I understand little

Thanks, teacher Richard, for helping us to review the present perfect tense.

Now, I understand a little more about it. The present perfect tense has seven usages:

#1. Recent past action that is important now
#2. past experience indefinite past time
#3. Past experience that continues now
#4. With yet
#5. With a superlative
#6. With “the first”, “the third”
#7. repetition of on action

We have already reviewed usage number one. The key words are just and already.

Usage number two key wards are ever, never, and many times.

Usage number three key wards are for and since.

My Last Vacation

I took my last vacation to China in September, 2006. I went to China earlier than I had planned, because my mom passed away. I arrived in China 40 days after my mom died.

My whole family came together in remembrance of her. I felt very sad that week.

One week later, I left Jilin, my mom’s hometown, and traveled to my home in Chang Chun. I made a round trip between both cities a total of three times in that month. I was very busy on my last vacation, and also I did a lot of things.

I bought a new house in China. I met my good friends at one of my friend’s home. We remembered a lot of interesting stories from when we were young. One of my friend’s husband asked me a lot of questions.

“How do you make a living in America?”

“Is there really freedom in the United States?”

“Is it safe to live in America?”

“How do you study English?”

“Why did the United States send its army to Iraq?

My friend’s husband is a sport teacher in college. Their daughter is a teacher, too. She is teaching English in a different college. That day all of my friends made me very happy.

So, I felt different on my last vacation.

The Foolish Man

There once was a foolish man. His name was Ahmed.

Ahmed worked in a store. Ahmed wasn't a smart man, he was also a coward.

One day he went out and he saw a fat man carrying a guitar.

Ahmed wasn't too smart so he thought the guitar was a big knife.

He said to himself, ''This man lives in town and I am working in the store maybe someday in the future he is going to go to the store and kill me. I have to do something to protect myself.''

He went back to the store and took all the money and he also took a knife to protect himself. He wrote a letter to the owner of the store.

He wrote, ''I am going to go home. Don't follow me. If you follow me I will kill you.''

When he arrived home, he said to his wife, ''Today, somebody tried to kill me. Maybe that person is going to follow me here. You have to listen to me carefully. I am going to hide under the bed. If anybody comes to house, and asks you where your husband is, tell them that I am dead.”

“If he asks you when I died, tell him that I died yesterday. I am going to listen to you so don't make any mistakes!''

His wife said, “OK.”

After a while, two men knocked on Ahmed's door. His wife opened the door.

The men asked, “Where is your husband?”

She answered, “He is dead.”

The men asked, “When did he die?”

She said, “The day before yesterday.''

When Ahmed heard her say “The day before yesterday” he yelled and said ''No! No! Say yesterday Say yesterday''

Then the men heard him and came into the room but Ahmed killed his self with the knife before the men could reach him.

Before he died, he said, ''A coward dies twice.''

By:Sadia Nur.

Grammar Suggestion

The Grammar book almost finished. last week a teacher Richard Blum requested students to write on the blog Their suggestion.

So I am goingto write here my suggestion

My idea is why we don't review present prefect.
That tense is difficult for me. I can understand when the people using but I can't use when I am speaking.

Iwould like to review that tense.If some my classments and my teacher agree with me that idea.


By:Sadia Nur






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New Experiment

Click here to try this new experiment.

I am trying to find a way to add more multimedia to our blog.

Hi, Classmates

My name is Taame. I am going to write a story on the blog today.

Look for it!

A Funny Story

A Funny Story

Hi, teacher, today I have a funny story I want to tell everyone.

This morning, my friend and I went to San Francisco, Chinatown by BART. When we were on the BART, my friend saw a woman reading a story in a magazine. She was reading a Chinese magazine. My friend was very surprised because she was a black woman.

My friend asked her, "Excuse me ! Are you Chinese?"

She said "No, I'm not. I'm Vietnamese."

My friend was very very surprised and said, "But I saw you reading a Chinese magazine and you are a black woman."

She smiled and said, "I was born in Vietnam but my Dad was a black man. He was American and my mom was Chinese. We lived in Vietnam that is why I'm Vietnamese.

She is a black woman but she knows a lot of Chinese words. She said she understood everything in the magazine.

The Dress Of Lace

A few weeks ago. I called my friend and she told me this story. She is from Kenya, Africa.

She told me about her first day in school when she came U.S.A.

She said:

I was fifteen years old when I came to the U.S.A. but the schools were closed for the summer vacation.

A few weeks before school started, my aunt, my uncle, and some of my dad's friends came to visit us, and they brought a lot of presents. I was surprised when I found clothing in one of boxes.

The clothes were nice but ordinary. They weren't special or fancy except for one dress. It was a dress of lace. There was lace surrounding the neck and the sleeves and lace on the bottom. I was very happy when I saw this dress.

On the first day of school I wanted to look my best and impress the other students. I wanted them to make friends with me, so I put on my fancy dress of lace.

When I got to school, all the students stared at me. They were laughing and saying something in English. I didn't know why they were doing this. I thought that maybe they had never seen an African girl in a dress before or that they wanted to make friends with me but were too embarrassed to come over.

In the classroom, an American teacher spoke to me in English and pointed at my dress, but I didn't know what she was saying so I just smiled. The whole morning she didn't let me walk around or stand up. I had to sit all the way in the last row in the back of the room. During lunch, when all the others students had gone, a teacher from Kenya came into the room. The minute she saw me she spoke in my language. She told me that I shouldn't wear a nightgown to school, that American only wear nightgowns to sleep in!

I was so embarrassed that I almost burst into tears. That morning, when I left home, I thought I looked good but I didn't. Instead, I embarrassed myself on my first day of school. I felt like not going to school anymore.

This embarrassment taught me not to try to impress others or I might end up making a fool out of myself. I also learned the difference between a fancy dress and a nightgown!

Immigration Questions

I will try to write some questions here about immigration. I hope you can understand my questions.

1.What are our immigrant rights?

2. Sometimes I hear people say ICE, but I don't know what that means.
So what does ICE means?

3. What do the letters ICE stand for?

4. If I am walking on the street and the Immigration Police stop me, and ask me some question, do I have to answer their questions or not?

5. If the immigration police come to my home, and knock on my door should I open the door?

6. If the Immigration police arrest me, and request me to sign some paper, what should I do?

7. What does the Immigration Service do?

Thank you teacher for this chance to ask these important questions.

Review Grammar

We almost have finished all the grammar units, and the teacher asked all the students to suggest what we would like to review in grammar.

In my opinion, why don't we concentrate on adjectives and adverbs?

I know that an adjective describes a noun, but sometimes I get confused about adverbs.

About Review

The spring term is almost done. We only have three more weeks to study English in this term.

Teacher Richard asked the whole class, “What grammar do you want to review?”

Some students wanted to review the past tense. Somebody wanted to review the irregular past tense verbs.

I want to review the present perfect tense because I know what that tense means. I understand it when I read it or hear it used, but I can’t use it correctly when I write or speak.

So, I hope we can review the present perfect tense.

Thank you!

My First Dream Came True

When I was in my country. My dream was to come U.S.A
Everynight I was dreaming my Father and my brothers and America.


When I was in my Country I heard people sayin A merica there are not poor people or homeles everybody is rich.

so I had wrong Idea to America when somebody said to me America isnot what you think.
I always got ungry and said to person don't tell me anything I will see there one day in the future. Although there were some of my family Idid'nt believe them when they said to me there are many Homeless, and poor people Ididn't beliene them.

But I was sure my dream will come true.
Idon't know why I was sure, but my heart and my mind was telling me that.
When I got visa I got stomachache Ididn't believe.

When they said to me you are goint to go tomorrow I didn't believe until I got in the airplane.
when I got in the airplane I began to worry, and said to my self ''Sadia maybe you are gionto die in the airplane maybe you arenot gionto see America and your family.

But I came When I came Idon't believe my eyes!

I saw many cars on the highway and the road. on the otherside, the street were dirty.
some buildings were broken. some people were drunk they made noise in the street.
A couple of homeless men were lying on the Street.
that was what my eyes don't believe.


The things my eyes believe were
the supermarket were bright and clean. the fruit, vegetable, and meals were fresh you can buy anything you want.

anyway I like this country But I don't know why That was my first dream.
Know I will find out the scond dream


By; Sadia Nur

Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat is one of the most famous world heritage sites. It's a temple that is located in Cambodia, and was built in 12th century.

My wife and I traveled to Cambodia by airplane from Thailand. We were backpacking for a month. When we got to the airport in Phnom Phen we didn't have the local currency so we had to change our money to Cambodian dollars. We didn't know the currency rate when we changed 300 US dollars. Guess how much local money we got? About 1 million dollars. It could not fit in our wallet. We were shocked to be millionaires!

On the first day in Siem Riep, we took a tuk tuk tour around Angkor Wat. We saw the amazing architecture in the jungle. It's incredible!

We decided to ride bikes on the next day to look at the intricate carvings.

Posted by Long Sheng at 9:27 PM

Hi, Classmates

This is my first post.

I will be posting a story soon.

A Warning

A Warning
by Yan Hua Yang

We learned about many kinds of crimes in the last three weeks. Some crimes were carefully planned, but sometimes people didn’t know that they were disobeying the law until a policeman gave them a warning, Once, I broke the law, but it wasn’t intentional.

Four years ago, the Beijing WuShu team came to Berkeley to perform at about 10:00 at night. After watching the performance, I drove our car to go home with my husband.

I had been driving for about five minutes when I saw a police car following us. I didn’t want the police car to follow me, so I drove slowly and turned down a side street. But the police car still followed my car. I stopped my car. The policeman came to my car, and he said “Do you have car lights?”

At that time, my English was very bad. I didn’t understand what he was saying. I thought he wanted to see my driver’s license. I gave my driver’s license to him, then I got a ticket. He told me that I had to go to court the next day in the morning. I didn’t go the next day. I was very lucky; the police man dropped my case.

I remembered this well and never broke the law again.

The Difference of Culture

Al is one of my neighbors. He is an American. He is a kind person. He has a black dog named Shirley.

Sometimes I meet Al with his dog when I come back home. Recently I noticed that his dog was getting fatter day by day.

One day, when my elder son and I were picking up the groceries from the trunk of my car. Al walked past my house with his dog Shirley. Of course, we had a chat. I remember that we needed to change talking topics after I said, “Al, your dog is too fat.”

I just had hoped he would put his dog on a diet. Al misunderstood me. He frowned and he looked unhappy. And it made me feel embarrassed.
I didn’t understand why Al was unhappy. In Kwangtong, China, there is a saying “The master who owns a thin dog should feel shame.”

Later, I understand the word “Fat” has a bad connotation.

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summers Day

Shall I compare thee to a summers day
Sonnet 18
William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Hawaii

I left for our vacation in Hawaii on Wednesday. My son treated our whole family because it was my daughter's birthday.

We had to change flights. First we went to Honolulu then we switched flights and ended up in Kona. It was beautiful. The weather was a steady 84 degrees the whole trip. We could wear a t-shirt and shorts and be comfortable even at night. We stayed at the Fairmont Orchid; a four star hotel. The beach was a 2 minute walk from my hotel room.

My son taught me how to swim and we went snorkeling. We attended luaus at night and had buffet breakfast and lunches every day. One night we went out for dinner and got lost. Hawaii has no street lights or signs. We drove around for 1 hour when the restaurant was only 13 miles from our hotel. It was so scary. I thought we would never get back. Hawaii was my favorite vacation, I was sad when we left. I want to go back next year.

A Big Protest

Yesterday, May First, there was a big march. It went down International Boulevard. The purpose of this demostration was to support all the illegal immigrants who live in this country (U.S.A.)

When the morning class was over, some of the students went outside the school to wait for the protest. Just a few minutes later, the big demonstration passed by the school.

Veronica and I decided to join them. We said, "Just for a few blocks." We kept going until we were in front of the City Hall, where the demonstration finished.

I have never been in a protest before. I think it is very important to do it when we want something to change, like this big march. If all the illegal immigrants really want to have the oportunity to work and be treated fairly in this country, they should have joined this protest.