Talk about English - Webcast
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Climate change Thursday, April 26, 2007
This week our phone guest Alevtina in Russia selected 'believe in what you do' as her favourite English expression. We would like you to write a short piece which naturally includes this phrase and any other vocabulary from this webcast. It can be any kind of writing, a short story, telling us about something that happened to you, whatever you like. 300 words maximum please.
Thank you for sending in your entries. The competition has now closed.
The winning entry comes from Son Hua in Vietnam, congratulations. We liked your entry because it gave a personal experience to illustrate the target language.
Here is Son Hua's entry with our comments below.
"Believe in what you do", from my point of view, is a very interesting expression to tell one 1 to be confident in his 1 way of doing something. It should be clearer when examine 2 the following story.
One 3 year ago, when I was a third year undergraduate student, my friends and I founded a team and participated in 4 a computer knowledge contest hold 5 by a university of 6 my city. Basically, I felt it was a very exciting and challenging chance 7 to see how things were going on in our study 8 as the contest could show our level then.
It was the day when the contest began. Everything went smoothly till the final round when our team was left behind with 10 points less than the highest at that time 9. The final question was given out and required the contestants to find a word (term) which expressed a web log containing some video materials. I thought it was "Vlog", in my mind. But I was not sure about that 10. If it was wrong, everything ended for us 11. In the end, I was not confident enough to give my answer so our team lost. But the answer was "Vlog", and it was true.
From then on, I recognize I should be more self confident to be successful. That's also what the expression "Believe in what you do" tells us in advance.
Our comments
This was a very good entry. There were a few small errors and some vocabulary was not entirely sutable for this text, but the meaning was
always clear. I liked the fact that Son Hua used a personal story to illustrate the point. This made it a more interesting and enjoyable piece to read. Here are some more detailed comments about the language.
1: There is a mix match of pronouns here, the sentence starts with 'one' but then switches to 'his'. Although the meaning is clear there should be consistency. You could use 'one' and 'one's' but this might sound a little formal. Perhaps a more suitable way wold be to rewrite the sentence like this:
"... a very interesting expression to tell people to be confident in their way of doing things."
2: examining
3: A
4: This is a good word but it's perhaps a little too formal for a personal story like this. It's not wrong at all but maybe 'took part in'
would be a little bit more natural.
5: held
6: in
7: Again this word is perfectly fine, it's not wrong. However I would change it only for the reason that the previous word also begins with 'ch'. the repetition of those two sounds in consecutive words
gives it a slightly unnatural sound for this kind of writing. I would use the word 'opportunity' instead.
8:
going with our studies
9: 10 points behind the leaders
10: about it - although you don't need to have anything here, you could just say "But I wasn't sure."
11:
If it was wrong, everything would end for us
Congratulations again Son Hua, a 麻豆社 Learning English prize is on its way to you!
Although not this week's winner we'd also like to give a special mention to Ratchadaporn Thongwichit from Thailand who sent the following entry which used the target expression as well as vocabulary related to programme's topic.
Believe in what you do
Global warming! This is what most people are talking about. It is quite unbelievable how this terrible thing could happen to the earth. We started from peaceful time in the past when humans were still friendly to nature. As time past, we humans have also changed. A lot of unknown new technology has been created day after day without thinking of following results that might happen. We used to take time for so long to travel from a country to another country but now it is possible for visiting our friend from the great distance of the world within an hour. Planes, computers, air conditioners are some examples that show humans' ability to win the nature with a slogan 'There is nothing we cannot do.' Good news is yes, we are the winner but bad news is this might be the last time we will hold the prize.
It is true that global warming is the hottest issue, but how many people know about it or a worse question is how many people take serious actions after realizing this fact. Let's talk about the first group of people who have no idea about what global warming is. There are some people who need to spend their time with working and finding money to raise their children. No money means no future! They go out working in every early morning and come back home in the evening. Do they have time to watch a television? The answer is maybe. Do they have a chance to follow climate change news? Maybe, if they have bought a satellite displaying programs from a hundred channels including some useful academic ones instead of only soap operas. It seems to be another problem here. Let's move to the other group; the one that has got information from many sources. Yes, they have much knowledge to talk about it but when it is time to take some actions, they will say they could do nothing. It is true that it is impossible to give up flying or driving. Those seem to become part of our life in this globalization era. However, less is better than more.
Recently, I suggest my colleague turn off air conditioners when we feel we can. Someone disagreed and gave her reasons that doing this would help nothing and I could not see how this was going to work at. 'Just believe in what you do'. That is the expression that I told her. We must believe first that our small actions will help save our world and then they will. Though we might not have seen any good outcome right now, our children may be able to tell us in the future.
