| Lets volunteer! If you have no special plans for your holidays, why not spend your time helping others?Don't believe those people who say that young people today often think only of themselves. It's not true at all. More and more young people in the USA volunteer to spend their school holidays working for others. And they don't do it for money. Here are some of their stories.  | |
Alice hamilton, 17 | I'm going to help the Forest Center build new hiking path the mountains. It's going to be great fun — I'll spend the whole summer living in a forest and breathing the clean mountain air. I'm going to sleep under the moon and stars. It will be a nice sport and I'll be able to do something good at the same time. |
Jason moore. 18 | This summer, I'm going to work for Special House Program. They build good, less expensive houses and sell them to families that are not very rich. They'll teach me what to do, so I'll help people and also have a chance to learn how to build houses. |
Trish Anderson. 16 | I'm going to teach children who have trouble in reading. I'll work for a program called Reading for Life. Every day, I'm going to help them choose and read books that they like. I want to be a teacher and I love children and reading, so this is going to be a great experience for me. |
| (1) Li Lian is an English representative (科代表). She is looking forward to getting good scores and setting a good example for her classmates. She wonders if there is a kind of app to help her remember more English word. (2) Ma li is interested in reading English novels. But she finds it difficult to understand every word of the passage. She wants to find an app to read her favourite books. (3) Zhang Tian majors in English. He is preparing for the TEM8 (英语专业八级考试). However, he is afraid of listening tests, especially the ones about news. Is there a good app to help him? (4) Hu Qing is going to graduate from university. She is now a trainee (实习生) in a foreign company. She needs to write some important documents (文件) such as contracts (合同) in English. She is eager to improve her writing. (5) Xie Ming will become a middleschool student in September. According to the new policy, the new students of 2021 will be the first ones test of the High School Entrance. Examination(中考). So he needs an app to practise speaking English. | A. If you want to read English novels and you have difficulties in understanding the new words or sentences MintReading will be the best choice. Whenever you meet a new word, just put your finger on it, and the Chinese meaning will appear. B. Music Friend can be the best helper when you feel it hard to understand the English songs. You can search the songs and learn them at any time. C. Pigaiwang is an app that can automatically (自动地) help you correct the writing mistakes, and give you some advice to improve your writing. D. China Daily is there for you to know the big events happening around the world. You can listen to it and there are Chinese meanings at the same time. E. Baby Bus is a very good friend for primary school students. Students can learn to speak, understand numbers and draw pictures with the help of this app. F. Word Easy is a fantastic English leaith word exercises of different levels. Only when you pass a test of a certain level can you go on to learn words of a higher level. G. Ekwing is a useful tool for students especially the ones who want to improve listening and speaking for the exams. You can read every sentence and the system will show you a mark. |
| Bringing back a traditionOil paper umbrellas (油纸伞) have a history of over 1,000 years in China. Once they were everywhere. However, as umbrellas with metal ribs(金属伞骨) become more popular in the last century, people used the hand-made umbrellas less in daily life. Yuhang in Hangzhou is known for making oil paper umbrellas for over 230 years. Umbrellas here take more than 70 steps to make, such as making bamboo ribs and pasting (糊) papers. It takes at least a week to make an umbrella. Each umbrella has 36 ribs so they are strong. In 2007, this kind of umbrellas was added to Zhejiang Province's intangible cultural heritage list (非物质文化遗产名录). |
| Master's StoryIn 2015, Liu Weixue left a well-paid job to learn the art of making Yuhang oil paper umbrellas from his grandfather. "I want to bring the art to life." Liu said, "When it rains someone uses the umbrella, that's what I want to see. "After mastering (掌握) the skills, Liu opened a studio (工作坊) and gathered (聚集) umbrella-making masters in Yuhang. Liu improved the umbrellas to win the hearts of young people. As the traditional paper was easy to break, he used a thicker paper. In a test, his umbrellas were opened and closed 1,000 times without breaking. He also used a lighter kind of bamboo to make ribs. So the umbrella weigh (称重) less. In 2017, Liu opened an online shop to sell umbrellas. It now has more than 80, 000 followers(粉丝). But this doesn't make Liu speed up. To keep the quality (质量), his studio makes only 1,000 umbrellas each year. Liu hopes the art can be passed on. He goes to schools in Yuhang to teach students. He also shows up (出现) at events and activities in different places to show more people about the art. |
| Young voiceDing Anqi is a 14-year-old girl from Hangzhou, Zhejiang. She said, "I took class of making oil paper umbrellas last semester (学年). Liu told us about the history of umbrellas and the steps to make them. Everything was interesting to me. I took part in drawing patterns for the umbrella cover in groups. We drew pandas, flutes, ancient poems and flowers. Each of us drew a small part. It took five classes to finish it. We felt proud of our work!" |