A funny thing happened to my sister Tina last month. She lives in Japan and teaches English. In Japan, people don't usually wear their outdoor shoes in the house or in school, and a lot of buildings have places for shoes. So her school has a special place for shoes. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}
Tina teaches English in the evening. One Friday, she went to school, and she put her shoes in the shoe box as usual. Then she had an interesting spoken English class with her students. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} But to her surprise, her shoes weren't in the box. There was only one pair of those there, and they weren't her shoes! She had to get home in a hurry. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}
On Monday, at her next English class, her shoes were in a shopping bag on her desk! There was a note that said, “I'm so sorry. I took your shoes by mistake!” {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Somebody felt a lot of shame!

    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.

    To save time, many Americans buy foods which can be quickly made ready for the table. On holidays, families enjoy delicious meals. For example, on Thanksgiving Day, the fourth Thursday in November, family members get together for a turkey dinner with pumpkin pie(南瓜派).

    The United States is known around the world for its fast food, such as hamburgers, sandwiches, pizzas, salad bars, and many kinds of ice cream. People can easily find fast food chains(连锁店),such as McDonalds' and KFC, in most of the big cities in the world.

    These years, many people have taken more and more care of their health while eating. They come to know eating too much meat will make them overweight. Many of them are also worried about food addictives(添加剂). Some of them may be harmful to the body.

There are many ways to enjoy learning English.

One of my students likes telling stories very much. I often ask him to tell a story in English before we have the English class. Can you guess what happens? Learning English is not hard

for him. He tries to remember a lot of English stories and tells them in English. We enjoy his English stories very much. If we don't under-stand him, he will translate(翻译) the stories into Chinese for us. Later he learns English well. We also learn a lot from his stories.

Another student has big problems with listening. She enjoys listening to songs. I offer her a lot of English songs without(没有) words. She wants to learn one of them. I advise her to write down the words one by one when she listens to the English song. She says she has never tried this way before. It is really helpful and her listening has been improved.

The two students have different experience of learning English.

Nowadays, a new method is used to decide who are the top students in school. The best students are those who not only get high marks, but also follow the rules and the behavior standards for middle school students. Here are some of the new rules and standards. 

Tell the truth. Have you ever copied someone else's work in the exams? If you have, don't do it again! That's not something an honest student should do. If you have played online games for two hours in your room, don't tell your parents you were doing homework. 

Learn to be loving and caring. Good students love animals and care for other people. 

Learn to work together with others. It would be more fun when more people work together. Did you quarrel with your teammates when your basketball team lost? Only working together can make your team stronger. You shouldn't only think of yourself. You should also think of others. 

Be open to new ideas. Have you ever thought that people could live on the moon? Perhaps you'll discover Earth Ⅱ someday. Don't look down on new ideas. Everyone's ideas are important. You should welcome them, because new ideas make life better for everyone. 

Use the Internet carefully. The Internet can be very useful for your studies. Some websites on the Internet aren't for kids, so make sure to visit the ones that are good for you. You can use the Websites for fun or homework. Can't you find any good websites for you? 

How can you remember a song for a long time? Why does your teacher use songs to teach you English? Do you know there is a scientific (科学的) reason for this?

Scientists are studying the relationship between music and remembering a foreign language. They found that remembering words in a song is the best way to remember even the most difficult language. 

"Singing could be a new way of learning a foreign language. The brain (大脑) likes to remember things in a catchy and relaxing way. For example, children can remember difficult words quickly when they are in a song," said Dr Lude. "If children find it difficult to learn foreign languages," Dr Lude wrote, "a listen- and- repeat (重复) singing method can support foreign language learning, and open the door for future research in this area."

Many language teachers know the importance of music and they often use it in teaching and learning. Hua Zhuying, a teacher at a Chinese language school in America, likes using songs to teach Chinese. " We usually use English songs but teach them the Chinese lyrics (歌词), so it's easy to start because they know the music, " she said. "Sometimes I think if I learnt English that way when I was young, maybe I could speak English much better than now."

Our brain likes music in learning languages. especially (尤其) for remembering. If you are still having some problems in learning a language, why not try singing it out?