By Yuqi Huang

On the evening of September 21st, the first English Corner of this term was held on the first floor in the library. Mr. Martin Stannard, Mr. Darren Mullins and Mr. Christopher Dockstader had been surrounded by many students before half past six.

Since many freshmen attended today’s English corner, Mr. Martin Stannard told the student next to him that the only way to learn English well was to communicate with native speakers confidently. What’s more, the English Corner would lose its meaning if the students were too afraid to talk. And then he shared with them a funny story concerning misunderstandings caused by his poor French when he was in a French café, reminding students that even similar languages could have their own distinctions from other languages, let alone languages which were not similar. As a result, it’s unnecessary for students to feel ashamed of themselves if they couldn’t speak English fluently.

On the other side, Mr. Darren Mullins shared his teaching experience in Japan, Korea and Hong Kong with students. Then he spoke a little bit Japanese and Korean on spot. He pointed out that cultural diversity existed even in the same country, for example, the language difference between mainland China and Hong Kong.

Today’s English Corner ended up in laughter. Hopefully, all students could get more information about the charm of foreign languages.