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Eat a Bowl of Tea

This movie is about pressure and motivation.

A study in culture bridging, including … a new US-born husband, trying to work within the traditional ways, a new China-born wife, eager to join the “dream” of America, two family-minded fathers, lots of gender-related social bifurcations.

What did you learn from this movie?

Hotel Rwanda

Black on Black violence in Africa

What did you learn from this love story?

The War of The Roses

This movie is about lust, marriage and divorce.

The Roses, Barbara and Oliver, live happily as a married couple. Then she starts to wonder what life would be like without Oliver, and likes what she sees. Both want to stay in the house, and so they begin a campaign to force each other to leave. In [...]

Coach Carter

This movie is about accepting responsibility for your own education and not blaming your school, school leaders, teachers, environment or parents for your own faults.

COACH CARTER tells the inspiring true story of controversial high school basketball coach making headlines for his emphasis on the importance of academics over athletics

What did you learn from this movie?

Gung Ho

This movie is about cross-cultural relationships.

Western conflicts with Japanese culture. When a Japanese car company buys an American plant, the American liaison must mediate the clash of work attitudes between the foreign management and native labor.

What did you learn from this movie?

Working Girl

This movie is about Intellectual property Protection.

What did you learn from this movie?

STUDENTS’ LACK OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AWARENESS

Martin Wolff

Sun Yat-sen University

INTRODUCTION

Intellectual Property Protection remains a hot topic in China. The west applies constant pressure on China for more enforcement and China responds with increased enrollment in law schools, retention of more prosecutors and [...]

THE TERMINAL

The Hollywood movie “The Terminal” is an interesting story that unintentionally demonstrates the principles of 2nd language acquisition. When surrounded with an English environment, you absorb the language from your environment. You listen to more English, read more English, write more English and speak more English.

Chinese students studying English in China are surrounded with a [...]

MUTE ENGLISH

Professor Martin Wolff

I have often said that when a teacher stops learning, they should stop teaching. I want to thank my SYSU Fall 2009 post grad students  for introducing me to a new term, “MUTE ENGLISH.” I had never heard this before and it has piqued my interest. A Google search revealed many student comments [...]

Walk the Line

A chronicle of country music legend Johnny Cash’s life, from his early days on an Arkansas cotton farm to his rise to fame with Sun Records in Memphis, where he recorded alongside Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.

What did the man in black teach you?

English Mystery

ENGLISH TODAY, DECEMBER 2010, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS pg. 53
China’s English mystery – the views of a China ‘foreign expert’

MARTIN WOLFF

A hard-hitting opinion piece from an English teacher in China

Introduction

The mysteries of exotic China arise not only from its voluntary isolation from the modern world during some of the most formative and progressive decades, but from [...]