TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It is a set of meetings, held in various (不同的) cities around the world every year. TED meetings invite speakers to give reports on different topics. The speakers are from different parts of the world. They are usually experts in their fields and talk about new ideas and recent developments that are important to their work. The speakers are often also well-known with people such as Microsoft giant Bill Gates and the world-famous expert, Jane Good all, having given talks. There are many talks on environment and international development, aid work, and how to help poor people with all kinds of new ideas. There are also a number of talks about education and education reform (改革).

    As the talks cover a wide variety of topics, all speakers have a strict time limit — each report must last no longer than 18 minutes.

    Like all organizations, however, TED has had its downs as well as ups. Some people think the organization is turning intelligent members of the scientific and other communities into entertainers (表演者). What else, those who attend must be very privileged (有特权的) with tickets for TED events costing about $ 6,000 (or more).

    However, www.ted.com, the organization's website can make many great talks become accessible to everybody who has an Internet connection. Every weekday, a new video is uploaded (更新) from a TED event, allowing people around the world to listen to the talks for free. At only 18 minutes, even if the video is not that interesting, you know you are not going to waste too much time.

Most TED talks are in English but there are talks available in other languages, too. As a result, the site is excellent for practicing English and learning new vocabulary, especially in a topic that you find interesting and enjoyable.

    English ─ speaking people say many “thank you” every day. Early in the morning when a teacher  asks a student，“Good morning. How are you?”,  his answer should be.“ I'm fine, thank you. And you?" This is the first "thank you" of a day.

    When you hear “Your skirt is nice.” you say, “Thank you. I'm happy you like it.” At your birthday party, when people give you something and say “This is for you. Happy birthday!”，you also answer, “Thank you."

    When your friend helps you clean the classroom after school, you say “thank you" to him.

    When you hear people say to you "Your English is very good. how do you answer it?

    The Nobel Prize is named after Alfred Nobel (1833--1896), a Swedish inventor and businessman. During his lifetime, Alfred Nobel contributed to more than 350 inventions and set up 87 companies around the world. When he died, he left the largest part of this fortune, a total of 9 million, to be used to found the Nobel Prize. Now the prizes are given to the people in six areas: peace, literature(文学), physics, chemistry, medicine and economy.

    Winners can be individuals (个人) or organizations. The Red Cross, for example, has won three times. Prizes are sometimes shared between up to three people. Prize winners receive a medal, a certificate (证书) and 10 million Swedish crowns(克郎，货币单位). Generally those who win a Nobel Prize value the honor more than the money they receive.

    The youngest person ever to win a Nobel Prize was just 25 years old. He was Lawrence Bragg, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1915 together with his father. The oldest winner is Leonid. He won the Prize in Economic Sciences in 2007 when he was 90 years old.

    So far, more than ten Chinese people have won dais great prize. The most recent ones are Mo Yan and Tu Youyou.

    Mothers Day is a celebration in memory of mothers. It celebrates the importance of mothers in society. It is celebrated on different days in many parts of the world, mostly in March, April or May. Let's see how different people celebrate their Mother's Day.

    Mexico(May 10)

    Children make gifts and give them to their mums on Mother's Eve (May 9).On the morning of May 10,families make a special trip to church and cat tamales(玉米饼),sometimes filled with meat, cheese or vegetables.

South Africa(Second Sunday of May)

    Besides giving mums Mother's Day cards, people show their thanks for their mothers by wearing red and pink flowers called carnations. If their mothers have passed away, they wear white carnations.

    United Kingdom(Fourth Sunday of Lent(大斋期))

    Mother's Day is a traditional day for people to visit their hometown and attend their home churches. People also bake(烘焙)special fruitcakes to give to their mums.

    Indonesia(December22)

    People throw big parties for their mums, filled with fun activities-such as cooking competitions and kebaya-wearing competitions!(A kebaya is a traditional blouse and skirt.)

    How funny would it be to see memes(表情包) in our textbooks? Fourteen high school students from Sichuan Province have made this a reality.

    They wrote a set of creative textbooks that includes five subjects: Chinese, English, Maths, Chemistry and Physics. They share their notes and experiences to help you prepare for high school entrance exams. You can see funny memes almost everywhere in their textbooks. The language they use is not too serious.

    Each textbook has its own highlights(亮点), too. The English textbook introduces tongue twisters(绕口令), movies and TV series. The chemistry textbook has wuxia characters. There is a boy named Shangguan Huaxue(chemistry) in the book. He meets a girl and they learn chemistry together. It has ancient poems and wuxia-style descriptions.

    Yan Zuhuai, 15, a top student from Chengdu No.7 High School, is the textbooks' editor-in-chef. He got the idea to create the books in June. "Many underclassmen wanted me to share my notes with them. When I saw people sharing bikes, I thought, why not share knowledge as well?" Yan said.

    But when he put all of his notes together, he found that they were boring. Realizing that his classmates enjoy online novels and memes, he decided to add these things. He wrote guidelines and samples for each textbook and invited 13 students to join him in creating them.

    Their first drafts(草稿) came out in August. Students and teachers praised them. But Yan felt the books needed to be improve. In October, he and his team learned how to use the design software to improve the books. The final version(版本) will come out at the end of December. About 2,500 people have preordered them. Many publishing houses have shown great interest in them.