After We Are All Fighters, the first English inspirational speech video against COVID-19 (新冠肺炎) came out, in just a few days, the video was played nearly 600,000 times on the platform, was praised by hundreds of thousands of Chinese and foreign netizens (网民), and was also reproduced by many media (媒体). The speech in the form of a poem was written in Chinese and English by Liu Jie from Shenzhen.

    Liu Jie said, "When I see the increasingly serious epidemic (流行病) situation make our country and hundreds of millions of people in great danger, my heart ache. I think maybe language can give us the hope, confidence and courage to keep fighting. I also write in English because I hope we can not only show our countrymen, we can also let those in other countries who care about us and help us or don't care about China see that we have the spirit, history and determination(决心) to win!"

    In the speech, she says, "This is a war without smoke/ and we are all fighters/... Our people may get sick/ our city may get sick/ but we as a brave nation/ will never ever get sick/... / We've been on this planet for over 5,000 years/ We've witnessed (见证) much darker moments/...We've always stood back up on our feet/ We've always won in the end/ And we will definitely (肯定) win this time/...No matter how strong our enemy was/ Or how impossible it seemed to win/ We just kept fighting/ Because we are all fighters!" How encouraging her words are! We really feel the blood boiling after listening.

    Also, this speech is also a good material for practicing listening and speaking. Practice has shown that it's a good way to improve speaking while listening to and reading a speech.

What did people do to communicate in ancient times? Here are some very interesting answers to this question.

Alphorns（阿尔卑斯长号角） were once used to communicate in the mountains in Switzerland. They are very long and they are very heavy, too. So, alphorns are hard work to blow. Then why use them? Well, they make a loud sound which travels much further than the human voice. Herdsmen（牧民） used them to call cows in the distance for milking. At sunset, alphorns were also used to send a message down to villagers that all was well. These days, they're mostly used as musical instruments.

The people of La Gomera, an island in Europe, have their own special way of sending messages from mountain to mountain. They use a whistled（口哨） language called el silbo, which comes from their language Spanish. Whistling can be heard within five kilorneters, which means it can be used across much greater distances than shouting. El silbo can be used for all kinds of messages, including greetings and announcements. El silbo is used a lot less than it used to be, but primary school students in La Gomera have to leave it.

Did you know it 's also possible to send messages without making a noise? This is called visual communication, and it includes the use of flags and even smoke. Long ago, soldiers along the Great Wall of China used smoke as a warning. If they noticed the enemy from their signal（信号） tower, they lit a smoky fire. When soldiers in other towers saw the smoke signal, they lit fires, too. In this way, messages about the enemy's arrival could travel as far as 800 km in just a few hours.

Poems for Children is a book of poems. These poems were chosen by the poet Julie Waters and they carry children on a wonderful journey of poetry.

The book contains 50 poems which were written by poets from many different countries. There are poems old and new from W.B. Yeats. Robert Louis Stevenson, Waller de la 'Mare and many other famous poets around the world. You can find poems about joy, humour, beauty and mystery.

This book is a treasure because Waters has chosen some really fine poems. There are short ones like The Parkby James S. Tippett and Until I saw the sea by Lilian Moore, together with longer ones like Kept Busy by Joanne Bums and The Explosion by Philip Larkin. They create wonderful images in the reader's mind and tell a story. Children can learn how beautiful and musical the English language can be when they read the poems aloud.

Another part of the book which makes it attractive is Charlotte Green's introduction. It teaches children how to read and appreciate （欣赏）poems. Green uses simple words so children can understand them easily. This is a must- read for both beginners and advanced learners of poetry.