One day, Meg finds that a button(纽扣) of her coat is lost. She looks forthe button everywhere, but she can't find it. The next day, she doesn't wear that coat to school and feels sad all day. After school, she goes to the clothes shops and wants to buy that kind of clothes. But she feels disappointed.

    Meg tells her sister about that, her sister says, “We can change all the buttons. Then the buttons will be the same.” The coat is beautiful again and Meg feels happy again.

C

    Today is Children's Day. There is a show in the zoo. Many children are in the zoo. Look at the animals. They are so cute. The birds are flying and singing in the sky. The tigers are running. The pandas are climbing trees. They are good climbers. The kangaroos are jumping. Look at the mother elephant and the baby elephant. The mother elephant is eating bananas and the baby elephant is drinking water with its trunk. Look，what are those? They are two lions. They are playing with a ball. And the monkeys are swinging.

    The film Forever Enthralled was directed by the director(导演)Chen Kaige, and famous stars acted in it, such asZhang Ziyi and Chen Hong. This film shows Mei Lanfang's life.

    Mei, a master of Beijing opera, grew up in a family of Beijing opera performers. He began to perform on the stage(舞台)in 1904 when he was 10 years old. He learnt his acting skills and played female roles and became highly good at singing, dancing and acting. He turned himself into a performer of almost all types of the "Dan" female roles.

    In July 1937, the Japanese army occupied(占领) Beijing. The officer of the army told Mei to perform for them and promised to give him a lot of money. Mei refused to do so, and from then on, he gave up performing on stage during the war. This made him poor until the war ended in 1945.

After 1949, he made the Dan have an important place in Beijing opera through many years of hard working. In his 50-year stage life, he used new acting skills and made lots of good operas. So he became the symbol of Beijing opera.

    Bill andCathy wanted to go on a holiday. They chose a place called Maldives (马尔代夫). And they decided to1therefor two weeks in spring, because they heard that the weather there would beperfect at that time. They worked very hard for several2.Finally, they made enough money for their dream3.But their trip was more like a nightmare (噩梦)!

    Theproblem4when the flight was put off because ofbad weather. They couldn't leave5night. They finally goton the plane twelve hours later! But they6fly to Maldives becausethere was a storm. They had to fly to the capital city7.There they stayed in a small hotel8the airport.

    The hotelwas next to the sea, but the sea was9dirty that they couldn'tswim in it. And the hotel swimming pool was full of leaves! The food was awful10.For breakfast there was11bread and milk! The worst part was whenthe storm came, they felt really12. Because of the bad weather,they had to stay for13night in the small hotel. And they had14todo. It was so boring. Finally, they15in Maldives three dayslater. And someone told them the weather there had been wonderful all the time!

Now more than one billion people in China speak putonghua, or Mandarin, as their first language. At the same time, dongbeihua, or northeast dialect (方言), has become more popular. The dialect makes even the most serious daily conversations sound fun.

Ms Ann, a Chinese language teacher, opened a class to teach middle school students dongbeihua in Heilongjiang Province. "I just hope to help the students learn more about the culture of their home town," said Ms Ann.

"It is important to inherit (继承) the northeast dialect in a new form,"she said. "For most students, they are speaking Mandarin or even English to adapt(适应) to society. They don't pay more attention to the dialect or the culture behind it. That's a pity. They need to pass it on."

Now there are over thirty students in her class. At first, some students believed it would not be difficult for the northeasterners to speak dongbeihua well. However, with the deepening of the class, the students could only speak some easy words and knew little about the meaning behind them. To increase students' interest, Ms Ann has been trying different ways. For example, she chose video clips from interesting cartoons for her students to dub (配音) them into dongbeihua.

Both Mandarin and dialect are the carriers (载体) of Chinese language and culture. Learning the dialect is learning our local culture and history.