1. A message to the students of Yuen Long lutheran secondary school
From Gary Harfitt, HKU.
30th October 2015

4. ‘ENGLISH’
In one word…

6. But is English only about tests, textbooks and scores?

7. Reading for everyday life and reading for school subjects: different kinds, different purposes, different ways;
Everyday English is different from academic English – everyday text-types are different from academic text-types.
Differences – contexts, text-types, academic functions, sentence patterns and vocabulary;
Similarities – both are important to the language development of our students

8. To me English is also a window to the world

10. But…

11. Who are these famous characters and what do they have in common?

12. Alliteration in other characters we love…
Donald Duck
Daisy Duck
Daffy Duck
Porky Pig
Bugs Bunny
Road Runner
Bob the Builder
The Teletubbies
Sesame Street
Atom Ant
Fred Flintstone
Postman Pat
The Wind in the Willows

15. “LANGUAGE IS A LIVING THING”
ENGLISH IS ALL AROUND US IF WE TAKE THE TIME TO LOOK

21. “But I keep making mistakes in English….”

22. English IS troublesome…
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there’s dose and rose and lose –
Just look them up – and goose and choose.
And cork and front and word and ward
And font and front and word and sword
Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive –
I’d mastered it when I was five!
From Hints on Pronunciation for Foreigners by Herbert Farjeon.

23. How many ways can we say ‘I am hungry’ in English?
I need food
I’m starving
I’m ravenous
I could eat a horse
My stomach is growling / roaring / rumbling
I’m famished
My stomach feels like my throat has been cut
I am peckish

24. WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES!!

26. An extract from Mr Stink by David Walliams Chapter 1 Scratch ‘N’ Sniff
Mr Stink stank. He also stunk. And if it is correct English to say he stinked, then he stinked as well. He was the stinkiest stinky stinker who ever lived. A stink is the worst type of smell. A stink is worse than a stench. And a stench is worse than a pong. And a pong is worse than a whiff. And a whiff can be enough to make your nose wrinkle. It wasn’t Mr Stink’s fault he stank. He was a tramp, after all. He didn’t have a home and so he never had the opportunity to have a proper wash like you and me. After a while the smell just got worse and worse.

27. Be brave in your learning and it will bring you a lot of benefits one day
I visited your school many, many times between

28. Do not miss any opportunity to develop your language skills – take part in school activities and projects because you don’t know when these opportunities will arise again. Let me finish with a true story from when I was at school…

30. “Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale” (Hans Christian Anderson)
GOOD LUCK!!!