If you're looking for a challenging situation to practice your English, pick up the phone. Not being able to see the other person and the body language can make the chatting difficult. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Here are some tips to guide you through an average phone conversation in English.

1)．Greetings

    Every phone call should begin with a polite greeting such as “Hi, how've you been？” or “Nice to hear from you”. Even if you're calling a business contact for a specific purpose, it'd be rude to jump right into business.  {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

2)．Getting to the point

    There always comes the point where you want to move on from friendly chatting and get down to business. What should you do in this situation? {#blank#}3{#/blank#} However, if you are waiting to find out why someone called you, you can guide the conversation by saying “So what can I do for you？”

3)．Interrupting without offence

    Sometimes you may happen to be speaking with a very talkative person. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Keep in mind when you'd like to interrupt, and be sure to do it politely. For example, begin with “I'd like to say something here”．

4)．Closing the call

    This can be the trickiest part of the conversation! It may be the time to offer good wishes if it's appropriate. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Sometimes it's easiest to just say you enjoyed speaking to the other person. Also remember cleverly saying the word well at the beginning of a sentence can indicate you're ready to end the conversation.

    In modern society there is a great deal of argument about competition. Some value it highly, believing that it is responsible for social progress and prosperity; others say that competition is bad because it sets one person against another and because it leads to unfriendly relationship between people.

    I have taught many children who held the belief that their self-worth relied on how well they performed at tennis and other skills. For them, playing well and winning are often life-and-death affairs. In their single-minded pursuit of success, the development of many other human qualities is sadly forgotten.

    However, while some seem to be lost in the desire to succeed, others take an opposite attitude. In a culture which values only the winner and pays no attention to the ordinary players, they strongly blame competition. Among the most vocal are youngsters who have suffered under competitive pressures from their parents or society. Teaching these young people, I often observe in them a desire to fail. They seem to seek failure by not trying to win or achieve success. By not trying, they always have an excuse: “I may have lost, but it doesn't matter because I really didn't try.” What is not usually admitted by themselves is the belief that if they had really tried and lost, that would mean a lot. Such a loss would be a measure of their worth. Clearly, this belief is the same as that of the true competitors who try to prove themselves. Both are based on the mistaken belief that one's self-respect relies on how well one performs in comparison with others. Both are afraid of not being valued. Only as this basic and often troublesome fear begins to dissolve (缓解) can we discover a new meaning in competition.

    In 1972, a social worker named Sanjit "Bunker " Roy founded Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan. Today the college trains women from villages for six months to build and maintain solar panels and other instruments. Barefoot College also offers education to the younger generation both during the day and at its solar bridge schools that meet by lamp light at night.

    The philosophy of the Barefoot College is largely inspired by the principles of Gandhi, starting with quality beyond social classes, sex or religion. As a matter of fact, women are favorably regarded as an underserved population that is necessary to bringing villages together. Another central principle of the college is self-reliance, teaching students to support and think for themselves.

    After the colleges female students have completed their half a year of training, they return to their villages villages, where they wait for solar panel parts to arrive from the college. Once they have all the pieces they need ,they construct the panels and begin collecting solar energy. For each village, the college also provides solar lamps. Villagers can, in addition, order parts for other solar-powered devices, such as water heaters and cooking stoves. Once assembled(组装）, they and the lamps are powered by the solar panels.

    The effect on the villages is huge. Before the solar panels and lamps arrived, villagers had only candles to light their homes. This prevented adults from doing serious work at night, and it made studying difficult for children as well. As for physicians, they have difficulty treating patients and performing operations at night because they had to rely on flashlights.

    Now there is power for not only the electrical appliances that the college provides but also devices like televisions, radios and computers. For the first time, the villagers can even connect to the world through the Internet.

    Adding math talk to story time at home is a winning factor for children's math achievement, according to a new research from a university. The study from psychologists Sian Beilock and Susan Levine shows a marked increase in math achievement among children whose families used Bedtime Math, an iPad app that delivers engaging math story problems for parents and children to solve together.

    Even children who used the app with their parents as little as once a week saw gains in math achievement by the end of the school year. The app's effect was especially strong for children whose parents tend to be anxious or uncomfortable with math.

    Previous research from this group has demonstrated the importance of adults' attitudes about math for children's math success. For example, a recent study found that math-anxious parents who help their children with math homework actually weaken their children's math achievement.

    The new findings demonstrate that structured, positive interactions around math at home can cut the link between parents' uneasiness about math and children's low math achievement.

     “Many people experience high levels of anxiety when they have to solve a math problem, with a majority of adults feeling at least some worries about math,” said Beilock, professor in Psychology and author of Choke, a book about stress and performance. “These math-anxious parents are probably less likely to talk about math at home, which affects how competent their children are in math. Bedtime Math encourages a dialogue between parents and kids about math, and offers a way to engage in high-quality math interactions in a low-effort, high-impact way.”

    Study participants included 587 first-grade students and their parents. Families were given an iPad installed with a version of the Bedtime Math app, with which parents and their children read stories and answer questions involving math, including topics like counting, shapes and problem-solving. A control group received a reading app that had similar stories without the math content and questions related to reading comprehension instead. Children's math achievement was assessed at the beginning and end of the school year. Parents completed a questionnaire about their nervousness with math.

    The more times parents and children in the math group used the app, the higher children's achievement on a math assessment at the end of the school year. Indeed, children who frequently used the math app with their parents outperformed similar students in the reading group in math achievement at year's end.

    Keeping a busy social life among lots of friends may keep people thinner than spending hours doing some exercises, according to scientists. They say that socializing and meeting with friends help increase levels of brown fat in the body which burns calories to produce heat.

    Living in an exciting social environment was found to reduce fat in mice's belly by half over four weeks, even if they ate more.US researchers say that social excitement aids weight loss by turning white fat into brown fat. White fat stores calories and makes us fatter, while brown fat burns energy to produce heat. Turning white fat into brown fat is extremely difficult, normally requiring long-term stay in cold conditions or exciting part of the body's nervous system.

    However, scientists from Ohio State University now think that having a busy social life is an even more effective way of changing white fat into brown fat. The team came up with their theory by studying the effects of various living environments on mice. Those, who lived alongside a greater number of mice, had more space and toys to excite themselves and they lost far more weight over the course of the study than their “couch potato” fellows.

    Study's author, Dr Mattew During whose team's findings appear in the journal Cell Metabolism, said,“I'm still amazed at the degree of fat loss that occurs.” Explaining how new technology had threatened face-to-face socializing, he added,“It's not just a sedentary (久坐的)lifestyle and high calorie foods, but an increasing lack of social activities.” Co-author Dr Lei Cao said,“Loneliness is a potential factor for cancer and death; it's equal to cigarette smoking to a certain extent. Social activities are very vital.”

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