All of us know the old saying “Practice make perfect.” It tells us unless we want to realize our aim, we should practise and one day we will make it. It's easy to understand. Once I wanted to learn swimming. At first I found difficult to control my body. I just sank into the water. I feel very frightened. Then I watched others who were good at them and asked them the key to succeed. I went to the swimming pool every day, learned from them and practiced. A day, when my friend pushed me into the swimming pool, I sudden found that I could swim. How exciting I was! Now I can swim much more better than before.

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    The ancient Greeks were very good at making conversations, and the greatest talker of them all was philosopher Socrates. His pupil, Plato, recorded some of his supposed conversations, and we read them in ‘The dialogues' of Plato. In many classrooms today, Socrates' method of teaching is used.

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    The best talkers appear to have a great interest in and love for their fellow creatures; a curiosity about the world in general; some powers of observation and reflection; respect for their own opinions and tolerance for those of others; and quick thinking. And they talked for the fun of it, not to show off their knowledge.

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    A good voice must have the help of good speech, whose two assistants are clear enunciation(清晰发音)and correct pronunciation. Poor enunciation may suggest to your listeners that you lack consideration, and that you are not especially concerned about their opinion of you.

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    Pronunciation is settled by common agreement of the community or group speaking the particular language or dialect. For standard pronunciation of words, a dictionary is your best friend. The usage of words is somewhat the same as pronunciation. To be accurate in your use of words is very important in your conversation. Dictionaries usually provide the usage of words. So whenever you meet with new words, it is a good idea to look them up in the dictionary.

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    Think of meeting a stranger as a chance to have a good time to talk, to make a friend. Look with a smile directly into the other's eyes when you are introduced, and shake hands with a firm, friendly clasp. This will give you confidence. Then try to have a smooth and pleasant conversation with him.

    Currently offered by some famous universities, MOOCs are attractive to people who do not have the financial resources to meet the growing costs of university education, or who do not have formal qualifications. They also allow participants to study at their own pace.

    The potential for MOOCs to deliver education is obviously vast—they could be considered as a huge step forwards in widening participation. They also have the potential to provide a unique window on universities that offer popular and valuable courses, they may attract some participants to register for formal fee-paying programmes at the same or other universities and are likely to promote new ways of on-line education.

    However, it is still very early days for MOOCs. The quality of the education provision is highly variable, with many courses offering only recordings of lectures, and delivery is particularly difficult in some special fields that require practical classes, research projects or extensive library access. Besides, wider engagement with participants requires very considerable resource. Even limited feedback or examination becomes a major task if there are several thousand students in the class.

Considering the challenges, some people argue MOOCs will soon evaporate (蒸发). But they certainly provide good opportunity for widening higher education, are a means of raising awareness of universities to audiences of tens or hundreds of thousands, and are well worthy of serious consideration.

Quiet Virtue: The Conscientious

    The everyday signs of conscientiousness (认真尽责)—being punctual, careful in doing work, self-disciplined, and scrupulous (一丝不苟的) in attending to responsibilities—are typical characteristics of the model organizational citizen, the people who keep things running as they should. They follow the rules, help out, and are concerned about the people they work with. It's the conscientious worker who helps newcomers or updates people who return after an absence, who gets to work on time and never abuses sick leaves, who always gets things done on deadline.

    Conscientiousness is a key to success in any field. In studies of job performance, outstanding effectiveness for almost all jobs, from semi-skilled labor to sales and management, depends on conscientiousness. It is particularly important for outstanding performance in jobs at the lower levels of an organization: the secretary whose message taking is perfect, the delivery truck driver who is always on time.

    Among sales representatives for a large American car manufacturer, those who were most conscientious had the largest volume of sales. Conscientiousness also offers a buffer (缓冲) against the threat of job loss in today's constantly changing market, because employees with this quality are among the most valued. For the sales representatives, their level of conscientiousness mattered almost as much as their sales in determining who stayed on.

    There is an air around highly conscientious people that makes them seem even better than they actually are. Their reputation for dependability influences managers' evaluations of their work, giving them higher evaluations than objective measures of their performance would predict.

    But conscientiousness in the absence of social skills can lead to problems. Since conscientious people demand so much of themselves, they can hold other people to their own standards, and so be overly judgmental when others don't show the same high levels of model behavior. Factory workers in Great Britain and the United States who were extremely conscientious, for example, tended to criticize co-workers even about failures that seemed unimportant to those they criticized, which damaged their relationships.

    When conscientiousness takes the form of living up to expectations, it can discourage creativity. In creative professions like art or advertising, openness to wild ideas and spontaneity (自发性) are scarce and in demand. Success in such occupations calls for a balance, however; without enough conscientiousness to follow through, people become mere dreamers, with nothing to show for their imaginativeness.

    On my first job as sports editor for the Montpelier Leader Enterprise (MLE), I didn't get a lot of fan mail, so my attention was caught by a letter on my desk one morning.

    When I opened it, I read: “Sweet piece of writing on the Tigers. Keep up the good work.” It was signed by Don Wolfe, the sports editor Because I was a teenager (being paid the grand total of 15 cents a column inch), his words could not have been more inspiring, I kept the letter in my desk drawer until it got old. Whenever I doubted I had the right stuff to a writer,I would reread Don's note and walk on air again.

    Later, when I got to know him, I learned that Don made a habit of writing a quick, encouraging note to people in all walks of life, “When I make others feel good about themselves, ” he told me, “I feel good, too.”

    Over the years, I've tried to copy Don and write uplifting words. In a world too often cold and unresponsive, such notes bring warmth.

    Why are positive note writer in such short supply? My guess is that many who shy away from the practice are too self-conscious. They are afraid they will be misunderstood. Thus it may cause troubles and problems. And it sounds insincere on the phone, Also, writing takes time；it is far easier to pick up the phone.

    The drawback of phone calls, of course, is that they do not last. A note attaches more importance to our well-wishing. It is a matter of record, and our words can be read more than savored (回味) and treasured, and they bring strength and love to us.

    Today I sent a warm letter to my old boss. I don't know if it will make his day, but it made mine. As my friend Don Wolfe said, “Making others feel good about themselves also make me feel good too. ”

Reading the world in 195 books

    In 2012, I set myself the challenge of trying to read a book from every country of all 195 UN-recognized states in a year. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}. I created a blog called A Year of Reading the World and put out an appeal for suggestions of titles that I could read in English.

    The response was amazing. Before I knew it, people all over the planet were getting in touch with ideas and offers of help. Some posted me books. Others did hours of research on my behalf. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}. Even with such an extraordinary team behind me, however, sourcing books was no easy task.

    But the effort was worth it. As I made my way through the planet's literary landscapes, extraordinary things started to happen. Far from simply armchair travelling, I found I was inhabiting the mental space of the storytellers. I discovered, bookpacking offered something that a physical traveller could hope to experience only rarely: it took me inside the thoughts of individuals living far away and showed me the world through their eyes. More powerful than a thousand news reports, these stories not only opened my mind to basic information of life in other places, but opened my heart to the way people there might feel. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}. Through reading the stories shared with me by bookish strangers around the globe, I realized I was not an isolated person, but part of a network that stretched all over the planet.

    One by one, the country names on the list that had begun as an intellectual exercise transformed into places filled with laughter, love, anger, hope and fear. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}. At its best, I learned, fiction makes the world real.