1 . Are you learning English and do you need help with grammar? Do you want to learn new vocabulary or slang (俚语)? Well, you can find help online with these top 5 free English as a Second Language websites.

Dave’s ESL Café

This is a complete website that can help you learn and practice English. You can read many stories and do a lot of exercises to test yourself. You can also post questions and answers onto the help center.

About.com

You can get free English courses from About.com and you’ll get regular e-mails that will help you learn English.

The Classroom by Voice of America

You can watch videos and listen to news stories to improve your listening and vocabulary skills. You can also hear English words and their meanings.

Heinle’s Newbury House Dictionary of American English

Do you need to find the definition of a word? Use this online dictionary to find simple and clear definitions, as well as example sentences and idioms (习语). You can also find different cultural facts.

Personal English Portal (门户网站) on YouTube

You can watch this series of videos on YouTube to develop your listening skills. You can also do a search for “learn English” on YouTube to find other videos. This is a good way to practice English and have fun.

2 . Some boys and girls don’t like math. They think it’s difficult. But in fact (事实上) it isn’t so difficult to learn math well. Here is what you can do.

Listen carefully in class. The math teacher knows much. When you listen carefully, you can know much, too. So be a careful student in class and listen well. And you can ask your math teacher for help if you don’t know in class.

Ask your classmates for help. Your math teacher isn’t always with you. When you have a math problem and you can’t work it out, please ask your classmates after class. A good classmate is a good friend. He or she must be happy to help you.

Practice it every day. Do you want to be good at math? It takes time. You can’t learn it well in a day. So practice it every day and then you’ll find it so easy. Math is a useful subject. Let’s do our best to learn it well.

3 . 对我们来说好习惯很重要，也使我们受益终生。请根据以下短语，并结合自身经历与感受用英语写一篇短文，介绍一些好的学习或生活习惯。

It is very important for us to have a good habit. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Li Lei

5 . Many people learn English from English movies. However, some watch hundreds of movies, but they still have difficulty understanding what the actors say! The solution is that you should watch them with the purpose (意图) of learning English.

If you want to learn English from English movies, you should follow the following steps, or you may waste your time and get nothing.

Step1: Watch a movie with Chinese subtitles (字幕) for the first time. Your eyes and ears should work at the same time. And try to get the main idea of the movie.

Step2: Watch it again, still with subtitles. But now try your best to look at them less often, and listen as much as possible. Look at the subtitles quickly only when you really don’t understand.

Step3: Watch it without subtitles. It sounds difficult, but after enough practice during the first two steps, you’ll find it easier to watch movies in English.

But don’t go to the last step too quickly because it could make you feel down. However, if you go to it when you’re ready, you may find that watching a movie in English a piece of cake for you.

6 . Arriving in Beijing was not an easy step in my life. As I couldn’t speak Chinese, it was ________ for me to ask for directions, order food and communicate with people. So I didn’t ________ at home. I didn’t want to learn Chinese at first. My first week in Beijing was ________ because the customs are not the same as in my country. I couldn’t communicate with the local people well. So I realized that I couldn’t ________ learning Chinese no matter what.

It’s important to learn the ________ so I spent all my time on it. It meant I had to ________ classes from Monday to Sunday. I didn’t have weekends to relax.

My first class of Chinese was not easy, ________, I was surprised by my classmates. They all did better than me. But that ________ did not stop me. I was in the process of learning a new language. It was normal but I needed to be ________. It was impossible to learn Chinese as fast as I could. The ________ process could help to get good results.

Chinese classes are a great tool. I learned grammar, listening, reading, and spoken Chinese ________ them. But classes are not everything. It’s necessary to ________ every day and make a habit of it. In my opinion, taking classes is 50% of the way to learn Chinese. The other ________ is to use it in the real world. In the beginning, I learned some new words. But I couldn’t use it ________ I was too shy. To change it, I started to ________ to everyone, from teachers, and classmates to strangers in the street. After five months, I was able to talk with local people. I wasn’t so lost in the city.

Hello, boys and girls, you must want to learn all subjects well, right? Yeah, remember that it is important to develop good learning habits.     1    

Create an interest in what you learn. Good learners often connect what they need to learn with something they like. So you must learn your subjects like that. In that way, your brain is more active. And it is also easier for you to pay attention to it for a long time.     2    

Practice and learn from mistakes. “Practice makes perfect.” Even if you learn something well, you will forget it unless you use it. So, keep practicing what you have learned.     3     You should learn from the mistakes that you make.

    4     You must know the best way to study. Learn to take notes by writing down key words, learn to draw mind maps, learn to look for ways to review—read your notes every day or explain the information to your classmates and so on.

    5     Knowledge comes from questioning. You can often ask questions during or after class. You ask each other and try to find out the answers.

Well, boys and girls, learn wisely and learn well. Everything that you learn becomes a part of you and changes you. Wish you get better grades next term. Happy New Year!