【推荐1】The best way of learning a language is using it. The best way of learning English is talking in English as much as possible （尽可能多）. Sometimes you get your words mixed up （混合）and people don’t understand you. Sometimes people say things too quickly and you can’t understand them. But if you keep your sense of humor（幽默感）, you can always have a good laugh at the mistakes （错误） you make. You should think it is a happy thing if people laugh at your mistakes. It’s better for people to laugh at your mistake than to be angry with you, because they don’t understand what you are saying. The most important thing for learning English is “Don’t be afraid of making mistakes.”

You’ve been learning words since you were a tiny baby. At first, you learned them only by hearing other people talk. Now that you’re a reader, you have another way to learn words. What should you do when you come to a word and you think you don’t know what it means?     1    

●Say it.

First, sound it out. Then say it to yourself. It might sound like a word you know.     2     But you don’t know what it looks like in print. So if you match up what you know and what you read—you have the word!

●Use context(上下文).

    3     Look at the context—the other words and sentences around it. Read this sentence: When it rained, the dog looked for shelter in the doorway. If the word “shelter” doesn’t look familiar, look at the words around it. “Rain” and “in the doorway” might give you helpful information.

●    4    

If the context doesn’t help, look at the parts of the word. Does it have any parts you know? These can help you understand what it means.

●Look it up.

If the three steps above don’t work, you can look it up.     5     Nobody knows the meaning of every word, but good readers know how to understand words they don’t know.

【推荐3】There are two parts in the English exam. Listening test is one of the most important parts of the English exam. Do you know how to get good grades in listening test?     1    

●Relax before listening.

Before you start to listen, you need to relax. Don’t be stressed out.     2     These questions usually help you understand the conversation or the passage.

●    3    

Then listen carefully to the first sentence. It usually tells you the main idea of the passage. When you’re listening, try to do some thinking and take some notes, such as:

☆What happened?

☆    4    

☆What does the speaker want to tell us?

In this way, you may understand the passage better.

●Don’t understand each word.

Please remember not to think about one or two words for a long time. When you hear some words you don’t know, don’t spend too much time on them.     5     You’ll often find out what they mean later when you go on with the listening.

In the picture, a girl is standing on a bamboo pole (竹竿) on the river and dancing beautifully. It’s not a scene from a movie, but a form of intangible heritage (非物质文化遗产)—bamboo drifting (独竹漂).

Yang Liu, 24, is an inheritor (传承人) of bamboo drifting. She started to learn it from her grandmother when she 7. As she was weak in health as a child, her grandmother wanted her to get into better shape through this sport. Yang threw herself into practicing bamboo drifting all year round, even in the winter cold and summer heat.

“It was common for me to fall into the water when I started practicing” recalled Yang, adding that it took her three years to learn the basic skills of bamboo drifting.

In order to acquire more bamboo drifting skills, Yang had to practice countless difficult movements on a bamboo pole that was 9 m in length and 15cm in diameter (直径), and stand all the physical pain that came with it. Through years of hard training, Yang now considers the bamboo pole as her “best friend”.

At one point, inspired by her grandmother, Yang began to put dance and bamboo drifting together. “My grandmother came up with an idea. She said that I had been practicing bamboo drifting when I was a child, so why not try to put them together? It might be something different.” the young woman explained.

Yang’s hard work gradually paid off when she was able to perfectly perform dancing with the traditional bamboo drifting skills. “I hope that more people can know about bamboo drifing and enjoy this form of art.” said Yang.

【推荐3】Drones (无人机) can be helpful in many fields. This year, a team of volunteers in the UK saved a dog in a special way. They used a drone and meat. How did that happen?

On January 13th, Emma Oakes lost her dog Millie when they were out for a walk. Emma was very worried. She asked the team DDSAR for help. After about two hours, volunteers found Millie in a wetland. It was dangerous for Millie to stay there. The water was around her, and she might fall into it.

The DDSAR used a drone to follow Millie. Also, some policemen came and tried to get close to Millie by boat and on foot. But Millie was very afraid of those men. They made Millie move farther away from the safe place, so they had to stop their work. Later, one of the volunteers thought of an idea. He said they could use meat dangling from the drone, and then help Millie get to a safe place. The other volunteers and the policemen agreed with him and decided to do it.

Millie was very hungry and wanted to eat the meat. She followed the meat and left the wetland. Finally, Millie ran towards Emma. Everyone there was happy for them. Emma was thankful to all the volunteers and policemen for their hard work. The drone also played an important part in saying Millie. Emma said it was fantastic to get her dog back.

【推荐2】The Internet is a place where we can talk freely. But it is also a place where we pay little attention to whether or not our language ability is becoming poorer.

According to a recent survey by China Youth Daily, more than 76 percent of young people in China said they felt their Chinese language skills have weakened. They don’t use difficult rhetorical technique (修辞手法) as often anymore. It is believed that digital technology and Internet emojis (表情符号) have changed their communication habits.

For example, direct expression is the preferred way to communicate online. When one sees something funny, one will simply type “hahaha” or use the “cry-laugh” emoji, Beijing Youth Daily reported. Also, “copy and paste (粘贴) ” culture is getting popular. People simply pick up expressions from the Internet without much thought. Many begin to use a fixed set of sentence patterns, such as “Whenever you disagree with each other, you ...”

Cai Xiaojia (not her real name), a teacher from Fuzhou, told China Youth Daily that words in general are being used less. For example, people can share photos online with little need for words to describe them.

If this trend (趋势) continues, it could influence our way of thinking, People’s Daily reported. When we use expressions without thinking, it means we have become too lazy to express our real feelings. If teenagers adopt casual (不正式的) methods of expression like emojis, they could lose the ability to use words properly.

To improve our language skills, experts suggest that we should try to think independently and develop our own language logic (逻辑).They also suggest that we should read more works of literature (文学). “Keep using different words to show your own feelings,” said Shen Xiaolong, a professor in the Chinese department at Fudan University.