At April I came across a good book called “ To Use Your English”. It’s about the English learning methods. The author said that by observing babies we can find that only a mount of input would result in output. We need to read and listen a lot in order to understand and communicate with others. In the book many good materials are introduced. Now I have been learning some of them.

Mr. Lai Shixiong’s American English Pronunciation lessons are very useful and interesting. Mr. Lai points out many pronunciation mistakes of Chinese students. For example, “W” should be read as “double u”, not “da bu liu”. When I learned English, I listened to my teacher and the tape and read “W” as “da bu liu” by mistake. After I took Mr. Lai’s lessons, I paid more attention to the pronunciation rules of words. However, I’m still a little confused now, because I’ve learned British English in school, now sometimes I don’t know how to pronounce some words in American English, for example, ‘-o-’ and ‘-or-’ words.

Now I listen to some English pods every day. These pods are short but interesting. I think interest is the best teacher. An interesting material will help students keep on learning. In each pod firstly a dialog was played, then two teachers would explain the words and phrases. Sometimes they would introduce the cultural background to help us better understand it. In the end, the dialog was played once again, and this time we may totally understand it.

Also, it’s suggested that we should read more original English books. Then I began to read some books, and I have read “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”. I chose this novel because I like detective novels. Several years ago I have watched a TV series of Sherlock Holmes adopted by BBC. The actor Jeremy Brett exactly showed the character of Mr. Holmes. He was smart, proud, handsome and always thinking. Because I have watched some detective TV series before, I thought I could be a good detective too, and it wouldn’t be difficult for me to know the reason of every mystery. But in fact it wasn’t quite so. I failed to guess the reason except the “Speckled Band” one, because it impressed me so much when I watched the TV series. The difference between me and Mr. Holmes was the observation of the details. I easily neglected the details while he examined each detail carefully. What’s more, he was good at linking the facts with the news and his knowledge. When the links of things are connected and compared, the reason and result of a mystery are apparent.The stories were so attractive that once I read the beginning of a story about a mystery I couldn’t wait to read the end to find the reason.