1. The spirit of "Golden Maple English Class"

Not afraid of ridicule, not afraid of hardship;

Live and learn;

Learn to have fun, learn to be useful;

Learn the gorgeous life in old age

2. Lead teacher of English class; Huang Huiping, Helena, 2021.09.04

I majored in chemistry, and I studied Russian in middle school and university. I have no chance to learn English in school, and I have never taught English.

Before going abroad, I started by self-study "Follow me" and "900 sentences in English". I studied English full-time for 1 year, passed the EPT exam, and had the honor to go abroad. After going abroad, I couldn't help being at a loss. The words memorized for the exam hardly had much to do with real life. How long can I stay in England, dumb, blind, and deaf? Life forced me to take the road of self-study English. My dream of learning has finally come true!

When I faced my eldest sister and brother who was nearly eight years old, I was at a loss when I saw their hopeful and sincere eyes, as well as their suspicious eyes. How long can you last in this English class?

Now that it has started, let's fight back. I teach while learning, and edit textbooks based on the basics suitable for the elderly of Chinese people. These elders don't care about my English background and never leave me. The team of the English class is gradually growing.

Now, I am pleased to see that the students actively submit voice assignments and sign up for dialogue exercises. When they heard their fluent English reading and emotional dialogue, joy came to my heart. This is the best gift they gave me!

3. English song teacher: Ma Zhihua

I learned Russian for less than two years in junior high school, and didn't start contacting English until I entered university. At that time, I was very motivated. My English in four years of university started with 26 letters and reached the level required for engineering graduates. Later, I stayed in school and transferred to a foreign trade company, and I never gave up my English study. During the ten years of working in a foreign trade company, in order not to waste my professional knowledge, I took a part-time job in English translation, translating scientific and technological materials for a large-scale foreign project for a technology company. In the past, foreign language teaching in domestic schools placed too much emphasis on grammar, while not paying much attention to speaking and listening. I am a product under this teaching model. Although I have a lot of vocabulary and can understand general literature, it is difficult to communicate with foreigners.

I have been reunited and immigrated for 8 years, and I am still learning English, trying to make up for my shortcomings in what I heard. This year, I was fortunate to be invited to teach English songs in Jinfeng English class. Seeing the students' eager thirst for knowledge and the continuous progress made, I also gained confidence. I hope we all work together to live and learn, grow knowledge, and reap happiness!

4. Introduction to "Golden Maple English Class"

When the Golden Maple English class officially started in September 2019, this was a blank sheet of paper. The students were almost blind in English, and the teacher was also blind in English teaching; it was a white cloud that did not know where it would drift. I hope it can rain, nourish and protect this barren land, instead of floating away gently.

Now students can go from being unable to send out a phonetic transcription to being able to read short passages aloud; from never speaking to being willing to speak in conversation, and even speaking in English at parties. The students began to embark on an uneasy long journey of learning English. The number of students along the way has increased significantly, with some from Toronto extending to Whitby.

Singing English songs under the leadership of teacher Ma Zhihua this year is the icing on the cake. Increased the interest in learning English, and also appreciate the appeal of Western culture from the singing. This year, the elders who were illiterate in English sang the Canadian national anthem in English on the National Day of Canada. In addition, I also learned to sing "Red River Valley", "Edelweiss" and "Moon River", and the newly learned "When We Are Young" has kicked off. Now students don’t feel unattainable in singing English songs, the more they sing, the more they love to sing! The students have fallen in love with singing English songs.

Now, this white paper is painted with colorful orchids; this white cloud is still floating in the sky, shading and raining for us, and it protects us and keeps studying with peace of mind. The trainees gradually learn to continue to embark on an uneasy marathon avenue of learning English with a relaxed, happy and confident pace! This is how a team of elderly people with silver hair and elegant English learning English has grown up!

-Huang Huiping, Helena, September 4, 2021

5. Jinfeng English learning preliminary plan

     1. Teaching purpose: To adapt to the local living environment, communicate in English

     2. Textbook features: PPT file is accompanied by a voice every night while listening and reading the textbook

     3. Textbook content: basic knowledge, short essay reading aloud and situational dialogue, carried out simultaneously, from the shallower to the deeper

     4. Extracurricular tutoring materials: sent on weekends, freely choose learning according to your own ability

     5. An organic combination of teaching and learning

         a. On the basis of no one's learning ability, guide the gradual progress, enhance learning interest and one of the motivations of learning

         b. It is recommended to practice more and more repeatedly, give full play to logical thinking, and make up for the shortcomings of poor memory

         c. Encourage to think more and ask more questions. Promote brain activity, explore learning skills and efficiency

6. Course notice (sample)

Speaking topic this Friday:

     1. Spoken language: lyrics (6-10 sentences), (#SE33)

     2. Small movie: Don't let me down!

     3. Teacher Ma Zhinian teaches singing: "When We Are Young" (#ET33B), Note: Please review the lyrics by yourself!

Please enter 5 minutes early. Time: September 5, 2021, Friday 3:00-4:00 (English reading), 4:00-4:45 Learn to sing "When We Are Young"

Zoom location; conference ID: 396 396 3699; password: 396396

7. Video: English performance, practice

8. Voice of the trainees

     a. Ouyang Weijiang "I want to live as a tree", 2021-9-3

This may be the ideal life! It is a dream, the other side that is difficult to reach. But I have to work hard to pursue it!

Take learning English as an example. The difficulty is like a big mountain in front of the door, blocking the way. The difficulty of our elderly learning English is that we have a bad memory, a lot of housework, and it is difficult to stick to it. I often encourage myself in a foolish spirit. What's more, we now have such a good teacher teaching us. Our teacher Huang is older than me. She compiles teaching materials for us to learn English faster and better. Five files, such a large workload, this is completely voluntary! What a respectable and lovely teacher! The most common family tutoring class in our country is 500 yuan, and some are as high as 800-1000 yuan per class! We study for free. If we have difficulty in learning, wouldn't the teacher lead us to learn her without difficulty? She also needs to overcome many difficulties! Don't forget that an old man who is nearly 80 years old is leading us to climb this language mountain! Whenever I think of this, I tell myself that there is no reason to shrink, no matter what I learn, I always grow day by day! If we learn one word every day, or even a few days, it will increase a little bit.

As for why study English? My experience is to enrich my spiritual life, exercise my brain's thinking and memory, prevent Alzheimer's, and make friends, reduce dependence on children, and gradually adapt to the living environment here. Our current situation is: in a foreign country, we have a mouth and can’t speak; we have eyes that can’t read; we have ears that can’t understand, and we can’t walk out with legs; just like a deaf, blind, dumb, and disabled person who can’t walk...this It is my ability to learn English, and I hope this situation will change.

I want to live as a tree and stand for eternity! There is no sad posture, half peaceful in the dust, half flying in the air! Don't rely on, don't look for.

     b. Liu Fengyun "Planning for Old Age", 2021-9-3

Enjoying old age is not the only purpose. How to plan the rest of your life and make it colorful is the perfect life.

English learning experience-why I learn English

  1. Integration into society

Canada is a country of immigrants, where diverse cultures coexist. However, English is the mainstream language. If I can learn a little English everyday language, I can not only reduce the burden on my children, but also add the color of my own life, and take the initiative to participate in public welfare activities. This is a good thing that kills two birds with one stone.

2 The elderly can also have dreams

Due to the requirements of the times, my foreign language is Russian. The trend of the times has pushed me to have the opportunity to touch Western culture, take a gamble for my dreams, learn English from scratch, and enrich my life.

3. Prevent Alzheimer's

As the saying goes: People learn to grow old when they are old. I understand the deep meaning of this saying is diligence and anti-aging. Learning English is just an arrow to prevent premature degeneration of brain cells. It is my pursuit to retire without taking a break, learning while taking a break, and having fun while studying.

4. How to learn English

a. Since I participated in the Golden Maple English class, I have deeply realized that it is particularly important to participate in a class with good teachers. The student of the Golden Maple English class, Teacher Huang, is full of praise for his teaching. The strength of the elderly in learning English is high self-consciousness and strong understanding ability. The weakness of the elderly in learning English is memory loss, which is generally troubled by "not remembering". "Forgetting fast" is a hindrance to learning. Teacher Huang adopts the principle of small but precise in teaching, with clear themes, repeated repetitions and repeated cycles, and the content is pasted into life and is practical. For example, talk about the weather, see a doctor, and other topics. Through repeated talks, using different characters, times, and places as backgrounds, and changing sentence patterns to express themes, they are tireless and instructive to the elderly.

b.  Adopt multiple teaching methods of "seeing", "listening" and "singing" to improve the pleasure of learning English for the elderly

In teaching, Ms. Huang adopts diversified teaching methods with the aim of improving the "speaking" and "listening" abilities of the elderly. "Sight" means watching a short movie in a weekly English course, and understanding a classic daily life through the short storyline in the video to achieve intuitive results.

"Listening" means reading more and listening more, and a voice practice class is arranged once a week. Teacher Huang read through, intensive reading as a demonstration. The students practiced reading and listening. Finally, they sent the recordings to the teacher. The teacher listened carefully to everyone’s recordings and corrected the mistakes word by word. Through this training, the English class Of students’ reading ability has improved significantly.

"Singing" means singing English songs, such as singing "Canada's National Anthem", "Red River Valley", ,, through singing to achieve the purpose of familiarizing the lyrics and mastering the reading skills.

Teacher Huang always emphasized that English is a life tool, and the significance of learning is to communicate with others. The memory of the elderly declines. They do not force rote to learn, but they have to practice speaking. Under the guidance of this philosophy, we walked out of learning misunderstandings and embarked on the journey of speaking English every day. One topic a week, boldly speak through dialogue, and achieve good results.

5. Learning phonetic transcription is very practical for the elderly to learn English

As far as I know, most English classes do not speak phonetic symbols, and it is very distressing for the elderly to forget them in class. For this reason, Jinfeng English class attaches great importance to phonetic transcription, and every new word teacher adds phonetic transcription to lay the foundation for correct pronunciation.

Pay attention to practicality in life,

I live in an apartment for the elderly, and I can find opportunities to greet foreigners every day and apply what I have learned. In order to consolidate the words learned, I write the date (month, day, year, day of the week) and weather in English in the diary. Through repeated use of exercises, you can deepen your memory.

In more than one year of English learning, I realized the importance of teamwork spirit. Everyone encouraged each other, respected each other, and improved together. Along the way, Mr. Huang has never given up on our learning, and he has made persistent efforts, which has also given us great motivation to learn. Here, thank you, Teacher Huang, for your hard work, please pay attention to your health.

c. Ye Jingping, "A Energetic English Class for the Elderly", 2021-09-04

Thank you Jinfeng Chinese Senior Citizens Association for setting up an English study class for the elderly. Thank you even more for the reward to us, a respectable and lovely teacher Huang. Immerse us in an energetic English study class. Although our English proficiency is very low, even the International Phonetic Alphabet cannot be pronounced correctly, and we come from all over the world, so the pronunciation and intonation will have local accents when reading aloud. But we are honored to have a good teacher who teaches and works diligently, she will take the trouble to correct it word by word so that we can master the correct and fine pronunciation skills.

We are all 60-80 year old urchins. We are old and not old, we have a tenacious spirit to learn, and we are not afraid of difficulties and read aloud over and over again. The teacher is also very strict with us and asks us to speak out our feelings in an eloquent manner. Therefore, everyone has to preview before each class and read at least 10 times with the recording. Otherwise, how to hand in homework in class?

We are not afraid of failure or hardship, and we can all overcome our own difficulties. Some people have to take care of housework at home and take care of their children. Some people have to do a lot of work outside, and it is really stressful to insist on taking time out to learn English. But none of us want to retreat. With tenacious perseverance, no matter how busy or tired we are, we cannot relax our English study. Because the teacher's professionalism and hard work are our best example. We can only move upwards, not backwards. There is an old brother who has never been in contact with English in the past. He is now in his 60s and started to learn English. At the beginning, he couldn't open his mouth, and he didn't know where to put his tongue! ! But he had perseverance and practiced in a house alone. God has lived up to the painstaking efforts. After 4 months of training, the pronunciation and intonation have improved rapidly.

Why do we work so hard? Because we have tenacious perseverance and confidence. If we have confidence, we will be motivated. The teacher patiently teaches to be a good example. What reason for us as students to shrink back. After a year and a half of persistent learning, we are confident and determined. First, we must grasp this rare opportunity, follow up with good teachers, and make up for our shortcomings. We live in a country where English is our mother tongue. How can we stammer even in the simple language of life, how can we live in harmony in the environment of foreigners? Let our children and grandchildren also see, we old ladies and husbands are no better than you young people! We have old enthusiasm. This is our motivation, confidence, perseverance, direction, and the tenacious spirit of being a pine tree.

Our teacher is also our good teacher and helpful friend. She invited Teacher Ma Zhihua to teach us to sing English songs. This is not a children's song but a famous English song of the world. We can’t believe that we can sing out of tune even when we sing Chinese songs. Now we have started to sing English songs. After months of training, we practiced singing one after another. Now many students can sing well-known songs in the world 𣈱 NS.

Let us once again thank the Jinfeng Chinese Senior Citizens Association and Teacher Huang for letting us live younger and younger, make persistent efforts, live as old as we are, and live a wonderful life in the evening.