I have been listening to the “Ted Talks”.

I think my English listening skill must have improved a lot since not too long ago – I can understand the audio stories!

It is just a shame that there was no transcript for those audio files. There are some words that I did not know but I think I am very lucky to be able to understand most of the audios.

Thank you again, Warren. The Ted Talks are excellent, truly.

Best Regards

Betty

“No even 1% of her ability to use English”.

Should read as: “Not even 1% of her ability to use English”.

Thanks.

Thank you very much for your messages and kind remarks.

I am very sorry for the delay in my reply.

Helen Keller wrote such a powerful letter about The Empire State Building that I reckon I should really write something about my new flat as well.

I was actually a ‘deafblind’ for English until I was well into my teens. I will never be able to depict anything so beautifully as Helen Keller. No even 1% of her ability to use English. However, in order to answer your question, I will try to write sometime in the following paragraphs.

Yes, I like my new flat very much. It is not as sophisticated as the previous flat – everything very basic. For example, the hot water supply in the old flat was ten times better than this flat, the electric switches here is thirty year behind the old flat.

But still, this new place offers me a new life. The short comings of this new flat have been compensated by the advantages of its surroundings.

Instead of living in the less densely populated mid-level in Hong Kong Island, I now live in a massive estate which was a dockyard when I was a little girl.

As you can see, because it was a dockyard, it is very close to the sea. I used to enjoy looking down the hill, and looking at the sea afar. This distance has diminished. Within 5 minutes’ walking, I can arrive at the sea front and watch people fishing.

In order to serve the big population in this estate, there is a huge and beautiful shopping mall as part of the development.

I used to hate coming to this shopping mall because it was so big that I felt tired very quickly. Now I spend about half an hour every day to walk in the shopping mall, to get to know all the world class labels, and I gradually become very fond of this place.

Last but not least, this place is only 5 minutes’ walk from my father’s flat. It means I do not have to worry about flagging down a taxi in order to rush to him when needed.

Finally, I would like to thank you again, Emiliano, for giving me the idea of writing something about this new flat. I am glad I have finally finished writing about it.

Best Regards

Betty

Congratulations! I am pleased to read that.

Thank you so much for your direction about ‘pee’ and ‘poop’ in answering my wish to find out how Jeff and Lucy would describe these ‘nature’s call’ (or call of nature) for animals.

Yes, you are right, ESL Podcast 613 – Being a First-Time Parent has mentioned about ‘pee’ and ‘poop’. How dared I manage to forget it?

And, yes, you are right, we human being do not use direct words about them, I guess it is the same for any languages in any country.

We need to use the direct words when we care for very young children or very old people (unfortunately incontinent or the opposite do exist).

Thanks again, Myo Ko Ko, I always enjoy reading your messages here. You don’t need to live in an English speaking country to be good at English. Your English is better than a lot of native English speakers. It is true!

Betty

I have googled the internet many times with “What is a good teacher” in the past.

This morning, the google returned my request with about 494,000,000 results in 0.35 seconds.

You will find many scholarly articles for “What is a good teacher”.

You will find good powerful articles written by writers in many big organisations (eg bbc, guardian etc) in the list.

I needed to find an answer to the question because I had to prepare to answer any topic related to teachers – that’s for the assessment for teachers, an “exam” I take every year when I can.

Warren (and, of course Jeff and Lucy included) are not just good teachers. They are excellent teachers.

How many teachers can motivate old and tired people to learn and improve their second language to a good standard?

The answer is “NOT MANY”.

My initial intention was to write a review of what I had learned from the article posted above by Warren. But my mind has been preoccupied by the thankfulness and gratefulness that I wanted to express to our three teachers here.

They have taught everyone in the world indiscriminately. Many of you (or us) learning here have not spent a single penny or cent on our teachers. You know there is no ‘google advertisement’ in this website so they don’t get any money from advertisements at all*. (Please see footnote*).

Anyway, I just wanted to say I am extremely lucky to have found this website – thanks to the exam I took and failed, which prompted me to search for advanced good English learning websites.

Thank you very much indeed, Warren, you are a very good Advanced English teacher.

My daughter spotted what I had on the computer screen and told me she needed to read more good articles like yours. I totally agree with her. Young people these days really need to read and write more good articles to make the world a better place to live.

Thanks again. Look forward to your next article soon.

Betty

Footnote*: Please excuse me if I am wrong. There are many ways people can make money from their websites these days. They may be building a massive website which will attract a rich buyer one day. I should be happy for them if that happens, instead of being angry that we don’t get a share of the commission. What more can we wish for? Many good teachers are poor for their whole life. They produced many rich students but they themselves died a poor good teacher.

Jeff you may be laughing now because you have a beautiful wife who does not insist of having a cat in the house and who gladly accompany you to go to an expensive restaurant. You also have a good house which offers you the chance to enjoy mowing the lawn – you can’t be the poorest teacher in this world.

How about Lucy? She hardly has any spare time to enjoy any shopping. She only can afford to go to museums that do not charge for an entrance fee.

Warren might be the richest amongst them. He is contented with his expensive camera which takes the best picture in the world.

Just joking. Please forgive me for my insanity. :)

Yours

But even in our native or mother language, we don’t use “direct” words about them.
I don’t know anymore. I don’t live in an English speaking country, You see.