With the Chinese language growing in popularity, the UK government plans to invest(投资) 10 million pounds to help more kids learn Mandarin(普通话). Do you think it is necessary for the UK pupils to learn Mandarin? Some people share their opinions online.

Ted(UK): The learning of any language can be valuable and rewarding, but it is not suitable for everyone. Chinese is a difficult language to learn and the UK has a poor reputation for teaching foreign languages. Why should they learn Chinese when most people in the world speak English?

Mark(US): I studied French for 2 years in high school and German for 4 years in college. I studied Mandarin informally for about 4 months before moving to China. Now I speak Mandarin every day as my wife doesn’t speak English. But it is far from being fluent. Learning additional languages is a great thing, which offers a different perspective on the world around us. Nowadays, it’s almost necessary to be able to speak more than just your native tongue.

George (UK): No, unless they’re taught from a very early stage of childhood. Mandarin is so difficult. If China really is going to dominate the world, it’ll have to do so by speaking the world’s dominant language---English.

Sam (UK): I don’t think Chinese will become as widely spoken throughout the world as English. It is too difficult to learn as a second language. To learn Chinese you completely have to devote yourself to learning how to write and read it. If you have to learn it besides other subjects you can’t be good at it. But Chinese will become more popular, and that is a good thing.

When something goes wrong, it can be very satisfying to say, “Well, it’s so-and-so’s fault,” or “I know I’m late, but it’s not my fault; the car broke down.” It is probably not your fault, but once you form the habit of blaming somebody or something else for a bad situation, you are a loser. You have no power and could do nothing that helps change the situation. However, you can have great power over what happens to you if you stop focusing on whom to blame and start focusing on how to remedy the situation. This is the winner’s key to success.

Winners are great at overcoming problems. For example, if you were late because your car broke down, maybe you need to have your car examined more regularly. Or, you might start to carry along with you the useful phone numbers, so you could call for help when in need. For another example, if your colleague causes you problems on the job for lack of responsibility or ability, find ways of dealing with his irresponsibility or inability rather than simply blame the person. Ask to work with a different person, or don’t rely on this person. You should accept that the person is not reliable and find creative ways to work successfully regardless of how your colleague fails to do his job well.

This is what being a winner is all about – creatively using your skills and talents so that you are successful no matter what happens. Winners don’t have fewer problems in their lives; they have just as many difficult situation to face as anybody else. They are just better at seeing those problems as challenges and opportunities to develop their own talents. So, stop focusing on “whose fault it is.” Once you are confident about your power over bad situations, problems are just stepping stones for success.

It is a nightly dilemma in many household: A frustrated student hits a wall while doing homework, and parents are too tired or too busy to help.

Ordering a tutor is becoming as easy as grabbing a late-night snack for kids. With the rapid growth of companies offering online tutoring, many students can connect to an online tutor in less than a minute. All you need is a credit card. Such services can be especially helpful to students with tight budgets, tight time frames or those who live in remote areas. Prices, ranging from about $24 to $45 an hour, are cheaper than those many skilled tutors charge in a student’s home. Parents and students say the quick homework fix can ease stress and make evenings at home more peaceful.

All of a sudden, the world opens up to them. “The quality of online scholastic support can be uneven, and online tutors may not be the best for struggling students who need long-term help. Courses can be break down due to technical problems, and language barriers can cause problems on sites that rely on tutors from abroad,” says Michael Horn, executive director of education for the Clayton Christensen Institute. Whenever Peggy Bennett of Dallas tried to help her 13-year-old daughter, Chloe Friedman, with her eighth-grade physics and algebra homework, “we’d always end up bickering,” Ms Bennett did it differently, “It was a lose-lose situation.” Chloe says she was skeptical when her mom helped her sign up last month to Tutor.com, a New York City-bases provider of on-demand tutoring. But after she logged on one evening for some help with her algebra, a tutor, identified only by a first name and last initial, responded within a minute, Chloe says she was guided to figure out the answers, using text chat and an interactive “whiteboard” that displayed their writing and calculations on a shared screen. After hearing nothing but typing for about 10 minutes, Ms Bennett says she heard Chloe yell from the other room, “She told me I did a good job!” Ms Bennett adds, “That’s all that she needed.”

Most sites get the support from part-time or retired teachers, college professors or professionals with tutoring experience; most offer scheduled tutoring in addition to on-demand courses. The most common users are middles and high school students, and college students taking basic courses.

Yamini Naidu, President of the National School Public Relations Association, says “Students who come to courses with a list of questions or assignments to work on—and who spare some time to concentrate—benefit most. Text chats occasionally stop if students are distracted or start multitasking. Online tutors fill a huge gap that can never be filed by parents.”

 When something goes wrong, it can be very satisfying to say, “Well, itˈs so-and-soˈs fault.” Or “I know Iˈm late, itˈs not my fault; the car broke down.” It is probably not your fault, but once you form the habit of blaming somebody or something else for a bad situation, you are a loser. You have no power and could do nothing that helps change the situation. However, you can have great power over what happens to you if you stop focusing on whom to blame and start focusing on how to remedy the situation. This is the winnerˈs key to success.

Winners are great at overcoming problems. For example, if you were late because your car broke down, maybe you need to have your car examined more regularly. Or, you might start to carry along with you the useful phone numbers, so you could call for help when in need, For another example, if your colleague causes you problems on the job for lack of responsibility or ability, find ways of dealing with his irresponsibility or inability rather than simply blame the person . Ask to work with a different person, or donˈt rely on this person. You should accept that the person is not reliable and find creative ways to work successfully regardless of how your colleague fails to do his job well.

This is what being a winner is all about----creatively using your skills and talents so that you are successful no matter what happens. Winners donˈt have fewer problems in their lives; they have just as many difficult situations to face as anybody else. They are just better at seeing those problems as challenges and opportunities to develop their own talents. So, stop focusing on “Whose fault it is.” Once you are confident about your power over bad situations, problems are just the stepping stone for success.

When was the last time your family sat down together to have a dinner?

The speed at which we live today no longer allows for slow eating habits. Most people work long hours. There is lots of fast food and eating out is now on the increase. Often, food is eaten in front of the television in silence, or a child eats alone in front of the computer.

When I was a child, every evening around the same time, one of the children would be asked to set the table, and then weˈd go and wash our hands: before the meal. This was the time of day when we would talk about our day at school. But now things have changed a lot.

A family environment plays an important role for children in learning to communicate with others and understanding table manners, such as waiting for others to finish before leaving the table and not speaking with a mouth full of food. Parents’ likes and dislikes of a certain food will also influence a childˈs own likes and dislikes. Studies have shown that children who often eat with their families have better results at school than children who eat with their families less than twice a week.

Regular meal times give children the chance to discuss their problems with family members. They can also learn to respect others around the table. Talking to your children over dinner is the best way of having their trust. Children learn good eating habits from their parents at a very young age. Family meals are important. Prepare them for your children.

(1)       你对“朋友”的理解

(2)       尊重并信任朋友

(3)       常与朋友聊天,沟通.

注意:

(1)       词数100左右     (2)可适当增加细节, 以使行文连贯.

Many people think that listening is a passive business. It is just the opposite. Listening well is an active exercise of our attention and hard work. It is because they do not realize this, or because they are not willing to do the work, that most people do not listen well.

Listening well also requires total concentration upon someone else. An essential part of listening well is the rule known as ‘bracketing’. Bracketing includes the temporary (暂时的) giving up or setting aside of your own prejudices (偏见) and desires, to experience as far as possible someone else’s world from the inside, stepping into his or her shoes. Moreover, since listening well involves bracketing, it also involves a temporary acceptance of the other person. Sensing this acceptance, the speaker will seem quite willing to open up the inner part of his or her mind to the listener. True communication is under way and the energy required for listening well is so great that it can be accomplished only by the will to extend oneself for mutual growth.

Most of the time we lack this energy. Even though we may feel in our business dealings or social relationships that we are listening well, what we are usually doing is listening selectively. Often we have a prepared list in mind and wonder, as we listen, how we can achieve certain desired results to get the conversation over as quickly as possible or redirected in ways more satisfactory to us. Many of us are far more interested in talking than in listening, or we simply refuse to listen to what we don’t want to hear.

It wasn’t until toward the end of my doctor career that I found it really worked that one was being truly listened to. In about a quarter of the patients I saw, surprising improvement was shown during the first few months of psychotherapy (心理疗法), before any of the roots of problems had been uncovered or explained. There are several reasons for this phenomenon, but chief among them, I believe, was the patient’s sense that he or she was being truly listened to, often for the first time in years, and for some, perhaps for the first time ever.

Most of us spend our lives seeking the natural world. We go fishing, sit in the garden, have a picnic, live in the suburbs or go to the seaside. The most popular leisure activity in Britain is going for a walk. When joggers jog, they don’t run the streets. Every one of them tend to go to the park or the river.

But despite this, our children are growing up nature deprived (剽夺). I spent my boyhood climbing trees. These days, children are robbed of these ancient freedoms, due to problems like crime, traffic, the loss of the open spaces and strange new ideas about what is best for children, that is to say, things that can be bought, rather than things that can be found.

The truth is to be found elsewhere. A study in the US: families had moved to better housing and the children were assessed for ADHD—attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (多动症). Those whose accommodation had more natural views showed an improvement of 19%; those who had the same improvement in material surroundings but no nice view improved just 4% .

ADHD is one of the great problems of modern childhood. One study after another indicates that contact with nature gives huge benefits to ADHD children. However, we spend money on drugs rather than on green places.

The life of old people is measurably better when they have access to nature. The increasing concern for the growing population of old people is in quality rather than quantity of years. And study after study finds that a garden is the single most important thing in finding that quality. Even problems with crime and aggressive behavior are reduced when there is contact with the natural world.

We need the wild world. It is essential to our well-being, our health and our happiness.

There are so many ways to make new friends such as joining a sports team, taking part in community activities, or traveling. And there is no doubt that a friend in need is a friend indeed because they can help you out when you are in trouble or encourage you when you are frustrated(沮丧的). So, joining a sports team will be my first choice.

The primary reason for this is that everyone in a sports team has the same interest, which is the most fundamental（基础的）） character for friends. Because of it, they will become your potential friends so that the chance to be the true friends is very high. In addition, the same interest can give you a lot of topics to talk with your friends in daily conversation.

  Another factor that should be taken into consideration is the memory. After you fight for a goal with your partners, it will leave you a good experience, which is necessary for a long-lasting friendship. I used to be a player in the basketball team for my high school. Even though it was five years ago, I will well remember all exciting moments when we fought for the championship as if they happened yesterday. And although we went to different universities, we get together so many times.

  In addition, trust is also an important aspect. As we know, keeping trust is the most important thing in the team because it can make you be together all the time. Furthermore, you can share happiness and sadness with reliable friends and they will make you feel life is beautiful and future is bright.

In a word, joining a sports team can reinforce the relationship between you and your partners. For it, joining a sports team, maybe your new friends are waiting for you.

Uses of Computers in our life

词数：100词左右

  With the development of science and technology, computers … ——————————————————————————————