Common Talk Weeklyshuang yu zhou kan

In search of a golden key
By Enid Chen
Photos by Yao Fan

Nearly 1, 000 English learners listen attentively to the lecture.

On the evening of March 19th, a lively lecture on vocabulary was delivered at Xiamen University, which attracted nearly 1,000 English learners. Ma Hu, a teacher from New Oriental School, helped attendants find the golden key to memorizing English vocabulary. His helpful lecture won rounds of applause from the attendants.

In his speech, Mr. Ma introduced several golden rules to memorize English words, such as analogy, comparison and affixes, which offer a clue for long-term memory rather than short-term expediency.

Ma Hu, who majored in Ocean Biology as a university student, found memorizing English vocabulary was the greatest barrier for his own English study. As a matter of fact, he was not good at English as a student. Having been a researcher and an editor after graduation, he quit his job and became a full-time student at New Oriental School, where he attended different English training courses. According to him, the cruel test of GMAT compelled him to find a way to better memorize English vocabulary.

It was during this period that he read books about the development of the English language and books on pronunciation and vocabulary. He began to be deeply absorbed in the search for a systematic and scientific way to memorize English vocabulary. He had taken a path that was untouched by others. He worked to the best of his potential and all his efforts paid off with the completion of his book - Ma Hu Vocabulary, which expatiates on English vocabulary.

"It's a truth that everyone can be talented and have a great memory. I try to find a scientific and logical way to memorize English vocabulary and remove the major stumbling block in my English study and share it with other English learners as well." Not only did he pass the GMAT test, but also he became a teacher at New Oriental School in October 2002.

"When I studied at New Oriental School, I wished either to go abroad for further study or to be a teacher at this legendary school, and now my dream has come true." Mr. Ma greatly enjoys the teaching job at New Oriental School, from which he gains a sense of achievement in the relaxed atmosphere of the working environment.

Through his training course, an average student who is taught 300 English words from the IELTS or TOEFL vocabulary can remember an astonishing 80-95% of them at the end of the day, according to him. Not only do the students benefit from it, but also it enlightens some of the teachers at New Oriental School. "Despite all this, it's important for the students to recall words time and time again for the purpose of long-term memory. If students don't revise, none of the golden rules stand."

"I'm learning as well when I teach the students. The research of English vocabulary is an ongoing and endless process. I'm sparing no efforts to improve the way to memorize vocabulary to make it more systematic, scientific and logical so that it will benefit more English learners."

 

A "donkey" from New Oriental School
By Jack

Xiao Yongqing, a teacher from New Oriental School gives a passionate lecture on English exam preparations.

Once upon a time, there was a peasant traveling with his donkey. All of a sudden the donkey fell into a deep dry well, and after every effort of the peasant, even with the help of others, he still couldn't get the donkey out. Out of desperation, as well as in order to keep this deep dry well from being dangerous any more, the peasants decided to fill the well with dirt and level it off. So they started doing it. Down at the bottom of the well, although the donkey felt unbelievably furious with his master for the dirt being poured down, there was nothing he could do but accept his fate of being buried alive in this well. However, while constantly shaking off the dirt, to the donkey's surprise, he found that the more dirt there was in the well, the closer he was to the ground. When he was close enough to the ground, he let out a long neigh, jumped out of the well, and ran off to his freedom." Xiao Yongqing cleared his throat a bit, and continued, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the peasant is your school, you are the donkey, the ground is your success, all the dirt is the English exams, and I, working with New Oriental School, am here today to teach you how to shake off the dirt easily and quickly so you may run off and say good-bye to it all."

Every year, there are approximately 5 or 6 million Chinese students taking part in the CET (College English Test) and among those many have taken the exam more than once. Seeing the statistics, New Oriental School started and rapidly boomed by mentoring Chinese students on how to prepare for TOEFL and GRE. A few years later, the school is now equipped with many experts in this field and one of them is called Xiao Yongqing, who gave a lecture at Xiamen University last Saturday on how to say good bye once and for all to all the CETs. From the delightful as well as breath-holding atmosphere in the auditorium, the nation-wide New Oriental School teacher's reputation of being humorous and passionate was proved once more to be true.

However, passion and funny skits are not all that Mr. Xiao had up his sleeves. There is a motto which he deeply believes and has practiced for years, "never offer students fish to eat, but teach them how to fish." "I never intend to tell my students everything that I know. Instead I leave room for my students to think for themselves, and more often than not, their realization beats mine."
"After his lecture, it feels like you have just watched a movie, a masterpiece that's both funny and yet very inspiring and touching. You just can't wipe it off your brain. All you want to do is to find a good friend to share it with or watch it again", said Tommy Wang, a student from Xiamen University. In a school that is famous for rote-learning methods in exam preparations, his success should be greatly respected.

After the lecture he was rushed back to Shenzhen and, according to him, after a whole morning's class on Sunday, he would be flying to Beijing for a staff meeting in the afternoon. When people were jaw-dropped by such a busy schedule, he smiled and added in a self mocking tone, "In order to help more and more donkeys to shake off the dirt more quickly and easily, I have no choice but to treat myself as a donkey as well. And so are all of my colleagues. "