Learning English

Though I was used to be a student of EMI school, I don’t think I’m very good at English. Actually, there are many ways to learn English, the way used in schools are not the only. This time I would like to share with you all some of my experience, and hope you will found them useful too.

In schools (not only EMI), students are usually practice and practice, followed by dictations and tests, no matter for vocabularies, grammars, speaking and so on. Undoubtedly (無可否認) some of the steps are necessary, but we can make them more interesting:

Games: Scrabble, word clozes are good to enhance your vocabulary. Online games and Facebook games which are from foreign countries give you chances to communicate with people around the world, which English is the most common language inside the chatrooms.

Media: Newspapers are good but you may think SCMP is too heavy. Instead, The Standard or the English section in Metro Daily (都市日報) and Sing Tao Daily (星島日報) are suitable to start out. TV programs are good too; start with the ones you like, personally I like to watch Heroes, 24 and Discovery channel.

Books: For CMI students, try to acquire the English textbooks or notes inside tutorial classes. Not only the glossary and jargons (專業術語), but also the composition of sentences and organization of information are useful. Furthermore, guide books and novels are tools to improve writing skills; I will recommend some at the end of this blog entry.

Daily life: English is everywhere in our life, from package of products, food menu, to signs at outdoors. Be a good observer when you hang out next time. J

Above is some ways I have used in years, yet there are still many other ways out there and waiting for you to discover. Believe me; you will have a lot of fun when you have success without using a traditional way. Last but not least, questions and comments are welcomed.

Further reading:

(MLA style citation used in here, please refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_MLA_Style_Manual to learn how to use it, which is useful (and necessary) to quote from materials when doing projects.)

Diamond, Harriet and Phyllis Dutwin. Grammar in Plain English (3^rd Ed.). New York: Barron's Educational Series, Inc., 1997.

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Batko, Ann. When Bad Grammar happens to Good people – How to avoid common errors in English. New Jersey: The Career press, 2004.

Remarks: Learn from mistakes are the fastest way to improve your English.

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Colfer, Eoin. Artemis Fowl. New York: Viking press, 2001.

Remarks: Artemis Fowl series are interesting novels.

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Clancy, Tom. Rainbow Six. New York: Putnam, 2001.

Remarks: The original novel of the well-known video game.

Political issue

Notice: The blog will be updated on every Sunday afterwards, stay tuned.

In this year, after the government proposed the “Methods for Selecting the Chief Executive and for Forming the Legislative Council in 2012”, there are many issues raised, such as “Five Constituencies Referendum” (五區公投) and the debate between Donald Tsang and Audrey Eu. Mass media have widely reported on the political reform throughout the year. However, do you know their name and definition in English?

Today we will have some vocabularies and their explanation for the constitutional development of Hong Kong. No matter you have chose "Learning English through Debating" or "Learning English through Social Issues, you may found the following are useful:

Universal Suffrage (全民普選) - All eligible voters having the same number of votes.

LegCo - Abbreviated form for “Legislative Council (立法會)”.

CE - Abbreviated form for “Chief Executive (行政長官 / 特首)”.

Pro-Beijing Camp (親北京派) - The group of people who mostly agree with the policy and ideology of the Beijing Government, in terms of the 6.4 (六四事件), and the political reform issue.

Pan-Democratic Camp (泛民主派) - The group of people who struggle for universal suffrage in both LegCo and Chief Executive elections. They also fight for the abolishment of the functional constituencies, because it gives a minority too much power and influence.

Referendum (公投) - A direct vote in which all eligible electorates were asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy.

Functional Constituency (功能組別) - A professional or special interest group which involved in the electoral process. Eligible voters in a functional constituency may include natural persons as well as other designated legal entities such as organizations and corporations.

Also in here we have some political entities in Hong Kong which have positions in the LegCo. Remember, besides social occasions, the word “party” can also used to describe political organizations:

泛民主派 - Pan-Democratic Camp

民主黨 - Democratic Party

公民黨 - Civic Party

社會民主連線(社民連) - League of Social Democrats

香港職工會聯盟(職工盟) - Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions

香港民主民生協進會(民協) - Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood

Democracy

街坊工友服務處(街工) - Neighbourhood and Workers Service Centre

公民起動 - Civic Act-up

親北京派 - Pro-Beijing Camp

民主建港協進聯盟(民建聯) - The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong

自由黨 - Liberal Party

經濟動力 - Economic Synergy

香港工會聯合會 - Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions

專業會議 - Professional Forum

港九勞工社團聯會(勞聯) - Federation of Hong Kong and Kowloon Labour Unions

匯賢智庫 - Savantas Policy Institute

西九新動力 - Kowloon West New Dynamic

Hello

Hello everyone, my name’s Bob, one of the founders of the Learnin’2pi platform. Besides of this identity, I will also in charge of the English section, particularly this blog as a supplement. Not much grammar and exam skills will appear in here because you all may fed up by these in lessons, as well as I believed that I’m not qualified to do so too. Instead, I would share some of my experience during my study of English, also with something interesting such as learning skills and games. Hope all of you will enjoy it!

Bob

p.s. Just forgot, feel free to ask in blog or send to my email bob@l2pihk.net in case you have any question. Corrections and comments are also welcomed. =]