An unforgettable night for Dr. Jones

It was one rainy night, and just when I was about to get into bed, the telephone rang. "Who could that be? It's almost twelve o'clock." I picked up the phone and a voice in a panic came right into my ear. It was Dr. Smily. He practiced medicine in a small town called Dusty Town, which was thirty miles away.
"Thank Goodness you are home, Dr. Jones," said Smily.
"Yes, what is it for you to call me this late at night?"
"I have a patient who needs an open-heart surgery immediately. You know I am not a surgeon. I need you to perform the operation."
"Can you have the patient moved to my clinic?" I said.
"I am afraid not. The patient's condition is critical." said Dr. Smily.
"All right, I will get there as fast as I can."
I hung up the telephone and began to get dressed. In a short time I was driving my car on the street. It was raining hard, and I was driving slowly. When coming to one intersection, I stopped for the red light. Suddenly a man with a dark raincoat coming from nowhere opened the car door. Before I could do any thing, the man pointed at me with a gun.
"I am sorry, but I need you car," the man said.
"Sir, I can't give you my car. You see I am on my way..."
"Shut up! I don't want to hurt you. I just need the car. "
I had no choice but to get off my car and watched the man drive it away.
I then called the taxi company for help but no one was there. It was almost one o'clock, and no one would want to work. Finally, a police car came by, and after knowing what had happened, the police gave me a ride to Dusty Town. It was two o'clock when I got there.
"It is really kind of you to come," said Dr. Smily, "but the boy died half an hour ago."

"I am very sorry. I could have made it if only I hadn't been robbed"

"You have done your best. Now let me introduce you the boy's father," Dr. Smily pointed to a man sitting at the corner. It was the man with a dark raincoat.

"My God. It was you..." I screamed.

Seeing my face, the man realized what he had done, and couldn't help bursting into tears...

A Questionaire for Strategies of Learnling English

1. Do you like learning English? Why?
Yes, I do. Because if you can speak another language, you will have more opportunities than others to find a good job, I have myself study English at least two hours every day, and being able to speak English has made me make friends with lots of foreigners.

2. Do you think your English is good or not? Why?
I think my English is ok. As I am not an English major student, I have to spend more time working on other subjects relating my major.

3. How do you usually study to improve your English?
Since there are four different parts of learning English, which are speaking, listening, writing, and reading, I improve each part with various ways. As for reading, I usually improve my reading fluency and increase my vocabulary by reading a lot easy stories every day at the beginning and then try to read more challenging materials after few months or even years. As for listening, I always listen to online English radio programs, like BBC or VOA. I also download some of the free mp3 data from the Net to my mp3 player and listen to them while I am walking to work or to school or riding my scooter on the road. Speaking, it might be the most difficult part for many people in Taiwan, not except me to overcome. The best advice I will give is trying to speak out loud every word or sentence when you are reading. Speaking to yourself is also a good way. Be thick-skinned. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Days after days, you will find that you can communicate with people well in English. Last, writing is also the toughest for any English learners. We don’t have many foreigners around our life to help with correcting our writing, so I would suggest people who want to improve their English writing by writing short sentences or paragraphs regularly. You can decide what to write by yourself. It’s kind of like writing what you feel on your personal blogs. And then asking your English teachers or teachers from English department to help correct your writing will be the best.

4. Are you afraid of speaking English? Why?
No, I am not. I am not afraid of speaking English as I’ve been practicing very often and making mistakes is no big deal for me. After all, I am not an English native speaker, so I feel confident of speaking out loud even though I am not sure if I am right or wrong.


5. Do you think you speak English fluently? Why?
I think my speaking is ok. Because I don’t have many opportunities like practicing partners or environments to speak English around my life, my speaking improves not much. However, even though I might make some small mistakes like using wrong tenses, or improper words, I still try to use other similar words or expressions to express what I exactly want to say to my friends.

6. What difficulties do you encounter very often when learning English? What kinds of methods do you use to solve the difficulties?
When learning English, I often have difficulties in speaking or writing English with words I want to express. And then I replace them with other words which have similar meanings.

7. Do you discuss what you can’t understand with your classmates while learning English? Why?
Yes, I do. When bumping into what I can’t understand, discussing them with my classmates is always the most efficient way to find out the answers. As the old saying, “Two are better than one ”



8. Do you ask your teacher actively problems that you encounter while learning English? Why?
Yes, I will. I always do so, because if I don’t ask lectures for helping, I won’t be able to know the correct answers to the problems I encounter forever.



9. Do you use other ways of learning English?
No, my ways of learning English are mostly like the above. They are all very good methods to follow. However, in my opinion, the most efficient way of learning English well is that anyone who wants to learn English well only has to be determined to study English and use it every day.