Teachers' Day is, interestingly, not celebrated on the same day all over the world. In some countries it is marked by a holiday, in others it is a working day.

    International Teachers' Day is celebrated on October 5. Being held ever since 1994, it is in honor of teachers' organizations worldwide. Its aim is to encourage supports for teachers and to meet the needs of students.

    China    In 1939, Teachers' Day was set for August 27, Confucius' birthday. In1951, the celebration was stopped. However, it was founded again in 1985, and the day was changed to September 10.

    India     Teachers' Day is celebrated on September 5 in honour of Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the second president of India, whose birthday falls on that day.

    Russia    In Russia, Teachers' Day was celebrated on the first Sunday of October between 1965 and 1994. Since 1994, the day is observed on the October 5, just the same day as World Teachers Day.

    The US    In the US, Teachers' Day is non-official holiday. It is celebrated on the Tuesday of the first full week of May. A number of activities are organized in schools to honor teachers. The celebrations can continue for the whole week of May.

    Thailand     In Thailand, National Teachers' Day is celebrated every year on January 16. The first Teachers' Day was held in 1957. The day is a holiday in schools.

    Alaska's state fair, which runs until September 5^th, began as a celebration among residents of the Mantanuska Colony, a project under which 200 farm families were moved to Alaska to see whether agriculture could be possible in the coldest state. The state fair lives on, but little more than a decade after the start of the project most of the participants had abandoned their farms. The project was widely seen as a flop.

    In this state, glaciers cover 300 times more acres than farms. Only 5% of the food consumed is grown locally, compared with 81% nationwide. The growing season is short and summer temperatures chilly. Tomato plants wither(凋谢). Fruit trees, in most parts of the state, are just a dream.

    Enter the high tunnel: a greenhouse consisting of a metal frame with plastic stretched across it. Its few millimeters of plastic separate crops inside from the great outdoors. But this is enough for Alaskan growers to produce tomatoes as well as sweetcorn, peaches and kiwi fruit, and to boost production of crops by a quarter or more.

    In a place where no one blinks(眨眼) if you call yourself a fisherman, boat captain or gold miner, an increasing number of Alaskans are thinking of themselves as people who grow food. Since the start of the programme, the number of farms registered(登记)with the state has nearly doubled. Local restaurants have begun shaping their menus around what neighboring farms can grow.

    Eight decades ago, the Mantanuska Colony tried to turn farmers into Alaskans. Today, the high tunnels are turning Alaskans into farmers.

    It's rare that the protagonist in a Chinese movie wins the audience's hearts with an emotionally uplifting message, rather than by showing off his or her good looks. But Wolf Warrior II is putting China in the global spotlight. It's also the first film to taste success both in terms of box office earnings and promoting Chinese values.

    Kung fu artist Wu Jing both starred in and directed the action movie. Since its release on July 27, it's earned an unimaginable 4.5 billion yuan, setting a record for domestic movies at the box office. The success of the film has surpassed the anticipations of all, including the production team.

    The film focuses on a rescue operation in Africa, led by former special forces soldier Leng Feng-played by Wu. Leng helps Chinese workers and local Africans flee a war-torn and plague-ravaged country. Wolf Warrior II links art to reality, and reminds people of the massive evacuation of Chinese people from Libya when civil war broke out there in 2011, and from Yemen in 2015, as well as the challenges the Ebola virus created in West Africa from 2013 to 2016. The film describes how the Chinese government aims to protect overseas Chinese citizens. Just as the message at the end of the film reads: “Citizens of the People's Republic of China. When you encounter danger in a foreign land, do not give up! Please remember, at your back stands a strong motherland.”

    Thanks to China's increasing participation in global affairs, now could be considered the right moment to introduce a modern Chinese hero.

    “Holding up a banner of peace, friendship and responsibility, Wolf Warrior II should be seen as a brave effort to promote Chinese values around the world,” columnist Zhu Ping wrote in China Daily.

    “It's time Chinese filmmakers produced films that tell good stories and carry the right spirit. Let us assume Wolf Warrior II has started that trend.”

    We offer five kinds of courses. Each course has been designed to help students according to their needs.

Course 1: General English

    General English is designed to develop students' basic communication skills in: Speaking and Pronunciation, Reading, Listening, Writing, Grammar and Vocabulary. Tuesday to Friday: 9:00 am to 11:00 am, $288 per week.

Course 2: Academic English

    Academic English is for students who want to take the IELTS exam or for those who need to use English in a professional area. Monday to Friday: 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm, $ 320 per week.

Course 3: High School ESL

    Why not make the most of your time studying in Australia with the help from TIES? We have High School ESL classes each week specifically designed for international students. Tuesday to Friday: 8:00 am to 11:00 am, $ 25 per hour.

Course 4: Night Classes

    Do you want to improve your English and get the best possible results in your GRE test? We have two night classes each week designed to meet your needs. Tuesday and Thursday evenings: 8:30 pm to 10:30 pm, $ 60 per day.

Course 5: One on One

    If you are interested in some One on One lessons with TIES teachers, we can design a course to meet your needs. One on One lessons can improve your English language skills more quickly and help students who want to take TOEFL. Tuesday to Friday: 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm, $ 80 per hour.

    An old friend from California called from the airport to tell me that he had arrived. I was not able to leave the office, but I had made plans for his arrival. After explaining (解释) where my new house was, I told him that I had left the key under the doormat (门垫). Since I knew it would be pretty late before I could get home, I suggested that he make himself at home and help himself to anything that was in the refrigerator(电冰箱).

    Two hours later my friend phoned me from the house. At the moment, he said, he was listening to some of my records after having had a delicious meal. Now, he said, he was drinking a glass of orange juice. When I asked him if he had had any difficulty finding the house, he answered that the only problem was that he had not been able to find the key under the doormat, but luckily, the living room window by the apple tree had been left open and he had climbed in through the window. I listened to all this in great surprise. There is no apple tree outside my window, but there is one by the living room window of my next door neighbor's house!

    While the start of a new school year is always exciting, this year was even more so for some elementary school students in Auckland, New Zealand. They became the world's first kids to be "taught" by a digital teacher, Will. Before you start imagining a human-like robot walking around the classroom, Will is just an avatar(化身) that turns up on the students' desktop, tablet, or smartphone screen when called.

    Thanks to a digital camera and microphone, the avatar not only responds to questions the kids may have, but also picks up non-verbal signals. For example, if a student smiles at Will, he responds by smiling back. This two-way communication not only helps draw the students' attention, but also allows the program's developers to monitor their involvement(参与) and make changes if needed.

    Vector's Chief Digital Officer, Nikhil Ravishankar, believes that Will-like avatars could be a novel way to attract the attention of the next generation. He says, "Using a digital human is a very popular method to deliver new information to people, and I have a lot of hope in this technology as a means to deliver rich and educational experience in the future." Greg Cross, the Chief Business Officer for Soul Machines, states that kids who have grown up in this digital time adapt(适应) to new technology quickly, and he hopes to develop the idea of digital humans in the area of educate further.

    The program, in place since August 2018, has been a great success so far. However, no mater how popular it becomes, Will is unlikely to replace human educators any time soon. For one, the avatar's knowledge base is severely limited. But more importantly, even the smartest digital avatars could never predict and react to all the unexpected situations that educators have to deal with on a daily basis. However, it could come in handy as a "personal teacher", providing kids with one-on-one help on the subjects or even topics.