Gong Yuxuan, Class 4, Senior 1, Shenzhen Xin’an Middle School Instructed by Tang Ying

Last Saturday I had a fantastic oral English class. The impressive class was given by Rose, an experienced English teacher with great patience and a passion for teaching.

In the class Rose showed us one PPT slide for a game. The rule was simple. We just needed to guess which fact was wrong. The facts included “I am the teacher trainer of 4 courses on highly effective English learning strategies”; “I talk to the captain and the co-pilot in an international plane”; “I often watch English movies on the weekend”; and “I am the chief editor of our school’s English newspaper and now I am the chief editor of our school’s wall newspaper.”

Then it was time for us to tell our answer. Most of my classmates thought that the third one was false, because the teacher might be too busy to watch films on the weekend. But there was a boy named Yan Junhao who had a different opinion.

“I think the second one is wrong, because the captain and the co-pilot should stay in the cockpit to operate the plane while the airplane is flying. They should concentrate on their work during the trip. If they talk to passengers, it may cause accidents. Therefore, it is dangerous for them to talk to passengers.” His idea appeared well-founded, and this fact was actually true.

After that, Rose shared her interesting story with us. In 2000, she was sent to Australia to further her study. That was her first time to take an international flight. She was curious to get to know more about the plane, so she asked a stewardess whether she could visit the plane. As she was a friendly stewardess, she agreed and after a while, she led her to the room where the captain and the co-pilot worked.

When she arrived, there were three people in the cockpit: an old captain, a handsome young co-pilot and a woman who was sitting quietly enjoying the view outside. Rose asked them for permission to talk with them. She succeeded in having a conversation with the captain and the co-pilot. The captain told Rose that the plane was flying smoothly, and where the plane was and how high the plane was. They really had a nice talk. Rose told the story vividly with passion and body language, which impressed the whole class deeply.

Then Rose asked us to retell the story. My classmate Gu gave an excellent presentation to the class. To reward his answer, Rose gave him a book written by herself as a prize.

Through this class, I have learned that it’s absolutely significant to be brave to speak out complete sentences if we want to improve our spoken English.