Speaking English

My English teacher Stone always asks us to speak English in our spare time. So we begin[have begun]（1）to speak English when we are chatting with each other in our dormitory. I find it not only helps us with our English study but brings us a lot of fun as well.

　　One day， after I finished the evening class I went into the dormitory. As soon as I entered the room， one partner[a student who is one of my partners when we practise speaking English]（2）said to me loudly， “Hi！”I was very surprised because we had always spoken Chinese before.“But——is she mad today？ Why does she speak in English？”After a while， I smiled，——the teacher advised us to speak English， and she obeyed the rule[followed the advice]（3）。 So I also replied loudly，“Hi！”At that time， another student said shyly，“I want to go to， to， to…do you know how to say'Ce Suo’（厕所）in English？”“W. C. ”“Oh， I see. I want to go to W. C. Is there anybody else who wants to go with me？”“No， No， we don't want to go， you go there yourself.”“What a pity！”She made a face and then went alone.

　　Another evening， I asked，“Do you know how a sheep eats food？”But I said/i/when said pronounced the letters“ee”[pronounced“ee”in the word“sheep” wrongly as/i/]（4）， so all of my friends laughed. One of them said，“Can a ship eat？”“Oh， sorry， I made a mistake. I mean how a sheep has food.”They didn't know. I said proudly， “OK， let me tell you. Listen carefully. First it eats like…and then…”I couldn't speak English very well， so I had to use Chinese sometimes to make things clear. But I did speak more English than ever before. After I finished my talk， they couldn't help laughing but they said it was very good and they also thought they had learned a lot…

　　In my opinion， speaking English in our spare time is a good and effective（有效的）way of improving（提高）our spoken English. We can talk about everything we like to. We don't need to worry about making mistakes. We can help each other. We can get more knowledge from talking with each other and it can also bring us much fun.

　　My dear friends， why don't you try to do that？

　　江苏省如皋市白蒲中学高一（9）班 陈绍娟

　　评 语

　　学习英语，不仅要会做语法题，考试能得高分，更重要的是会运用学到的英语，练习英语口语便是一个重要方面。作者围绕练习口语时的几个实际例子，运用对话形式，使文章读来趣味盎然。同时也生动地表达出了文章的主题：练习英语口语，应该鼓起勇气，不怕出错，利用一切机会开口讲。这样就一定能对英语学习有推动作用。文章中某些语言上的不足之处点评修改如下：

　　（1）根据上下文，这里用现在完成时为妥。

　　（2）原文没作任何交代，就出现one partner，语义不清。

　　（3）把老师的建议写为rule，用动词obey语气太重。

　　（4）原句动词使用有误。