On September 19, Alibaba went public (上市) on the New York Shock Exchange. It shows that Ma Yun does his business successfully. A short Chinese man seems(似乎) to be the tallest man in the world right now. Ma was an English teacher in the past. Now he becomes the richest man on the Chinese mainland.

    Ma was born in Hangzhou and grew up as a happy kid. At the age of twelve, he found that English was very interesting. Every morning he got up at 5 a.m., and then ran to a hotel near the West Lake. There he could communicate with foreign tourists in English. He did it for nine years.The experience(经验) made him become a fantastic English speaker and also opened his eyes to the wide world. In a 1995 trip to the US, he knew the Internet for the first time. Seeing the chance, Ma returned to China and set up a website without knowing much about computers. Four years later, Ma set up Alibaba in Hangzhou. People called him “Crazy Jack Ma”. But fifteen years later, Alibaba has developed into the world's largest e-commerce (电子商务) company.

A History of English…in Five Words

    In 1582, Richard Mulcaster, headmaster of a British school, wrote that the English would not go beyond their island. However, it didn't stay that way. Today, English is spoken all over the world.

    English is a colorful and diverse (多样的) language that long has picked up words from many other languages. Here are five words that show the English language's interesting history.

English

    English began in the language spoken by the early Germanic people in the fifth century AD. It is from them that the word “English” comes. First it is the Latin word Angli which means the people of Angul, where the Germanic people were from.

Beef

    Although roast beef is seen as a traditional English dish, the word “beef” was introduced from the French boeuf during the Middle Ages. It was one of a group of words, including pork and mutton, that were taken from the speech of the French who moved in Britain following the Norman Conquest (诺曼底登陆) of 1066. However, the farmers who kept these living things continued to call them by their old English names: cow, pig and sheep. This difference passes on till today.

Dictionary

    Dictionary is a borrowing from Latin dictornarius liber, “book of words”. It first appeared in English in the 6th century, along with a huge number of other words from Latin and Greek. The first English dictionary was written by Robert Cawdrey in 1604. Cawdrey focused only on the difficult words whose meanings would have caused problems for those not educated in Latin and Greek.

Tea

    Tea was brought into Britain early in the 17th century, becoming very popular by the 1650s. By the 18th century it had become a symbol（标志） of fashionable society and a best-selling of the coffee house culture.

    The word tea rises from the Chinese word cha. A love of tea is so ingrained (根深蒂固的) in British life that the expression “cup of tea” has come to stand for anything viewed positively. The saying “It's not my cup of tea.” means: I don't like it.

Emoji

    Emoji began developing in Japan in the 1990s for use by teenagers: the word “emoji” comes from the Japanese e “picture” + moji “letter”. Its successful acceptance in English has been helped by its similarity to words with the e-prefix (前缀) like e-mail. The Unicode Consortium's (统一码 联盟的) official lists emojis and their meanings, but users keep finding creative new ways to employ them. Emojis are just another example of the development and diversity of English.

    My name is Alice. I am 14 years old. I have good eating habits(饮食习惯).

    For breakfast, I have two eggs and some bread. I don't like milk, but I have some milk too. Because milk is healthy. For lunch, I have rice with meat and vegetables. Chicken is my favourite meat. Carrots are my favourite vegetable. They are very healthy. I have vegetables and noodles for dinner. After dinner, I eat some fruit. Bananas and apples are my favourite fruit. What food don't I like? Hamburgers! They aren't healthy.

    Good eating habits help me to be healthy.

    The digital(数字的)age has come into our life. In the USA, some teachers think digital search tools(工具)have had a good influence on the American teenagers, but others don't think so. More than 2,000 high school teachers took s survey on the Internet.

    75 percent of the teachers agreed the Internet and digital search tools have had a "mostly good" use for their students' research habits and skills. But 87 percent thought that these technologies" make the students not have enough attention." And 64 percent said the technologies "do little to help them in courses."

    Judy Buchanan is a director of the National Writing Project. Ms. Buchanan says digital search tools are helping students learn more, and lean faster. Teachers really like these tools because they are ways to make some of learning very exciting. Young people enjoy using these tools. And the goal is to help them do creative work, and not just that kind of copyist(模仿者，抄写员).

    But one problem is that many students don't have a good understanding of how to use the digital knowledge well. In other words, they trust too much of the information. Judy Buchanan says these students have not developed the skills they need to tell whether the information on the Internet is good or bad.

    Another problem is something that might not seem like a problem at all, being able to quickly find information from the Internet. Teachers say the ability of their students to work hard to find out answers is becoming weaker. They say students depend too much on search tools and do not make enough use of printed books.

    Besides, many teachers are also worried about the problem that the Internet makes it easy for students to copy work done by others, instead of using their own abilities.

The survey on whether digital tools {#blank#}1{#/blank#} American teenagers

    It is said that everyone has two boxes hung on our necks. The small box at the front is full of other people's mistakes, while the big one at the back is filled with our own shortcomings(缺点).Most of time, it's easy to find other people's mistakes. It's hard for us to see our mistakes behind us.

    A boy called Tony, always looked at the front box to check what was in it. He saw other people's mistakes very quickly. When Ben was impatient with him, he said to Ben, "It's so easy for you to get angry. It is hard to be friends with you."

    He told his mother that Michael was dishonest. "Michael takes my things without asking. And he forgets to return them. "Tony himself did not like sharing his things with anyone.

    When John was too tired to go hiking with him, he said, "You are such an unfriendly person."

    He thought Nick was too proud of his rich parents. But Tony was so proud of himself because he could not see any of his own mistakes!①He could not understand why he didn't get on well with others. Then his mother said to him, "If you change the boxes around, maybe you can find the answer." He did it as his mother said, and his face turned red.②他发现自己并不比其他同学更好.

    John, a farmer, was riding his cart(运货马车)along the country road. He had to arrive at the market early so that he could sell his vegetables. It rained heavily the day before, so it was very difficult for the horse to move on in the mud(泥). {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    It was more difficult for the horse to move the cart. John climbed down from his seat and stood beside his cart.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} He felt really sad. But he didn't try to pull the wheels up by himself. Instead, he looked up at the sky and started shouting, "I am unlucky! {#blank#}3{#/blank#}"

    After some time, an old man walked by. "Do you think you can move the cart by simply looking at it and shouting?" he asked. "Did you try to get the wheels out of the mud by yourself? {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Come on, put your shoulder(肩) to the wheels, and you will soon find the way out."

John did as the old man said.{#blank#}5{#/blank#} John learned his lesson. He thanked the man and went happily on his way.