【推荐1】Four Efficient Ways to Improve Your Speech

One psychologist feels that our facial expression is responsible more than anything else for the impression others have of us.     1     People tend to mirror your expression, so try to show how you feel about a topic or an idea or the audience through your facial expression.

    2     The way to handle it is to put it to work for you, get into action, as Shakespeare observed, action cures fear. There are only a few known ways to control fear. If you're thoroughly prepared, apart from admitting it, taking deep breaths can add your confidence and calm. Other known ways to control nervousness and fear are to give yourself a pep talk or take some physical exercise, simple calisthenics（健美操）can work wonders in you.     3     you

Our voice is the main instrument we own for communicating with people, we're all sound sensitive.     4     I've done the same thing and I can promise you that even if you use candies instead of stones you can quickly develop excellent pronunciation. Do believe that am kind of practice will help improve your emphasis, pausing and other qualities of your voice.

Psychologists tell us that most individuals don't use above ten percent of their inherent capacity for memory. Because they don't practise the fundamentals of remembering. It's difficult to recall anything without wanting to have a burning desire to remember. Moreover, our success depends greatly on our ability to concentrate. The next principle is repetition. Next time you intend to keep things in mind in school, try to repeat them over and over again.     5    .

【推荐2】I’d never thought of flying as something I would ever actually want to do in my free time until my family bought me what’s called a ‘flying experience day’ as a birthday present. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t like some of my friends, who would start shaking with fear at the thought of going in a plane of any size. I’d actually always looked forward to flying off somewhere on holiday, especially that feeling you get when the plane’s just taking off. But flying a plane was something other people did, not me.

I started researching the experience day online straight away. The little aircraft I was going to fly in could only go up to 3. 000 meters, which is quite low when you realize big jets fly closer to 10, 000 meters. I found out there was a half-hour talk from the instructor(教练)about safety and the controls. This seemed more than enough to me, as I was only going to be in the air for about the same amount of time, which I couldn’t quite believe. My parents were amazed that something like that was available for a twelve-year-old girl, but I’m very pleased it was.

On the day, I was quite nervous but Sheena, my instructor, was very calm, which helped a lot.

She took the controls as we took off, of course. It appeared to take ages to get high up, but it was only actually a minute or two, and then I took the controls. I was so excited, I wasn’t really listening to what Sheena was saying. I was hoping to see my house but it was hard to work out where everything was from the air. Even though we were flying at 280 kilometers per hour, you could hardly tell we were moving when you looked down.

I’m now so into flying that I’m considering it as a career. I’ll need to get a pilot’s license, of course, and I’m happy to save up for more classes to do this. It was such fun that I’d love to do it every day and get paid for it, too. The company that organizes experience days keeps sending emails about train driving and other things, but I only want more of one particular kind of experience now!

【推荐1】When I was a foreign teacher in China, every day I taught English to my students and they taught me about China. One day the topic turned to saying “I love you”. I was shocked to learn that no one of my students had said this to their mothers, nor had their mothers said it to them. “Does your mom love you?” “Of course,” they answered.

“How do you know?” was my logical question. They answered that their moms cooked and always told them what they were doing wrong to show their caring. I was surprised. “So mom’s cooking and criticizing read out as ‘I love you’? Then how do you say ‘I love you’ to her?” They agreed that getting good grades, followed by good jobs would be how they showed their love.

I come from a country where most people are expressive enough, so I repeated these questions in classes over time. Gradually, I began to get different response. Some of them had exchanged those feelings with their moms.

One of my favorite stories of change came from a girl. When she came home from university, her mother met her at the door and hugged (拥抱) her. This had never happened before, but her mom said, “Now that you have gone, I have more time to myself. I noticed that in some places mothers and children hug each other and I decided it was a good idea and that I would begin hugging you.”

In my family we all say “I love you” a lot. While it is true that we often say the words without having great depth (深度) of feelings at that moment, it is almost like a blessing (祝福语) we give each other. Those three little words carry a world of meaning, even when said as a greeting, but most especially if they are the last words we say to or hear from those we love.

【推荐2】I had always hated math. Now I suddenly found myself teaching trigonometry (三角学). I was an English teacher in Chicago Public Schools, and when my school was facing a shortage of math teachers, I was pulled in mid-year to co-teach a junior-level trigonometry class with the math teacher.

My students struggled with the calculations, thinking they just weren’t good at math. Like me, they hated it. What was the point in working and reworking these calculations?

Yet trig slowly became my favorite class of the day. After spending years teaching English and reading, I was being challenged to move beyond what I had always been doing. When you’re new to something, you have a fresh perspective. You’re willing to take risks.

I worked with my co-teacher creating a series of supplementary lessons to let students experience personal meaning and creativity in their math. The interesting thing in math class is that it already includes stories and real-life connections，in the form of story problems. They might include calculating area so that someone can buy new carpet for their home. Or a story problem might be about landscapers planting a new tree, and needing to calculate the length of wire required to support the tree.

I used story problems as an opportunity to connect math to students’ lives by creating fictional math-based stories. First, students would work in small groups to go through the chapter in their math textbook and collect the story problems. Then students would develop factual stories rooted in authentic math story problems.

When they used creative writing skills to develop math story problems about things they were interested in, students became more engaged. They wanted to work on the math in them because they had a real investment (投资) in the outcome. The stories helped students find motivation because they created an answer to the question “Why do we need to learn this?”

【推荐1】When I volunteered as a social worker at a domestic violence shelter in a developing country, I imagined the position for which my university experience had prepared me. I imagined conducting intake interviews and walking around from organization to organization seeking support that the women would need to rebuild their lives. When I arrived, I felt as if I already had months of experience, experience gained in the hypothetical situations I had invented and subsequently resolved single-handedly. I felt thoroughly prepared to tackle the situation I assumed was waiting for me.

I arrived full of zeal. Within moments, my reality made a sharp break from which I had expected. The coordinator explained that the shelter’s need for financial self-sufficiency had become obvious. To address this, the center was planning to open a bakery. I immediately enthused about the project, making many references to the small enterprise case studies I had researched at the university. In response to my impassioned reply, the coordinator declared me in charge of the bakery. At that moment, I was as prepared to bake bread as I was to run for political office. The bigger problem, however, was that I was completely unfamiliar with the for-profit business models necessary to run the bakery. I was out of my depth in a foreign river with only my coordinator’s confidence to keep me afloat.

They say that necessity is the mother of invention. I began finding recipes and using the expertise of friends. With their help making bread, printing leaflets and making contacts, the bakery was soon running successfully. After a short time it became a significant source of income for the house.

In addition to funds, baking bread provided a natural environment to work with and get to know the women of the shelter. Kneading dough (揉面团) side by side, I shared in the friendly atmosphere of the kitchen, treated to stories about their children and the towns and jobs they had to leave behind to ensure their safety. Baking helped me develop strong relationships with the women and advanced my understanding of their situations. It also improved the women’s self-esteem. Their ability to master a new skill gave them confidence in themselves, and the fact that the bakery contributed to the upkeep of the house gave the women a sense of pride and the confidence that they had the capability to support themselves.

Baking gave me the opportunity to work in a capacity I had not at all expected, but one that proved very successful. Learning to bake gave me as much newfound self-confidence as it gave the women, and I found that sometimes quality social work can be as simple as kneading dough.

【推荐3】It was May 17, 2015, and Brian, then 36, had been out of communication distance since the 13th. Brian climbed the hill next to his temporary camp and scanned his hand-held radio, hoping to catch a signal. Realizing search planes would have a hard time spotting him, he, for the first time since losing contact, felt a strong sense of hopelessness. In the distance, a wolf howled and Brian howled back. Then he made his decision: if he was ever going to see his family again, he’d just have to start walking.

On May 17, Brian decided to make his move, filled his bag with necessary things, picked up his gun and started walking though it was raining. Brian walked well into the night, making his way about 15 miles until he couldn’t walk anymore. But the next stretch was harder, the land hillier. Keep climbing, he’d tell himself, and you’ll see a hunting shelter just over the hill top. Then he’d make it to the top only to see another hill. To make matters worse, his core body temperature was falling below the usual level as a result of being in severe cold for a long time, putting his life at risk. For the first time, he began to panic. He knew if he didn’t move quickly, he’d die.

Three days into his voyage on foot, with little water, he was becoming dangerously dehydrated (脱水的). Falling and lying on the ground, Brian dreamed of his family as if hearing his daughters constantly laughing. Suddenly, Brian sat up, “I want to see my wife. I want to my kids grow up, he thought, rising to his feet. I’ll start walking.”

Brian moved on with heavy steps. About five miles from Repulse Bay, he spotted radio towers — the first sign of a community. He struggled forward until he saw a shelter at the top of the hill. With the last of his energy, he climbed up and broke in, where he slept solidly for 12 hours. The walk into town the next day was easy. Brain arrived at 5:30 am on May 20.

Today, safe at home, Brian still gets emotional remembering the welcome he received. “Everyone was very happy everywhere I went,” he says.