Listening to a tale being told in the dark is one of the most ancient of man's entertainments, but I was offering them as well, without being aware of doing it, a new and exciting experience.

    The books they themselves read were the Rover Boys or Tom Swift or G.A.Henty. I had read them too, but at thirteen I had long since left them behind. Since I was much alone I had become an enthusiastic reader and I had gone through the books-for-boys series. In those days there was no reading material between children's and grownups'books or I could find none. I had gone right fromTome Swift and His Flying Machine to Theodore Dreiser and Sister Carrie. Dreiser had hit my young mind, and they listened to me tell the story with some of the wonder that I had had in reading it.

    The next night and many nights thereafter, a kind of unspoken ritual (仪式) took place. As it grew dark, I would take my place in the center of the stoop and begin the evening's tale. Some nights, in order to taste my victory more completely, I cheated. I would stop at the most exciting part of a story by Jack London or Bret Harte, and without warning tell them that that was as far as I had gone in the book and it would have to be continued the following evening. It was not true, of course; but I had to make certain of my new-found power and position. I enjoyed the long summer evenings until school began in the fall. Other words of mine have been listened to by larger and more fashionable audiences, but for that tough and athletic one that sat close on the stoop outside the candy store, I have an unreasoning love that will last forever.

                                                                         Classified ads

    For direct classified service, call 800­0667 10 a.m.—4 p.m., Monday—Friday.

    When you are sitting in class, have you ever drawn pictures in the margins (页边的空白处) of your notebooks? If so, you are doodling. Many people think of doodling as a distraction (分心) from more important things. But it might be just the opposite.

    One study shows that doodling may help you remember things you hear 29% more. Besides, doodling can help you think creatively. Walking away from a problem to draw might actually help you solve it. When you come back, you'll have a fresh perspective and figure out an answer more quickly.

    An author named Sunni Brown wrote a book on doodling. She argues that doodling is a tool that can help people think. In fact, she runs a business that helps companies improve organization and planning through doodling. Brown believes doodling is helpful because it includes many ways of learning. You learn in four ways: seeing, hearing, reading or writing, and through movement. The more ways you use, the better you learn. And when you doodle while listening to a lecture, you use all four.

    You might think that being good at drawing is important for doodling. But if the point of doodling is to help you think, then it doesn't matter what the picture looks like. Even if you're not an artist, doodling can help you. So next time you need help focusing, pick up a pen and doodle away!

    I can proudly say that last year I broke the record for the oldest person in the world to ride a roller-coaster. I'm 105, but I feel younger. Even the doctor agrees I'm in good condition. I'm a bit deaf and my legs feel weak, but they are the only issue.

    I rode the Twistosaurus at Flamingo Land, which spins you round quite fast. I didn't choose to go on that. I'd have preferred a really fast one that went upside down. But I was told I couldn't ride something like that, because my blood pressure could drop and I might have some danger.

    I wasn't nervous — I don't get frightened of anything. I was securely fastened, so I knew I wouldn't fall out. The roller-coaster ride went on for three or four minutes, and it couldn't be a better experience. And I raised a lot of money for the Derbyshire, Leicestershire & Rutland Air Ambulance fund, which was fantastic.

    People were saying I'd got a place in the Guinness World Records. Later, someone came to present me with the certificate. I had it on the wall in my living room, with another one that got a year earlier.

    My record-breaking ways really began a couple of years ago, with the ice-bucket challenge. It turned out that I was probably the oldest person in the world to do it, and the video was very popular. After that, I stared to think about what else I could do to raise money for different charities.

    I'm not sure if anyone admires all the fun I'm having. They just say I'm daft and that's about it. But I've had many good days and many exciting times. I've had a really good life. I don't think I've wasted any of it.

    Scientists have recreated a 1985 study of birds in Peru that shows climate change is pushing them from their natural environment. Thirty years ago, researchers studied more than 400 kinds of birds living on a mountainside in Peru. In 2017, researchers looked again at the bird populations. They found that almost all had moved to higher places in the mountain. Almost all had decreased in size. And, the scientists say at least eight bird groups that move to the higher altitude had died out completely.

    Mark Urban, director of the Center of Biological Risk at the University of Connecticut, said this recent study was the first to prove that rising temperatures and moving to avoid them can lead to extinction.

    In 1985, Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, and a team of scientists established a camp alongside a river running down a mountainside in southeastern Peru. He wanted to document where tropical bird groups lived. His team spent several weeks using nets to catch and release birds. They kept detailed notes of birds they caught, saw or heard. In 2016, Fitzpatrick passed his notes, photos and other records to Benjamin Freeman. Freeman who has been researching tropical birds for more than 10 years set out in August and September of 2017 to copy Fitzpatrick's study. His team used the same methods, searching the same places in the same time of year.

    Freeman said that the birds moved an average of 98 meters further up the mountain, believing that temperature is the main cause of the birds' movement. Fitzpatrick noted that birds used to living in areas with little temperature change might be especially at risk because of climate change. He said, "We should expect that what's happening on this mountain top is happening more generally in the Andes, and other tropical mountain ranges."