Dear Mike，

      I'm so glad you're coming to China! Your mother，our foreign English teacher，told me you're worried about what you should and shouldn't do as a guest in China．Here's some advice．You will probably be invited to a big meal. You may find it earlier than you expect because Chinese people eat dinner much earlier than people in the West．There will be a lot of different dishes，not just three courses．You may find it difficult to use chopsticks if you haven't tried before．It's a good idea to get some practice．When the food is served，you should take time to look at it. The preparation takes a long time and everything will look beautiful．The plates will be placed in the middle of the table，for everyone to share．Take a little of everything and then have some more of the things you like．Chinese people like to talk about food，so it's a good topic of conversation．At the end of the meal，you will usually be served with fruit．Eat your fruit，thank your friends， and go．

      I hope this is helpful．E-mail me if you have any other questions． 

                                                                                                                              Yours，

                                                                                                                                   David Zhang

    One of the things to be learnt in a foreign language is guessing all the time what kind of thing to come when listening to someone talking. People do this all the time in their own language, so it is necessary (必要的) to do this in a foreign language, too. Here are some examples.

    ⒈"What's the matter?" "I went to a party last night, so I…"

    ⒉"I feel so tired these days."" I think you'd better…"

    ⒊"Of course, she never stops talking. She is one of the most…"

    You can see from the above three examples that the context (上下文) helps a lot in understanding what is being talked about. So "guessing "is very important in understanding English, especially (尤其)spoken English.

Hi! My name is Grace.  I'm a student in Sunshine Middle School.  My school is beautiful.  There are 2,000 students and teachers in my school. 

I'm in Class Five Grade Seven.  My classroom is on the second floor of the classroom building.  There are forty desks and forty chairs in our classroom.  You can also see a big desk.  The big desk is for our teachers. 

There is a small office next to my classroom.  There are three desks and three chairs.  They are for Mr.  Wang, Mr.  Zhang and Mr.  Li.  Mr.  Wang is our Chinese teacher.  Mr.  Zhang is our English teacher and Mr.  Li is our math teacher. 

Almost everyone is afraid of something—snakes，heights，public speaking and so on. 

It is normal and can even be helpful to experience fear sometimes. In dangerous situations，fear can keep our bodies alert（警醒的） so that we can act quickly to protect ourselves. 

But for some people，fear develops into a"phobia"which is a strong and unreasonable fear of something. For example，the majority of us feel a little scared when looking down from a tall building. But people with height phobia may have trouble breathing, feel dizzy or turn down a great job just because the company is on the 20th floor.

Phobias can prevent you from living a normal life. "People with spider phobia would stay out of their home or dormitory room for days if they thought a spider was present，" Katherina Hauner，a researcher at Northwestern University US, told ABC news. This is why scientists have been trying to find a cure for this disease.

Since fear comes from experience—from what we are told，what we see others experience and what happens to us ﹣ some scientists think if they can"rewrite"these unpleasant memories，they might be able to help people overcome their phobias. 

In a study by Hauner and other scientists participants with spider phobia were asked to first touch a spider with a paintbrush. Seeing that it was not actually dangerous，they then tried touching it while wearing a glove. Finally，they could hold it with their hands. 

Certain medicine has also been found to be helpful. Back in 2010，researchers at the University of Hiroshima Japan injected（ 注射） a special medicine into a fish—who was afraid of light—to turn off the fear center in its brain. From then on, the fish no longer feard light.

While the search for solutions to phobias is making great progress，it's an open question whether getting rid of fear is good. Some people want to use these methods to make soldiers fight harder in wars by taking away their sense of fear. Dave Smithson of the Charity Anxiety UK thinks that's a bad idea. "It's fear that prevents us from doing crazy things. "he says. "There's a name for people who don't have fear of consequences: psychopaths（精神变态）". 

In some parts of the world, children don't have enough food to eat or enough money to buy clothes or shoes. Every year at Sunshine Middle School, we do something to collect money for these children. This year we will have a Market Day. 

The Market Day will fall on July 8. We are going to make the student center at our school look just like a big shopping center! People can come at any time from 9:00 a. m. to 5:00 p. m. and buy every- thing from clothes to books, cakes and flowers. 

Luckily for us, many volunteers (志愿者) will help prepare for the big event. Last year, Ms. Grant and Ms. Ali made some wonderful cakes for our charity. They will do it again this year. Bill Thomas will visit Bookworm Bookshop and Mel's Music Shop and ask them to give us things that we can sell at the event. Philip White will e- mail all the teachers and ask them to come to our event. Alice Brow n will put a message online telling the public the event is open to everyone. 

However, there is more to do, and we need your help. We want you to give us things that we can sell- books, old clothes, anything that we can sell to collect money for poor children. We also need some student volunteers to sell the things we get on Market Day. 

With your help, we will certainly have a successful Market Day!