About Learning English— A Speech Addressed to Students in Middle SchoolsDear Schoolmates,Good morning, everyone! I’m a Senior 3 student. I was a student in the past. Now I am still a student. I’ll certainly be a student in the future. For we were born to be students — we always live in order to exist in the world and in order to live a better life. So, we are students for ever. Do you agree with me?Now I’m going to give a speech about English learning. It is often asked whether it is possible to learn English well. As to this question, my answer is YES. Why?First, we should bear the importance of English clearly in our minds. Successful English learners are those with purpose. We want to learn English because we are interested in the English language and the people who speak it .As we all know, English is a living language and is the most widely used in the world. It is spoken all over the world and widely used in many fields. According to The Economist (1996), English continues to be the world standard language, and there is no major threat to the language or to its global popularity. To us Chinese students, there is no doubt that knowing English is equal to having an additional pair of eyes. More and more people come to realize that we should learn English well. Once we master English, we can read English books and other English publications; we can use it freely at work and study; we can communicate with whoever comes from every corner of the world today, etc. At international meetings, we can express ourselves freely. We can even pay a visit to Italy or France, even though we don’t know Italian or French. This is because English is popular in every corner of our present world. We learn English in order to make our country stronger. Especially our country has more frequently communicated with other countries ever since she joined the international organization WTO on December 11th, 2001. Our country is going through great changes now. We need English to communicate with people from other countries. We can learn their advanced science and technology through English. The English language will be more closely associated with economic modernization and industrial development. This trend will force us to learn it. English is so important that we should make up our minds to learn it well. Let’s just do it at once!Second, it is also important to have correct learning methods. Correct methods can not only save us time and energy, but also lead us to get better result with less effort. If we have correct learning methods, we’ll find it not so difficult to learn English. We must try our best to do as follows: to preview the lessons before class, listen carefully to the teacher in class and go over after class the lessons that we have just learned before we forget them. By doing so, it often works out better. Besides, we should pay attention to the achievement of every basic skill at the same time,including listening, speaking, reading, writing, and even translating skills. For the achievement of one skill often goes hand in hand with the achievement of another. Of all the skills, listening and speaking seem relatively important, especially listening. Recent studies have suggested that a successful language learner pays much attention to listening. It can give the brain a workout. When we speak to a native speaker, first we have to understand what he or she says. Then we can communicate with each other. So we should practise listening a lot. When we hear English on the radio (or on TV),at the cinema, or anywhere else, listen carefully！Perhaps we will find them speak too quickly or too low for us to catch. Don’t lose heart! Keep up our courage! It helps our ears to learn the pronunciation and intonation. We just listen carefully. Don’t be shy to speak English and don’t be afraid of making mistakes. If we keep our mouths shut, we will never learn English. Catch hold of every chance to speak English. We can practise it with our English teachers and our classmates. The more we speak English, the more fluently we can speak it. In the meanwhile, we should try our best to recite some texts, learn some key sentences by heart, do some extensive reading and often practise writing.Third, we should work hard at English. It is well known that there is no shortcut to success. Also there is no shortcut to learning English. Fluent and good English can’t come easy if we don’t take great pains. As the saying goes, “Rome was not built in a day.” Once we decide to learn English, we should be ready to face the difficulties that we’ll meet with and try to overcome them as early as possible. We should study English day after day and keep on using it as often as we can. Only in this way can we find it easy to learn the English language. Please remember：“Industry is the parent of success!”And above all, we should not only get out of the foolish idea that it is impossible to learn English well, but also get rid of the bad learning methods that prevent us improving our English as soon as possible. We should look for the most suitable methods for ourselves to learn. The learning method in senior school is different from that in junior school. It is necessary for us to form good study habits as soon as possible. Above all, we should learn how to teach ourselves as early as we can. It is more important for us to learn how to learn by ourselves than to wait for the teachers to explain. Of course we should follow the teacher’s advice and be active in learning.If we do so and have a knack for learning language, English will be no longer a difficult subject. Take Karl Marx for example. Marx was a German. In order to make London the base for his revolutionary work, he worked hard at English and practised it whenever and wherever possible. He made such rapid progress that before long he could write articles in English for an American newspaper. In fact, his English in one of these articles was so good that Engels praised him for it. Marx’s example shows“Nothing in the world is impossible to a willing heart”. English can be grasped by willing people.There is one point I want to stress. That is, while learning English, we should have self-confidence all the time. This is the first secret of success. There is no royal road in learning a foreign language. Never say die in the face of difficulties. Everything needs persistence. We should have patience for sure, or else all our efforts that we have made are in vain. Just remember Marx’s and Madame Curie’s words. They are sure to help in learning English.Marx ever said:” There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.”Madame Curie also said: “Man must have patience, especially confidence.” And Madame Curiewas also a good example in learning a foreign language. She was born in Poland. She learned French so well at school that later she could go to study at Paris University successfully. She described her thoughts in words much like this:” Life is not easy for any of us. We must work, and above all we must believe in ourselves. We must believe that each one of us is able to do something well, and that, when we discover what this something is, we must work hard at it until success.”Ok, saying is one thing, and doing another. Whether we can learn English depends on ourselves —it depends on how much effort we spend on English and how we learn it .Believe in ourselves. We can surely make it.My dear schoolmates, my dear friends, the 21st century is a century full of competitions. English may become one tool that opens windows to the world, unlocked doors to opportunities and expands our minds to new ideas. So never hesitate to move forward. Never say “No” in learning English. Let “I can’t” alone！Don’t be shy, just try. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes and don’t be afraid of losing faces. We can look for the clues and draw our own conclusions from the mistakes. We can start from the very beginning. Keep up our courage！In order to learn for China’s prosperity, in order to have a fairer tomorrow and in order to be more able to meet the requirements of the future challenge, let’s study English hard. It’s time for us to take steps to improve our English now. The harder we work, the more progress we will make. We conquer English to realize the four modernizations of our country. From now on, let’s just do it without hesitation！Looking ahead, we are filled with boundless confidence. We are sure to learn English well. I believe that we can conquer English in the near future. By then we’ll be international Chinese. Let’s work hard together to create a bright future！I wish each of you would be a whole person early in learning English. That means you will be all-bounders in qualified education.Finally, let all of us cry out boldly:“A foreign language is a weapon in the struggle of life.”(Karl Marx)“Where there is a will, there is a way.”“We are sure to conquer English.”That’s all. Thank you!本文来自:英语作文网()转载请保留此链接,谢谢!详细出处参考：/gaozhong/gaosan/2011/1228/21241_3.html。
