Diary Entry
Dear Diary,
Hey! I can’t wait to tell you what I’ve gained from the one-day English Improvement workshop! Although it’s very tiring, I can swear that it’s the most unforgettable workshop I’ve ever attended!
Ha-ha, it’s shy to say, but ever since my friends teased me because of my poor English, I always want to brush up my English. So, last Sunday, I joined the one-day course organized by the British English Association to improve my English.
The workshop focused on writing and short stories appreciation. So, the morning session was mainly on the writing skills. Sigh! Writing is always my weakness. Anyway, the teacher there taught me many useful skills to enrich my content. Right! She has introduced different sentence patterns, like participle phrases, inversion, relative clauses and so on. Also, I have learnt many vocabulary items and adjectives in a fun way. Guess how? The teacher taught us to use a tree diagram to remember vocab with similar meanings! First, we need to draw a big tree with a particular vocab. Then we need to write as many words related to the vocab as possible inside the tree, to pretend the fruit. This method is really useful to me because I’m a fruit lover! Of course I want my “tree” to grow more “fruits”. After learning the writing skills, the teacher set up some scenario and asked us to write immediately. We are asked to include characters, plot and twist as well.
I still remember there’s one scene that the teacher pretended to be a disabled elderly lady crossing the road. We all laughed out loud because the teacher indeed acted very well! Oh, no wonder she’s the teacher! Then, she invited some of us to go out and read our scripts. I have to say, their scripts were even funnier than the teacher’s acting! So hilarious and impressive!
Anyway, after the tiring but interesting writing session, the short stories appreciation came! It was my favorite part because I like reading stories so much! To echo with the writing session, the story appreciation also involved an event that we need to use our writing skills and creativity. Yes! We have to rewrite or create new endings for the short stories. For example, Three Little Pigs, Red-Riding Hood, Cinderella and so on. But what’s more challenging was, the teacher requested us to use some specific terms she had provided in the new ending. At last, most of us could come up with an eye-opening ending. Lastly, all attendees had to form groups to perform a selected scene from traditional stories. We had to use the dramatic tone and exaggerative actions to perform the play. Also, some props were provided to add spice on our mini drama. It’s actually my first time to participate in an English drama! It’s incredibly awesome, astonishing and spectacular!
Throughout the day, I’ve learnt so many useful things like how to flourish my writing and how to speak English in a dramatical way. Although I could not follow the pace of teacher sometimes, classmates around me were always willing to lend me a helping hand! I was so happy that I had joined the workshop because I’ve learnt English and made some caring friends at the same time!
Hope my English will get better and better every day! See you next time! My dear Diary!