1 . Pew Research Center is an organization that aims to inform the public about the issues, beliefs and trends shaping the world. It recently asked people in 24 countries a series of questions about how connected they feel to their own communities and countries as well as to people around the world. Pew researchers looked at, among other things, how international travel experience relates to feelings of connectedness.

The study found about half of all respondents reported they feel at least somewhat close to people all over the world. Feeling close to others around the world is more common in Europe than in most other places. In the USA, only 35 percent of the respondents said they feel at least somewhat connected to those in other countries. The percentage was even lower in Argentina (28 percent) and Indonesia (22 percent).

But international travel does not always mean a person feels a closeness to people around the world. Bright, a retired American schoolteacher, is one such exception. Pew researchers found a similar case in Sweden. Ninety-nine percent of Swedish respondents said they had visited at least one other country. Yet a much smaller share of Swedish respondents—47 percent—report feeling close to people all over the world.

However, Pew’s findings also show that international connectedness can be formed in ways other than traveling overseas. Sadikova, a Uzbek English teacher, feels connected to people all over the world even though she has never traveled outside Uzbekistan. She said, “Some years ago it was difficult for us to get information about people in the world, but currently, because of media, it is quite easy to get familiar with events and news.”

2 . When I first moved to China in 1998, I thought I would impress my class by using some Chinese in my speech about American weddings (婚礼). I told them everyone brings a gift to the wedding for the couple. As soon as I said this, all of the students looked surprised. I knew I had said something wrong. I realized that instead of telling them that everybody brings gifts to the hun li for the couple, I had said people bring gifts for them at the li hun!

I get laughs from some of my students because I often make mistakes and my Chinese sounds strange at times. But I tell them that sometimes their English is really strange too.

One asks, “What are you like to do in your free time?” And the other answers, “I very like basketball.” I find that even good English speakers make such mistakes. The second is by far the most common mistake I have heard among Chinese English speakers. It is a result of first thinking in Chinese and then translating each word in the sentence into English. This, of course, makes some Chinese people’s English sound strange.

“We should get off the car here,” a student told me. My school had asked two students to show me around the city by taxi. In English countries, we “get off” a bike, bus, or train. However, when we leave a car, we say “get out of the car”. Perhaps the student had learned “get off” means xia in Chinese and he thought the phrase (短语) could be followed by any means of transportation. To avoid such mistakes, you should take collocations (搭配) seriously. Only learning vocabulary and grammar is not enough.

Some of my students sound more like a book or machine than a human. Perhaps they have gotten used to depending on books. You can also read English books out loud or use a CD, but you need the real thing. If you have a chance to hear a native speaker from an English­speaking country, practice repeating what you hear. They can teach you how to have a conversation.

3 . Were it not for my mask’s rubber covering over my nose, no doubt his warm, fishy breath would have made the experience complete, as an adult male Atlantic grey seal (海豹) inspected me to the waters that bathe Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. This was a close and magical swimming-with-seals encounter filmed for BBC Two’s Springwatch four years ago.

My job is to get people to love and connect with nature, but the experience still left me feeling both excited and conflicted. Is it possible that we get a little too close, and love nature a little too much? Certainly, for anyone working in wildlife media and tourism, the reality is that habitats and many species often can’t handle longtime close contact with humans.

Marine mammals they may be, but seals must regularly return to dry land, hauling (牵引) themselves out of the water to rest, digest, and reproduce. Haul-out sites are typically inaccessible beaches or rocky tiny islands after the tide falls away. These safe places become a terrifying drop when disturbed, particularly by walkers, dogs and boats full of wildlife tourists. When frightened, seals prefer escaping into shallow seas or, worse still, hard rocks, risking broken jaws or bones.

In Scotland in February 2021, a ban came into force that stopped the fisheries industry from shooting seals. Prior to this, seals in Scotland could be shot under licence. Seal groups and charities are revising their policies to no longer encourage people to seek out encounters with seals either in or out of the water, especially during the winter months when the grey seal pupping (产崽) season is in full swing.

No matter how much we love seals, remember they are terrified of us, so we really need to enjoy them from a distance. But that is not to say there can’t be a connection. Joining organised surveys helps monitor seals as well as the health of our waters. The marine mammals have much to deal with, including climate change, and we have a lot to learn from these envoys (使者) from the sea.

5 . The kitchen is not just where we prepare meals. In many places, the kitchen is the heart of the home. It’s where we connect with our family and friends. We have open talks about our pleasures and problems we met during the day while we make dinner or have a bite to eat. So, it can be a very busy room in the house.

Sometimes you need order in the kitchen for things to run smoothly. And sometimes you need one person to be in charge. Imagine you are cooking dinner for your friends. As you are making the soup, your friend Sara tastes it and says, “This needs more salt.” So, she adds more salt. Harlan comes to taste your soup and throws some fresh black pepper into the pot and some dried herbs. Cecilia tastes the soup and pours in some vinegar. What will the soup be like?

You are happy to spend time with your friends. But, quite frankly, all their opinions about your soup are becoming annoying. Worst of all, you taste the soup and it’s awful! And that is where we get the expression “too many cooks spoil the soup”.

This expression describes an age-old problem: If too many people help to complete a task, it may not go very well. But, you may think, “If many people are trying to get something done, the task will get done faster.” After all, American English also has the expression “many hands make light work”.

To answer that point, I will draw your attention to the word “cook”. Now, the cook is the leader in the kitchen. They may have assistants to help them. But the cook has the final say. So, what if a kitchen has many cooks? Who is the leader? Everyone! And that’s where the trouble comes.

8 . Home accidents occur unexpectedly everywhere in and around the house.     1     One of the best ways is to take action ahead to prevent them from happening.

    2     If you find any object lying on the floor, you need to pick it up and keep it on the table. Otherwise, it might hurt anybody in your house. Then, if you find that any of the electrical wires which needs repair, you must do it immediately. This kind of wires or switches can lead to short circuit (短路) in the house.     3     To make your home shock proof, you must check the wires from time to time. This will not only keep you safe, but will also protect other members of the family.

Another way is keeping a first aid kit in your room. When you prepare a first aid kit for your house, you need to decide about the things that you need to keep inside it. First of all, you need band aids. You must make sure that these band aids are of all sizes and they must also be waterproof.     4     The painkillers will help you when you get hurt or if you are in great pain due to some home accidents. You will also need cotton, wool, scissors as well as safety pins (别针). If you have these things inside the first aid kit, then you will surely not have any problem in the future.     5    

9 . A new study shows girls and boys as young as seven have the choice of jobs with gender differences. Girls choose jobs based on care and love, while boys choose jobs based on money and power.

Professor Laura Scholes and Dr Sarah McDonald surveyed 332 Year 3 students from 14 Australian schools. They found that the top professions for boys included sports and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) related jobs, while girls, on the other hand, wanted to be teachers or nurses.

Professor Scholes said the influence of gender stereotypes (刻板印象) on such choices begins in early childhood. “Bright pink toys for girls and blue toys for boys are sold on store shelves around the world.” she said, “In the boys’ section, you’ll find science, construction and warfare toys—perhaps a robot or a telescope. In the girls’ section, you’ll see toys related to cleaning, dolls, kitchens, makeup, jewellery and crafts.”

“This results in lower numbers of girls taking STEM subjects at school. In turn, this means fewer women are going to work in the sciences.” Professor Scholes’s comments came as women make up only 2 percent of the STEM workforce, with the biggest gap in the highest-paid jobs of computer science and engineering.

In Australia, some brands are no longer targeting boys or girls with their toys. Danish toy giant Lego last week announced that they would remove gender stereotypes from their toys, after a global study found that 71 percent of boys feared being made fun of for playing with toys marketed at girls. Lego said its products were mainly used by boys, but it promised to work to remove gender preference from its toys and instead market them for both genders.