A year with international English

 I think this year has been great! In the English class we have done much fun varied work. We have watched many movies, read interesting books and learned about inspiring people. Moreover I am also very happy that we wrote a blog during the year, because I got so good writing experience by doing it.

What I wish we would have done more is oral tasks, perhaps more class-discussions. Besides that, I am really satisfied with this year!

Why we should allow the use of internet when testing

I am now done with my exam, and will therefore share my experiences with using the internet. As I already foreseen, my use of internet was minimal. I used it to read my blog mostly. However I also used it to expand my vocabulary. On the other hand, if I got another chance I might use the internet more. The reason why is because, when I hear what the other students used the internet for, it seems so smart. Many of them used it well; therefore I have much to learn from them. As a conclusion I will try to use the internet better the next time.  

My views on using the internet during the exam

The international English classes on Sandvika vgs are actually the first English classes in Norway who are allowed to use internet during the exam. Therefore we practiced during our spring exam, so that we would be better prepared for the main exam. Using the internet on an exam can be both positive and negative, that is why I am in this blog-post going to write briefly about both.

 I am going to start with writing about the negative. Firstly when you are writing an exam you only have a limit of time. I usually use long time to find out what I am going to write about, and how I am going to phrase myself. So when I am done writing, I usually only have time to correct my mistakes and then time is up. Therefore what I found negative with using the internet is that a lot of time is used on researching. Moreover, when you do researching on the internet you have to use at least three sources to make sure that what you have found is correct. As a conclusion on this, when using the internet you easily use at least 30-45 minutes. That is a lot of time! Secondly, in my opinion I think that you should be tested in what you have learned during the year, not how fast you can google. If I am going to exaggerate a bit, it is like having a math exam where you get tasks outside the curriculum, and need to use google to find the answer. You get the point, right?

On the other hand internet can also be very positive. To start with, internet gives you the opportunity to expand your vocabulary. If you are stuck in how to write a sentence you can find thousands of alternatives on the internet. Internet also gives you the opportunity to write a better and more exiting exam. When you can use internet you can find interesting facts about the topic, or maybe good quotes from famous people. When you use the sources wisely you can make an exam which is kind of unexciting to something interesting and funny.

To sum up, using the internet can be a good thing, but it can also ruin your exam. It is all about using the internet wisely, and finding good sources. Good luck to all my fellow students!

Into the wild

For some people money, a good job and education and a perfect family is everything they could ever want. But what if you already have all those things, and you still did not understand the point with it all, what do you do then? Do you work harder to achieve an even greater success? Do you make sure to earn even more money? The movie “Into the wild” is about a boy who struggles with exactly this. He has everything anyone could ever want. He has a wealth family, a great education, and good jobs are thrown at him. Nevertheless, even though he has got it “all” he does not have anything. Christopher McCandless rejects his parent’s lifestyle and travels into the wild.

The book about Christopher is based on a real story . Therefore it is hard to really understand what he wanted to find when he left. Did he want to find “himself”, did he want to find love, or did he want to find the meaning with life? No one knows. Moreover, did he have a goal? Since no one knows, in this blog post I am going to write briefly about why I think he left, and why I think he did all the things he did.

First of all, Christopher is not an ordinary person; he does not want what everybody else wants. He wants something with a deeper meaning than materialistic gadgets. On the other hand, I don’t think that even he knows what he is looking for. All he knows is that whatever it is he is looking for, he has to find it. However before he left he had entered rock bottom, he had nothing to loose, but everything to gain.  That is perhaps why he just travels and stays where the road leads him. I think that it did not really matter to him where he went, because nothing could be worse for him, than what he came from. On the other hand, he did have one goal, and this goal was Alaska. So after a long journey without any money and little supplies, he travels towards Alaska.

Why Alaska? Just like all the other questions, this one is also hard to answer and understand. The difference between Alaska and the other places he had been was that he intentionally went to Alaska so he would not meet any human beings. He wanted to be all by himself. Perhaps he went there to clear his mind. He knew that he would not be influenced by anyone there, so it would only be him and his own thoughts.

He was extremely stubborn, he had to be. I think that after a while in Alaska Christopher was tired of traveling and wanted to go home. However he was making a statement, therefore I think he was afraid that people would think he gave up. In the end I think he stayed in Alaska just to stay in Alaska! On the other hand, he tried to return home, but realized that he could not cross the river, so he turned back. What he did not know is that there was a way to get over the river, just a few miles from where he stood, but he did not find it. Actually he did not look for a way to get across the river, he just went back.

At the end of the trip he got very sick. He was poisoned by a flower, therefore he was very weak. That could be a reason why he did not look for a way to cross the river. However, I think that he did not want it enough; I think that if he really wanted to go home, he would try to find a way to cross the river. But, then again, no one really knows what he wanted, so it is hard to come up with a conclusion of what he was doing and what he was thinking. 

Mystery ailment

Erin Brockovich is a lawyer and an environmental activist. She got famous when she in 1993 solved a case against PG&E, without a law degree. (Read more about this case here).

However now she is investigating a case concerning the illness of teenagers at a high-school in Le Roy, N.Y. The symptoms of this disease are facial tics and verbal outburst. 15 students have been infected by this disease, but among those 15, there is only one boy. Doctors and professors are not certain of what this disease is, and what is causing it. However Erin has her own theory.

In 1970 a train spilled cyanide and industrial derailment solvent called trichloroethene near by the school. Erin thinks this has a connection with the disease. Therefore she is now investigating this case. So far she has not found out any results because the school refused to let Erin and her team run tests. However she is still working to get permission to do those tests she needs. 

The great debaters

The great debaters

In English class January 17, we saw the movie “The great debaters”. The movie was about four afro-american students in the 1930s. They joined the debate team at their school. The team won more or less every competition they joined, and their goal was to compete against a “white school”, Harvard.  However on the way to success they met some challenges they could not solve with good and convincing arguments. They met some challenges not only the students had to face, but also the rest of the population in the US. Therefore I am in this blogpost going to focus on two questions based on the social problems. Firstly “How was life for the afro-americans during the 1930s?”  and secondly “what is the Jim Craw Law?”.

How was life for the afro-americans during the 1930s?

I am going to focus on how the afro-americans in precisely this movie lived, and how their life was like. To start with, during the 1930s white people and black people were segregated. For instance, they had to go to different schools. This led to that the debate team only debated against “black schools”. Also especially in the southern states in the US the black people were seen as less valuable for a long time. They did not have as good jobs as the white people. Moreover the black people had to show so much undeserved respect to the white people. An example of that is when the father of one of the main characters hit a pig with his car, he has to pay the owner of the pig (a white man) over twice as much as the pig is really worth. Because if he does not pay, he risks the life of his own and his family. My point is, is that the life of afro-americans in the 1930s was not easy. They had to follow everything the white people told them to do.

What is the Jim Crow Law?

The Jim Crow law, was laws in the US between 1876 to 1965. The laws states that black and white Americans were equal but segregated. That meant that the black and the white Americans had to go to different schools, different hospitals, restaurants, hotels, etc. However it states that they were supposed to be equal, but that was not the reality at all. The black Americans were treated much worse than the white. They were victims of public discrimination. 

Roald Dahl

When I read the short-story “Lamb to the slaughter” I got to think about Roald Dahl. He was an author from England, and he lived from 1916 to 1990. He is one of my favorite authors. I am really not a reader, and when I was a child I hated reading. However, there were some books I simply loved. That was books by Roald Dahl. I think that he is the best children’s books writer. All of my favorite children’s books are written by Roald Dahl. For instance I can’t remember how many times I have read “James and the giant peach”, “Matilda”, “Charlie and the chocolate factory” and of course “George’s marvelous medicine”. The drawings in the books are also amazing! He writes in a way no other author does, because almost all children’s books now a days have a moral, however the books Dahl writes are not like those. He often writes completely without moral, and I think that that is what children like. He writes funny, and children (including me) love his brutal humor. So the reason why I wrote this blog post is just to honour my favorite author! 

Lamb to the slaughter

Lamb to the slaughter

I have just read the short-story “lamb to the slaughter” by Roald Dahl. Furthermore I also saw the shot-movie based on the short-story by Hitchcock. The movie and the short-story were sort of different, but both were good. However I liked the short-story the best. The story is about a wife and her husband, and how the wife kills her husband.  

In this blog post I am going to focus on the main character, Ms. Maloney, so I am going to answer two questions about her. Moreover I am going to focus on her, on what she was described as in the short-story, not the movie.

·         How would you describe Mary Maloney as a person?

A more modern Housewife,
 Bree Van Der Kamp from
"Desperate housewifes"

Mary Maloney is a very typical housewife from the 60’s. She stays home all day waiting for her husband to come home. Furthermore when he comes home, she does everything to pleas him. She cooks for him and makes sure he can relax when he comes home from work. Maybe she is too “perfect”, and perhaps that is why her husband leaves her. If you have seen the TV show “desperate housewives”, Ms. Maloney is the same kind of person as Bree Van De Kamp. Both obsessed with being perfect, therefore never express their feelings and frustrations. That is maybe why she acts the way she does, it became too much for her, so she did not know what to do, and therefore she killed him.

·         Did it seem like Ms. Maloney had a well-thought plan when she first knocked out her husband?

Picture from the movie by Hitchcock

As I said earlier, I think that Ms. Maloney killed her husband in pure frustration. She had not planned anything. However, as I have also said earlier, she knew how to hide her feelings and to act cool. So Ms. Maloney pulls this off by just acting like she usually does, and it is not hard for her at all. Maybe she would regret her actions later, but she is cynical so she does what is best for her.   

The thing around your neck

I am now going to present another shot-story from the book “The thing around your neck” This time I am actually going to write about the short-story “The thing around your neck”. This short-story is about an African girl who is more or less forced to go to America, and live with her uncle. In her country, all people think that you receive everything you have ever wanted. They think of America like “the American dream”. The main character quicly understands that America is nothing like she thought it would be like. Moreover her uncle gives her a hard time, therefore she moves away from him. I will now start with quoting a paragraph from the book, where her relationship with her uncle is reflected.

“ You laughed with your uncle and you felt at home at his house; his wife called you nwanne, sister, and his two school-age children called you Aunty. They spoke Igbo and ate garri for lunch and it was like home. Until your uncle came into the cramped basement where you slept with old boxers and cartons and pulled you forcefully to him, squeezing your buttocks, moaning. He wasn’t really your uncle; he was actually a brother of your father’s sister’s husband, not related by blood. After you pushed him away, he sat on your bed- it was his house, after all- and smiled and said you were no longer a child at twenty-two. If you let him, he would do many things for you. Smart women did it all the time. How did you think those women back home in Lagos with their well-paying jobs made it? Even women in New York City?

You could imagine your-self how horrible it must have been for the girl to live with her “uncle”. Firstly she is in a New country, where she does not know anybody. Secondly she does not have money to live by her-self. This paragraph is important to the short-story because it really shows that the girl is lost and alone, and that she has to make some changes if she is going to manage to stay.

Lagos, the city the main character comes from

The short story is called “The thing around your neck”, there are perhaps many reasons why it is called that. However I am now going to tell about my opinion why it is called that. In the whole story the girl feels like she has something around her neck. Something that chokes her, it is a metaphor of something that is slowly bringing her down. She cannot “live” when she has this thing around her neck. When I say she cannot “live” I mean it like she can’t be happy and be herself. The only thing she is doing in America is to work to stay alive. Therefor this “thing” around her neck suffocates her, and kills her joy of life.

The second paragraph I am going to present you can see how the main character has developed during the story.

“The thing that wrapped itself around your neck, that nearly chocked you before you fell asleep, started to loosen, to let go.”

Even though you see in the previous paragraph that the situation is getting better, it never turns out to be great. She still misses her family, and the culture in Africa a lot. In the end of the story she returns to her home country. Maybe the thing around her neck lets go of her finally, at that moment?    

Cell One

I am now going to present two paragraphs from the short-story “Cell One”. Cell One is a short-story about a family who lives in Africa. The son of the family is a bit troubled. He is one of the “popular” boys, which means that he is one of the guys who steals and bullies with other guys. The daughter is the opposite of her brother. However the short-story is really about how the son learns what is right and wrong.  

“The thieving boys were the popular ones. They drove their parent's cars in the evening, their seats pushed back and their arms stretched out to reach the steering wheel. Osita, the neighbor who had stolen out TV only weeks before the Nnamabia incident, was lithe and handsome in a brooding sort of way and walked with the grace of a cat. His shirts were always sharply ironed; I used to look across the hedge and see him and close my eyes and imagine that he was walking toward me, coming to clame me as his. He never noticed me. When he stole from us, my parents did not go over to Professor Edube’s house to ask him to ask his son to bring back our things. They said publicly that it was riffraff from town. But they knew it was Osita. Osita was two years older then Nnamabia, and perhaps that was why Nnamabia did not steal from another person’s house. Perhaps he did not feel old enough, qualified enough for anything bigger than my mother’s jewelry.”


The first paragraph reflects how the boys in the neighborhood behaved, and how their parents ignored it. I think that one of the reasons why the parents of the boys ignored that they were stealing and misbehaving, was that if they got caught they did not get a chase to study and get educated. Moreover it was a shame to have misbehaving children, because that meant that the parents had failed raising them.

““Yesterday the policeman asked the old man if he wanted a free bucket of wather. He said yes. So they told him to take his clothes off and parade the corridor. My cell mates were laughing. But some of them said it was wrong to treat an old man like that.” Nnamabia paused, his eyes distant. “I shouted at the policeman. I said the old man was innocent an ill and if they kept him here they would never find his son because he did not even know where his son was. They said I should shut up immediately or they would take me to Cell One. I didn’t care. I didn’t shut up. So they pulled me out and beat me and took me to Cell One””


This is one of the last paragraphs in the short-story. Earlier in the short-story Nnamabia got himself imprisoned. However even after weeks Nnamabia had an attitude, he did not care that he was in prison. He sort of thought it was “cool” to be in prison. But after this episode his attitude changes, and he realizes that there are things in life that is more important than himself. He learns to step up for things that matter, he learns to respect other people.

Chimamanda Nogozi Adichie

My opinion of the short story is that I thought it was a good reflection of the culture. It is a big difference between the culture in Norway. A good example of that, is when the parents of the main character don’t want to confront their neighbor about their son stealing their TV. If something like that had happen In Norway, the police would have been involved at once. There is a different type of respect in Norway and Africa. Again, if an incident like the stealing of the TV would have happened in Norway, you would have lost the respect for the whole family, but in Africa you still respect the head of the family. In the short-story the parents of Nnamabia almost ignore the fact that he stole from his own mother. They acted like it was normal, and a shame that he did not earn more money on it than he did. In Norway, the son would be punished in a whole different way. Moreover, you simply don’t steal especially not from your own family. However I must say that there are "nice" mothers in Norway as well. So there are of course some similarities between the culture in Africa and the culture in Norway. But the main point is perhaps that parents should speak up to their children before it is to late.

  

Read about Chimamanda Nogozi Adichie 

 the autor of the short-story "Cell One" here. You can also see the autor talk about the book "the thing around your neck" where the short-story "Cell One" is, here. 

Living in Norway

Living in Norway

I have never won money in a lottery before, however the chance of being born in Norway is about the same as winning in a lottery. So, maybe I have won the most important lottery. I feel very lucky to be living in Norway. It is for good reasons Norway has been elected to be the best country in the world to live in many times. I, and most other people in Norway get everything we need of food and clothes. The economy in Norway is really stable compared to for instance China and other countries in the world. The people in Norway are lucky to live here.

To continue with, everyone in Norway has the right to go to school, and it is free. We have good and educated teachers. Moreover we have tons of school subjects to choose between, so that everyone can find something that suits them.

Project Lesotho.

Project Lesotho.

My English teacher has a good friend from Lesotho. This friend is a teacher as well, in her country, Lesotho. Lesotho is a very poor country, therefore the school she works in does not have so much resources as for instance computers, internet etc. In the school they only have to or three computers all together. Moreover they do not have electricity in the school, therefore the teacher must take the computers home and charge them there and bring them to school the next day. Unfortunately they do not have internet either. Therefore our class decided that we wanted to raise money for this school. The money we raise is going to pay for internet to the school. It is a really exciting project, because if we succeed with raising all the money we need, we might get to for instance skype with the students in Lesotho. The cultural difference between Norway and Lesotho is huge; therefore we have much to learn from each other. Moreover three students from “international English, Sadvika vgs” get the chance to travel to Lesotho in approximately April 2012. I am of course going to apply to be one of the tree students, because I can’t miss out on this one time opportunity. I am sure it is going to be an amazing trip for the lucky three students who get to go! 

My edublog nomination

My nomonations for the edublog.

In my global English class, there are a lot of good and exiteing blogs, however the blog I have chosen to wote on, stands out. It is both good written and exiteing.

I would like to nominate this blog to be the best student blog, Martine.

I am "twittering" and "blogging"!

To start with I was not to excited when i heard that we were going to use blog as an element of learning throughout the year. However, when I had written a couple of posts I honestly got to say that my opinion has changed. I can easily see what other students have written on their blogs, and it is easier to expand my vocabulary and grant more knowledge about different themes. As well as this you also get another form of practice in writing, where you can change between a formal and informal way of writing depending on what kind of blog-post you are working on. Furthermore I get more choices what I want to write about, and I am freer to express my own opinions. Concerning twitter, I have not yet used it so much, I still getting used to it. However, I look forward to learn more about this social media. 

News of the world

News of the world is an international newspaper. The topics in the newspaper were manly about celebrity scoops.  Moreover the newspaper is famous for their methods of getting the information they needed. Actually, the reason why they in 2011 had to stop publishing the newspaper is because of that. 10/7 2011 was the last day the newspaper was published. They went way too far to get information, for instance they hacked phones and eavesdropped phone-calls and voicemails.

Over the years there have been a lot of scandals with News of the world, They have hacked into over 4000 phones. To begin with, in 2005 an d 2006 they hacked into phones to the British royalties. Not only did they hack into phones to the royalties, but also politicians. What is worse is that they hacked into phones to dead people that had for instance been in accidents like that attack 7/7. They did this, just to get the juiciest details.  

Yet, maybe the biggest scandal of all, was the hacking into Milly Dowlers phone. She was a thirteen year old girl, who went missing in 2002, and later found murdered. In 2011 it turned out that News of the world had hacked into her cellphone, listened and deleted voicemails, which were important evidence in the trial against the murder. Because they deleted messages, new messages came into her cellphone. The police found out that there were activity on the phone, that gave the parents to the girl a hope of her still being alive.

The journalists in newspapers do whatever they can to get the information they want. They do immoral stuff just so that the newspaper will sell. They are all about the money, and they often really do not care about the persons they are writing about as long as the story is good. I think it is absurd that sex scandals etc. sells better than important news, that are not made up by journalists. 

Grand Torino

Grand Torino.

Grand Torino is a movie about an old American man, Walt, who lives in a neighborhood where there only live Hmong people. In earlier years mostly American people lived there, however they have moved and the place has almost turned in to a “gettho”. The main character is a very stubborn man, and he refuses to move even though the condition of the neighborhood is getting really bad. Furthermore he isn’t making any effort to get to know the Hmong people, more important he does not want to learn about them. Actually the man really does not know anything about the Hmong people, not even where they come from. He believes that Hmong is a place, however he later learn that Hmong is a combination of people from China, Thailand and Laos. Almost unwillingly the man ends up getting to know a Hmong family, who are also his neighbors. The family consists of parents, a grandmother and two children, Sue and Thao. All the family wants is to live peacefully, however a gang starts to bother them, and it gets really serious. Walt does not respect this gang, and more importante he does not want them to bother his neighbors, especially not the two children. Walt sees so much potential in both of them, so when someone tries to ruin their chance of a normal life and a future, it is enough for him. He has to help them. After all they turned out to be more of his “family” than what his real family ever was. Walt actually sacrifices his own life, just to give Thao and Sue a chance.

In my opinion, I think the main theme in the movie is the relationship Will gets whit the Hmong family, especially Thao and Sue. At first he says that they are like badgers, he does not get rid of them!! However later on, he understands that they mean good, and that they are really not that different from him at all. And that it is a good thing that they visit him. There are reasons why Walt and the Hmong family suits. Firstly, Walt is a very traditional and conservative man, and in the Hmong tradition they are very much polite and they show respect to elder people. In comparison to his own family, son and grand-children, the Hmong family takes much better “care” of him. Walt really does not need mush help, however his family believes he does, but the Hmong family gives Walt food to be polite, not to take care of their “crippled” neighbor. Therefore Walt comes to respect the new neighbors more than his real family.

The movie ends with Walt and the Hmong family showing mutual respect. Walt and Thao get a really close relationship. When Thao works for Walt, they get to know each other. Walt almost gets the role of being a grandfather and a father to Thao.  Walt has even written in his testament that Thao is going to get his Grand Torino car. Walt sacrificed his life for the family, and he gives Thao his most precious “item”.  For the first time in a long period of time, Walt cares. He really cares! Maybe more important, he cares about the people who care for him, and really appreciate him.

Singlish

Singapore English

There are two forms of English in Singapore, there is standard Singapore English and Singapore colloquial English also called Singlish. In Singapore there live people from all over the world, therefore the language is affected by accents from all over. An example is that about one third of the Singaporean Chinese population in Singapore speaks English as mother tongue, but nearly fifty present speaks Mandarin. Therefore the English in Singapore is affected by different languages, and the accent varies from person to person.

Singapore was a British colony from 1819 to 1965, therefore the standard form of English in Singapore is British. The grammar and spelling is almost the same in Singapore as in England. It is the most well educated Singaporeans who speak the standard form of English.

Modern city, Singapore

The other form of English in Singapore is Singlish, it is seen as low prestige to speak Singlish in Singapore. The language is influenced by Mandarin, Malay and Hokkien. Therefore they speak English, however they have putted in some non-English words instead of speaking fluent British English.

Here is a video where some people tries to speak english:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf38S97qg4A

How the world changed 10 years ago!!

How the world changed 10 years ago!!

In my previous English class we saw a documentary film about 9/11, called 9/11. There were to French men who were actually making a documentary about the life of a fireman, in New York. They chose one man, which they were going to follow through his “education” to become a fireman. Before you are counted as a real fireman, you have to have experienced a real big fire, and helped to tame it. It took a long time before the man got anything to do, and all he wanted was something to happen. One of the other firemen told him “be careful what you wish for”

I quote from the film, “It sounds like a cliché, but it was a beautiful and peaceful morning” It was indeed, it was a totally normal morning in New York City……. Until, a plane crashed in the one of the twin towers, and later a other plane, in the other tower…..

All of the sudden it hit me, is this for real, or have I just been dreaming?... I have seen photos and video clips from this happening a thousand of times, but for the first time in all of my life it really hit me what had happened. Maybe it was because I was only 7 years when it happened, that I sort of just accepted that the attack had happened and “forgot” it.. I don’t know.. However, when I saw the documentary, I understood what had happened. I think that it is maybe because of the happening in Norway, that I first now could really understand everything. It seemed too far away, before. However now, I know what must have been going through peoples mind at that moment…

It is horrible, and I feel sorry for all the people who lost their friends and family during this attack… The world changed 10 years ago, I just did not realize it before now… 

Erin Brockovich

Erin Brockovich is an American woman born in 1960. Even though she did not have an education as a lawyer, she had a central role in the trial about “Pacific Gas and Electric Company“ (PG&E) in 1993.

In 2000 a film about Erin Brockovich was released. In the movie Erin is played by Julia Roberts. The movie is set to the time right before and during the time Erin works with the trial about PG&E. Erin is a mother of three children, and before she got a job at the small lawyer firm, she was an unemployed. However, she asks her lawyer if she could get a job at his firm, and she does get a job, as a file clerk.  After a while Erin finds a pro bono case, she gets interested in. The case includes the company PG&E, and how they poison hundreds of citizens in the small town Hinkley. PG&E used cooling towers with water containing hexavalent chromium. The town’s groundwater consisted water from the cooling towers. As a result of that, hundreds of people got many types of different diseases. Erin acts immediately, and starts to investigate the case. She finds a lot of evidence that PG&E knew about the hexavalent chromium, but tried to hide it. The case never went to trial, but the evidence was examined by a judge. PG&E ends up with paying 333 million dollars as a compensation to all the plaintiffs.

I think the move was great. Firstly because it showed how much pollution can damage people’s lives. On the other hand, it showed how much only one person can affect so many people, in a positive way. Erin was not like all the other lawyers, she was more of a friend to the victims. Therefore she gained their trust, and managed to get a lot of important information from them.  

What to expect?

My expectations of this year, are many. However I do not really know what to expect of international English just yet, because I do not know what topics we are going to work with and so on.

However, first of all I hope to get to know as many as possible, of all the other students in my class. The lessons always get better when you know most of the people, so you can have fun with them.

Moreover I wish to learn a greater vocabulary, and how to use the new words. I think it is really important to have a good vocabulary, because then you get a better fluency in your language. Speaking of fluency in your language, grammar is extremely important, therefore I hope to learn a bit of grammar this year.

Of course I would also like to learn about interesting topics. I hope that international English contains a lot of topics that are fun and interesting to work with.

However, the first class was fun, so I really look forward to this year, and hope that I will achieve as many as possible of my goals.