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Bernard English
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- Native Speaker of American English Conversation practice. Chatting or in-depth discussion of news articles. TOEFL-IELTS practice / CV, SOP, journal paper, essay revision 英語家教 彈性排課, 免通勤, 托福, 職場英文, 履歷/論文修改…等。 請看我的學生推薦信。
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email: bernard.english@gmail.com
Saturday, December 26, 2009
2009 Gongguan Writing Contest
Congratulation to Lichung Ker, the winner of this year's writing contest.
Also, thanks to the judges, Clarence and Eva, for once again taking time out to read the contest entries. I really appreciate it!
Topic
To what degree does a parent “own” his child? And what conditions should prompt a state to intercede.
His Essay
Since everyone is individual, I do not agree that a parent owns his child. However, it is real that, for the sake of safety, children should be prohibited from doing dangerous or unhealthy things, such as drug abuse. Except for security concerns, I think parents should let children make their own decisions.
Giving children freedom can help them growing quicker. Children would become more mature through the process of making a decision. For instance, when a child is given some money, he will start to consider how to spend the money; like buying a candy or purchasing a toy. A Candy can fulfill the child’s desire of eating something sweet, but the feeling won’t last long; on the other hand, although a toy may be used for a long time, it is more expensive than a candy and that means the child need to save the money at that moment he is given. By this kind of thinking, children will know how to deal with their desires. Moreover, children get large amount of confidence from achieving their self-made goals. I do remember the joy of defeating older players on the basketball court when I was young; it gave me the confidence to face any challenge of my following playing basketball experiences.
However, children sometimes may try dangerous things just for fun without considering the bad results. For example, a young may go playing with water in the forbidden areas or riding a motorcycle without license. It’s a pity that both things may result in accidents. What’s worse, many teenagers taste tobacco or illegal drugs because of curiosity but never draw themselves back from drug addiction. Therefore, although I do not agree parents “own” their children, they should be warned and protected from those unhealthy deeds until they reach the legal age and should be responsible for themselves.
Of course, as one part of a family, children have their duties. Since parents work hard to nurture their child, a child should do some housework. I think it is suitable to ask children tidy their own room, wash dishes, or sweep the floor. However, it is immoderate that some parents ask their children making money or beat them as an emotion outlet. In these cases, a state should intercede with it. Children are born to be “loved” instead of be “hated”. Parents do have the obligation to take care of their children.
Child can be the source of happiness. I do believe parents can get lots of pleasure if they treat their child in the way of “helping him growing up” instead of treating as an “object” and they “own” it.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
2009 Writing Contest
Thursday, October 22, 2009
2009 Gongguan Writing Contest
This is the third year I'm holding a writing competition. Since so many of the entries in previous years were TOEFL style essays, this year the entries will simply be judged using the standard TOEFL guidelines. Of course, you need not be preparing for the test to submit an entry.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
2008 Gongguan Writing Contest Winner
News about teenage crimes have appeared on TV more and more frequently in recent years, which is thought to be a result of the incomplete home education since many of the troubled teenagers are from broken families or were raised by grandparents. On the other hand, Ms. Wang, the chairperson of Forte, said that she owed her father, the founder of Formosa Plastics Group, a lot for bringing her up in a strict manner, which made what she is today. Seeing these two, I couldn't help but ponder over the influences home education has on a person, or more precisely on the society. In my opinion, home education influences the society in two major ways, character building and skill developing.
First of all, home education plays an important role in building up a healthy character of a person, making the society safer and more stable. It is said that like father like son, yet children learn extremely quickly from parents. Good attitudes toward life, proper living manners and, most importantly, ideas about ethics are then directly passed down. Once parents are disappeared in the role of guiding the growing children and are somewhat replaced by spoiling grandparents, the problem of teenage crimes would no doubt arise. Take Ivanka Trump for example. Instead of being getting lost in luxury, she is now not only a reliable helper to her father, Donald Trump, but also an asset to the Trump organization. It is therefore conceivable that a society with more people having good character would be safer and more stable.
Secondly, home education helps children develop certain skills when they were brought up, making them to be potential assets to the society. For instance, Richard Phillips Feynman was surrounded by stories of nature phenomena in his childhood. What's more, he was greatly encouraged to figure out his problems via experiments on his own. As for Lin Taiyi, the daughter of Lin Yutang, was cultivated great knowledge of Chinese literature when she was young so that she was capable of teaching Chinese in Yale at an early age. Although home education can't offer professional trainings, it indeed help children open up the doors of certain interests, in which they might excel in the coming future.
In conclusion, home education is so important that every one of us can't neglect. If every parents pay careful attention to the children and timely reach out for them, I believe, a brighter future of human society is awaiting us. In other words, the more complete the home education, the better the world.
Monday, December 15, 2008
2008 Gongguan Paragraph / Essay Writing Contest
Current and former students are welcome to enter.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
2nd Annual Gongguan Writing Contest
See details at: http://sites.google.com/site/japaneseenglishclasses/writing-contest
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
The 2007 bernard.english Writing Contest Winner
The winner of the writing contest!
It always takes a lot of effort to write an essay, especially in a second language, so on behalf of the judges and myself, thanks for your effort.
For details of the 2007 contest see
http://bernard.english.googlepages.com/contest
Enter the 2008 bernard.english writing contest next year. It is tentatively scheduled to be held again in December.
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