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| Review of the Premier Meeting of the "HongEn English Club" With the enthusiastic participation of all members of the English Department and  cordial
co-operation from other departments, the Premier Meeting of the "HongEn
English Club" was successfully held on July 9 in our head office. We invited
50 web-friends in total, and forty-five of them were able to come. At 2:30, the party started with a welcome speech by Kandy, Manager of the HongEn English Department. She introduced HongEn's vision as an educational enterprise and the rapid growth of our English Department. Then, David, host of Canuck's Comments, stood up to say hello to his "old acquaintances" on the forum. He was followed by two American girls, Laurie and Anna, who provide the female voices for our English-teaching software. Laurie spoke of her interest in SCUBA diving and the fact she is a twin like Canuck! Anna, who is  visiting
from Wisconsin, USA, talked about her experience being "home-schooled" in
America( she and her sister Amy have never attended a school classroom).
Also, everyone introduced themselves one at a time to the group. In the following free-talk time, all the guests enjoyed themselves. They spoke with native-speakers in an easy atmosphere, and were greatly delighted by the foreign experts' gentle encouragement. Canuck wants to write about something very important at this point. It is the fact that when many of you speak to me the very first thing you say is,"My oral English is very poor, I am very sorry!" I am surprised how good your English usually is and I feel sorry that it is you who think it is poor. I have thought about why this might be so. When you speak in English to your Chinese teachers, they listen carefully to your words and each time you make any error at all they tell you! In every sentence you make a mistake! In a few sentences you begin to think that your oral English is very bad! Soon you do not want to even try to speak anymore! Listen now carefully to what I write. When you speak to me or to any native English speaker, and make the simple kinds of mistakes that your teacher will say is wrong, your mistakes do NOT keep you from being understood easily by the native English speaker. It does not matter if your tense is wrong, if you use the wrong preposition! This only matters in grammar. So, you can be understood easily by the foreigner often because he can hear the words and know what you are trying to say. I am trying to encourage you here. Your oral English is much better than you think it is! When you think it is pretty good, you are willing to try to speak more often to others and even to foreigners. When you try more, it gets better! OK? Do you understand my message? Do not worry that your oral English is bad, it is never as bad as you think it is!!!!!!!!! They spoke with their "old web friends". Those of you who visit the forum will know of one of the top "stars" of 
the forum, "Jenny". She was able to visit and had a great time meeting some
of the others. She has written her own essay on the party if you wish to
go to the forum and read it. Santy and Linlida were also welcomed as familiar
names. There was "The-smoker" who blows smoke rings only and was worried
that I would not like her because of how I feel about the smoking habit.
:-), and many,"Jane's". Canuck was asked many questions. One was,"Do you like Beijing better than Inner Mongolia?" He said that the weather in Baotou was better! This surprised them…the wind blows so hard with great dust storms that reach all the way to Beijing, they all think! Canuck said the wind in Inner Mongolia only blows for about 4 weeks in the spring and then the sky is blue, the sun shines brightly! So, the weather is better...who does not like blue sky and sunshine? They were surprised.  They played games together and had a good laugh with "tongue-twisters",
watched a famous movie clip and dubbed in their own voices for the dialogue
and enjoyed delicious fruit and soft-drinks. But the air-conditioning was
not able to keep up with the large number of people in the room when it
was so hot outside too. Hopefully the weather will be a bit cooler next
meeting. Six of our visitors became lucky guests. Canuck and Anna and Laurie
pulled names out of a box and announced the winners. They were awarded with
HongEn software: third prize, "Wordwizard", second prize, "Speak English
As You Wish", and top prize, "English Century II". All were given mementos to take back home and left happy comments in our Visitor's Book. There will be more meetings of the Hongen English Club! Watch our website for announcements!  活动相关页面：
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