English Corner
MY ENGLISH CORNER EXPERIENCE
Also: go to the download page and read the free article China EFL: English Corner
Over the years I have attended enough English Corers to know that it is better to avoid them like you would avoid SARS, they make me sick. Many foreign teachers have no choice; it is written in their employment contract that they must attend English Corner. No Chinese teacher of English is required to attend English Corner. Of course, many Chinese teachers of English can’t even speak English in English class, so why should they attend English Corner?
Every Chinese college and university has English Corner. There isn’t a single journal article establishing the value of English Corner. There is no scientific study confirming that English Corner has any material benefits to offer.
When I attend English Corner the students ask a set group of questions, and keep repeating them no matter how many times I answer them.
Where are you from?
Do you like China?
Do you like Chinese food?
Do you like Chinese people?
Do you use chopsticks?
What is your favorite color?
Do you play basketball?
Do you play the guitar?
Etc., etc., etc.
As the students complete their Q and A they move off to speak with one another in Chinese. English Corner never seems to transcend into any meaningful discussions. I guess the language barrier, age barrier, culture barrier and even gender barrier are formidable and insurmountable.
ATTEND ENGLISH CORNER FRIDAY APRIL 16, 2010 AND POST YOUR EXPERIENCE HERE.
Read the article on the download page China EFL: English Corner
I went to the English corner on April 21st evening, I went there with my classmate Sunny. Because we didn’t have enough courage to go there alone, we went there together.
It seemed to be a little early; there were only a few Chinese students. We found several classmates and join them. We talked about some movies we have watched, our homework and so on. All of us are Chinese, but we speak English to each other. It reminded me of one sentence which Professor Martin taught us: steels sharpen steels!
As the time pass by, there are more and more people joining us. And some are foreigners, we formed several circles and each circle has one foreigner. We talk a lot of things, such as birth control in China, the difference between our government and the USA government.
I went to English Corner very early that day, about at half past six P.M. Only to find that about ten classmates showed up, contradiction to my imagination. But no matter what, I was there for English corner; I did not care about who they were, how many of them. But I did not know one of them. OK, I needed to start a conversation, but how to? Ask the beautiful girls for their cell phone numbers? I tried to do that, but they just spoke to me in Chinese, by the excuse that the time for English corner was not yet. But I need to say after a few weeks in Martin’s class, I do not feel shy to talk to people who responded in Chinese, especially after my ABC Day. So I just talked to them. Then sometime later, I saw Professor Martin. I went up to say hello. It was very kind of him to introduce three boys of us to a group of young girls who seemed to be a little shy. The other two guys were both majored in philosophy. What was worse was that these girls were from Chinese Department. Only me from Economic Department so something like that. So they just kept chatting about art, philosophy. I totally understood what they said, but I could not figure out what they meant. Ok, this chatting was doomed to be a tragedy. So I got to flee! Then I found a team that was talking about movies and entertainment. We did have a very good chat, including the Hokage Ninjia! By the way, Professor Martin with a Cigar really cool!
This Wednesday, I went to Xingting for the English corner that holds every Wednesday with my roomates. This time, we met a new friend Karan. Karen is a black Indian exchanger with glasses and it was his fourteenth day in China. Reminding of Martin’s homework, we tried to make friends with him. To our surprise, Karen’s reaction made us laughing. He told us that he doesn’t like to make friends with Chinese because of our odd motives. Most of us didn’t really want to make friends with him but to complete our homework. After getting his name and contact number, all of these friends missed! Sincerely, he was a cute guy. I felt shamed and like this honest friend. We would like to keep in touch with him to be his truly Chinese friends. Later, he shared his funny experience in China with us, which always made us roar with laughter, expecially when he mentioned the homework problem. He also told us that he wasn’t used to Chinese food. I recommanded him a website that is Dazhong Dianping, on which he could search a lot of native Indian food. He appreciated the help we offer him.
As a tennis lover myself, I was delighted to find that he enjoyed playing tennis too. So my roomates and I invited him to play tennis together on Firday. Unluckily, he happened to have other important things to do and we planed that next time we could have fun toghther. I enjoyed this experience.
To be honest, I have never attended English corner once or have an real foreign friends there before. However, on the one hand, Since I have once got the qualification of exchange student of University of Victoria in Canada, I knew some friends from UVic and got in touch with them. On the other hand, every year many exchange foreign students will come to Lingnan for a period of leaning time, which will enhance the communication of each other, and I used to be a buddy for them and I used to have some foreign teachers. We made friends with each other and shared different opinions on our own culture.
Although I have got in touch with some foreign friends, this time I have meet with a special friends, Karen, who may have some misunderstanding on Chinese students, who expressed that he didn’t want to make friends with Chinese students. I was surprised to hear that from my classmate, the teaching assistant, and I told her to introduce me to him for curiosity. I just think that maybe I can understand what he was feeling like when hearing that we were coming here to make friends with you to complete our English homework, just like people want to talk to you just for practicing speech. Karen was a newer from India, a country with some similar characters with china and with more different things. We always learn a country though the macro aspect such as history or key figures, however the real life is existing in everyone’s ordinary life, which means we can get more sometimes from the micro aspects.
Last week, I went to the English corner on Wednesday. Although the weather was not good, there were still a lot of people around. People there were divided into several discussion groups, and I went to a small group with three other people. At first, I was just standing by to listen to their topics talking, which covered from electronic technique to architecture. To my sunrise, a gentleman asked me about my volunteer experience when the topics went to the volunteer work in China. I answered I had worked for a museum as a volunteer to explain the Canton culture history in Nanyue King Museum, and it was a fantastic experience to me, as I was not only meet different people around the world, but also hoped to enrich their life as they enriched me. Then the other guys also shared their volunteer experience, like worked for several NPOs related to the hope school, environmental protection, blind people and etc. The time really went fast, when I found it was already nearly ten o’clock at night. Before we left, we came to know that each of us with different background, two guys had already at work, one girl was a senior student in SYSU, who has received a P&G offer the week before. It is so interesting to chat with different people, and we enjoyed the English corner together.
I went to the English Corner on April 16th evening. In fact I have passed the English corner several times before but never attended the activities. So it was my first time to attend the English Corner. When I arrived, I found there were not as many classmates as my expectation. I walked around and joined one group. Our group had four people. I met two of my group members but was not familiar with them. We began our conversation to talk about something about the bell in the English Corner. It was a little boring because we had nothing to talk about it. So we changed our topic to the temple in China rapidly and found something to say. We talked about the change of the temple and focused on the temple life and organization nowadays. After these two topics, we all agreed that it was necessary to introduce ourselves to each other. So we began to do it and it was a good chance for me to know my group member. Then I had proposition that we introduce our hometowns or the places we had visited to the other group members, because I didn’t travelled a lot but wanted to know the other parts of our country. They introduced many places such as Xian, Wuhan and Beijing and so on. After this topic, I had to say goodbye to my group members and leave the English Corner because of the other assignments. This was my first experience in English Corner. We didn’t have many interest topics but I still enjoyed this experience.
The English Corner began at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, April 16. However, I had to attend the chorus dry run of Lingnan College at 6:00 p.m., which would last about two hours. After finishing the dry run, my classmate and I hurried up to the English Corner, to find that there were no foreigners at all! At first we were disappointed, but then we saw many groups of Chinese persons were talking to each other in English. We believed this was also a good chance for us to practice English, so we joined one group and talked with them. There was a girl also from the chorus team. As a result, it was natural for us to say something about the songs we sang.
It was over 8 o’clock then, and many people left. Half an hour later, my classmate and I left as well. At that very time, I remembered that there is Chinese Corner every Friday, so we went to the Chinese Corner. I made a new foreign friend at the Chinese Corner, and next time I will say something about her.
At seven o’clock in the evening, on the April 14th, I attended the English corner for the first time . In fact, I really envy those who can speak fluent foreign languages, which I think it’s a very fantastic thing. However, I never had the courage to participate in such activities. Finally , I had the opportunity to experience the feeling.
When I arrived at the pavilion, a foreigner who was talking about the relations between United States and Russia vehemently attracted my eyes, he was explaining the international affairs, I recognized that he was familiar with the international issues, so I listened for a while, but I didn’t ask him any questions.
Later, I found my classmate Selina, we began to talking to other two English fans. And I chatted with the gentleman, Mr. Hu, who has worked for a HONGKONG company for five years and whose major was British and American literature. We talked about the interesting things happened in our separately trips, he said he had been to my hometown and enjoyed the skating. We talked for about half an hour, and finally, he said:” your English is good, but because you would not like to open your mouth, so you couldn’t remember the words.” Advice of Professor brought to my mind. We should speak more.
After the English Corner, I found I could communicate with others in English, and with confidence, I was determined to attend more such activities to meet new friends and to practice my English.
Last Wednesday I went to English Corner. It was not my first time to go, but it had been actually quite a long time since my last time. It was a tradition that people there were divided into many group and you can changed your talking group by group. The biggest one was many students discussing with an Indian old man. He was familiar about China and he discussed the culture difference between India and China. Several students involved into the debate with him. How interesting it was! I talked to some people that night, many of them had been working out of school. They shared the working experience to me and taught me how to deal with the difficulty we met in our life. One of them knew that I am in the major of International Politics and then he felt so interested to talk the international relations with me. Though he is not an expert in this field, but many of his opinions were so new and acceptable. Above all, I was so happy to be in English Corner that night, not only because I can practice my oral English but also broaden my insight.
Last Friday, I went to the English Corner with my friends. It was interesting to meet new friends there. Though many of us were Chinese, there were there IMBA students who were speaking wonderful English. What surprised me was that two of them are Chinese. They just went to study abroad for long, so they believed it was important to create an English environment for the improvement of English. Of course, it was right. Then we also talked about many things, such as Thailand lady boys, the fortune tellers, the operas and also their Rice University business plan. They were excited to tell us that they were just one of the two non-English speaking teams, which made them feel pride and pressure. Luckily, their English were great, because they had the idea that they had to speak fluent English in the competition. So English was a tool, an important and useful tool.
In my impression, since I began to learn English, I have known that there is a practice in China to improve one’s English called English corner. Moreover, I have read a large number of reports about English corner in newspapers. However, it is until the evening of April 16, 2010 that I participated in an English corner for the first time.
In the English corner, I talked with my partners about a great variety of topics. We talked about where we come from, but the conversation around this topic didn’t last long. We talked about whether we have boyfriends or girlfriends, but this topic seemed a little embarrassing and to be concerned with private life. My experience told me that major was the best topic. Perhaps because all of us had heard of the majors of others but didn’t know them in detail, we had a long conversation about different majors with lots of questioning and answering. From my point of view, to find an appropriate topic is very important to make this activity attractive and interesting, although in an English corner people are free to talk with each other.
Based on my own experience, I think that it is true that participating in English corners is a good way to improve one’s English, an opinion held by many people and spread in many newspaper reports. English is a language and the main function of a language is to communicate thoughts. Therefore, the efficiency of communicating in English is the most appropriate mark of one’s English level. English corners provide the opportunity to communicate in English for people willing to use English. I think that in at least three senses participating in an English corner helps one to improve his or her English. First, one becomes more familiar with English, both the vocabulary and grammar, through constantly speaking English in an English corner. Second, due to participants’ different levels of acquaintance with English, communication in an English corner may not be very efficient, but if one doesn’t give up and keeps trying to make improvement, the development and success in communicating in English will increase his or her confidence and interest in English. Third, in the effort to improve the efficiency of communicating in English, one is likely to realize his or her shortages and know the direction of further effort and improvement. In a word, I benefit a lot from this experience of participating in an English corner and I hope to have another opportunity like this.
It was April 16. I was back from an investigation in Foshan with my instructor. Tired as I was, I still felt very excited when I thought about the English Corner that evening. After dinner, I told my boyfriend that I was going to participate in an English corner. Since he majored in English, he was also very interested in it. Therefore, we went to the Southern Lawn Pavilion together. When we arrived, many students were already there, and Martin is also there. To my surprise, Martin recognized me among the crowd and said hello to me. I also saw our class assistant, the boy who forgot to bring his small red hat. Soon we were absorbed in the conversation on our latest studies, interesting stuff in our life. Although our English is not that fluent, most of us were able to express ourselves naturally and boldly. We did not leave until nearly 9 PM. I really appreciated the English corner and I benefited a lot from it.
I went to the English corner on April 16th with my roommate. At first we went to the wrong place, but later I checked the schedule on my phone and corrected the mistake. Maybe it was too early, there were not so many people gathering around. More awkwardly, it seemed that they were from the same class and knew each other quite well. We waited for a while and a few more people came around. Watching more, talking less. Most of the people were a little bit shy to talk to strangers and I was one of them. Some of the guys were talkative, aggressive and even hormone-oriented somehow. Honestly speaking, their accents were kind of difficult to understand. Here’s a secret: someone asked me for my phone number and I gave him a fake one because he was neither handsome nor adorable. I dragged my roommate out of the corner afterward. It was a complicated experience—bore at first, embarrassed in the middle, and mischievous at last. I just hope the poor guy wouldn’t see this. Hey, if you are watching, forgive me!
I went to the English corner on April 16th with Freda. At the first sight, we found some people who wore red hats. I felt so curious, and then I went ahead to a nice girl. Firstly, we introduced ourselves to each other. Later I asked her why she was wearing a red hat. She shrugged her shoulder and pointed the other side. Then I saw our cute oral English teacher leaning on the wall. All of us laughed. Then we began to talk about our campus life. We were so happy. However, her warm heart gave me a great impression. When she knew I had no idea about my presentation music, she recommended lots of website and films. Before we said goodbye, we exchanged our QQ and decided to the English corner together next time.