GUY FAWKES NIGHT

By Mr Bruce Mackie

   

Guy Fawkes Night is a very English celebration. It celebrates a failed attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament (that’s where Big Ben is), in London. This was probably one of the first examples of terrorism - only it didn’t work!

It all happened on November the fifth, 1605. A group of Catholics who were unhappy with their Protestant rulers wanted to bring the government down. Their leader was a man called Robert Catesby, and his plan was called the Gunpowder Plot.  However it was Guy Fawkes who was the explosives expert, and he had been left in a cellar below the Houses of parliament to light the fuse to the barrels of gunpowder. He was only caught when a group of guards decided to check the cellars at the last moment. Guy Fawkes was arrested. He was put on a bonfire and burned to death. In Britain and some former British colonies, this day is also called Bonfire Night.

    

Bonfire Night is perhaps the biggest outdoor celebration in Britain. It is in winter and takes place at night. You have to brave the cold, but it is a happy occasion. Every town and village puts on a fireworks display. There is usually a large bonfire in the middle of the town. People gather at it to watch the fireworks and eat traditional Guy Fawkes Night food. Baked potatoes and toffee apples are the most popular treats. There is usually a ‘mock Guy’ on the bonfire to represent the real one that died 400 years ago. Many families have smaller celebrations and will have their own, private fireworks display in their garden (in England, fireworks can only be bought about a week before Guy Fawkes Day.)  There are many warnings to be careful because every year, because people are injured in fireworks accidents, and they are very frightening for animals.

    There is even a poem about Guy Fawkes Day.  Here is the first stanza:

Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!

You can find the rest on the internet if you’re interested, and there’s this, too:

Farewell from Mr Sweet

by Mr Timothy Sweet

 

As this will be my last year at Valtorta College, I would like to wish the staff and students at this tremendous school all the best for the future. I will always carry my fond memories of the kindness and hospitality I experienced here in Hong Kong with me.

One-Minute English Sum Up

 

Due to the fact that some students may have had difficulty hearing, understanding or remembering my One Minute English speeches I have summarized some of the main points below. Take some time to read them to boost your performance in English. As well as preparing for the HKDSE, these tips and explanations will help you to make sense of English poems, songs, movies, dramas, and even television advertisements.

Poetic Devices

Every HKDSE candidates should try to understand the main kinds of poetic devices. Remember, poetic devices are the tools we use to make poems and songs special. There are two main kinds:

1) Figures of speech: figures of speech are uses of words that are different to their normal meaning.   Here are a few of the most common kinds: 

a)      Metaphor: This compares two different things to say something in a beautiful or dramatic way (e.g. ‘she is an angel’ = she is very kind and helpful).

b)      Simile: This is very similar to metaphor but is less direct (e.g. ‘the student was as busy as a bee’ = the student was very busy).

c)      Personification (e.g. ‘the icy wind was biting at my skin’ = the cold wind was hurting my skin).
 

2) Sound devices: As their name shows, these are tools to make poems and songs sound catchy or beautiful. Here are a few well-known examples:

a)      Rhyme: Everyone knows what rhyme is, but can you spell it correctly in an exam? Almost every pop song uses rhyme to emphasize meaning. Poor quality pop songs and poems use it without thinking about the meaning (e.g. “I feel like a king, every time I sing”).

b)      Assonance: This is related to rhyme but we only repeat the vowels and not the final consonants (e.g. ‘she moved through the room’ note that the /d/ and the /m/ sounds at the end of the words are different, but the vowel sound / U: / is the same).

c)      Alliteration: This is about consonant sounds and many VC students found it easy to write their own examples (e.g. “3B is bright, brilliant and blessed”).

Exam Skills

Exams can be very stressful, especially if you are not well prepared. Here are some tips to help you to improve your English scores and to reduce stress:

1)   Develop a good learning attitude and take every chance to speak in class.

2)   Always ask your teacher questions if you don't understand. Remember, if you don’t understand, other students probably don’t either.

3)   Revise your notes every weekend. ‘Cramming’ (studying lots of information just before exams) doesn’t work for English the way it does for some subjects.

4)   Find a 'study buddy' and meet at lunch or after school to practice together.

5)   If you are studying with your study buddy after school and you need to find the correct pronunciation of a word, go to a website like www.howjsay.com.

6)   Keep your own vocabulary book where you write your own example sentences and definitions of new words and phrases. Top HKDSE students will build their vocabulary to about 3000 words during their time at secondary school. You can do that too if you study a few new words every day starting from S1.

 

English for Life

As well as passing exams, you will need your English for your career and when you travel abroad. Here are Mr Sweet’s ‘3 Virtues of Good English Students’ to help you develop the right attitude to become a fluent English speaker.

 

1)      Patience: being patient is important because learning a language takes a long time.  Don’t get frustrated and tell yourself you are not improving – negative messages will stunt your progress. Instead, tell yourself positive messages, like “I can do it” or “Little by little I am becoming fluent”, and encourage your friends, too.

2)      Diligence: this is just another word for being hardworking. Be strict on yourself – are you keeping up with your vocabulary so that you will know enough words and phrases by the end of Secondary 6? Rewarding yourself with fun activities like playing an English computer game, watching an English movie, or singing an English song can help you keep going when your hard work starts to get boring. Don’t give up!

3)      Courage: one of the most important ‘virtues’ of good English learners is that they aren’t too scared of making mistakes. In fact, the best way to learn new things is by making mistakes. Don’t be scared!

Good luck everyone.

Mr. Sweet.

A Reflective Journal on Not Waving but Drowning

by Miss S. Wong

      A reflective journal is a record of personal feelings, thoughts, experiences and insights of a student during the learning process of something. In poetry study, a reflective journal is often called an extended response. Learning  to write personal responses to poems is very useful to the secondary students, especially those who take Poems & Songs for an elective in their NSS (New Senior Secondary) studies. In the following is a reflective journal entry I wrote a couple of years back when I took a Language Arts Course in the HKIEd. 

 

Not Waving but Drowning by Stevie Smith Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning: I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning. Poor chap, he always loved larking And now he's dead It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way, They said. Oh, no no no, it was too cold always (Still the dead one lay moaning) I was much too far out all my life And not waving but drowning.

       In Stevie Smith’s Not Waving but Drowning, the poet tells the story of a man who was drowning but mistaken for waving by the onlookers and at last, not getting any help and not rescued, he died.

      Beyond the surface there is another level of meaning in the poem. ‘Dead but still alive’ is a description of some people’s situations in life. When nobody hears you, you are dead to the world. There are people close around, but nobody understands your feelings or your needs and problems. That is why the dying man complains in the third stanza that the sea is always too cold - People are too cold, too distant, too detached from one another.

     The poet has effectively painted a ridiculous scene of how someone’s cry for help is mistaken for joy. True, many people would wear a mask when going about their life: at school, in the workplace or even at home. However, it is important for them to at least have someone who cares about them and knows them well enough to see when something is going wrong in their lives. This can often be the lifeline that saves one from drowning.

     In the second stanza, there is a change in point of view from the drowned man to the onlookers. They say, ‘Now he’s dead.’ Yet another message from the poem is that there is hope in desperation: maybe the man is not quite dead. He ‘still lay moaning’. He still hopes his voice can be heard and that something which is wrong in his life can be put right.

      It is better late than never to act, to show love and kindness to each other.

How to Learn English the Easy Way

by Miss S. Wong

There’s no mistake - you hear it right! It is possible to learn English with ease, that is, provided you know how. In this article, you are going to read about some ways to learn English without effort or pain.

Keep a Vocabulary Bank

People save money in the bank so that they’ll be rich one day. Similarly, if you put several new words in a ‘bank book’ every day, you’ll become rich in words and your word power will increase. When people draw money from the bank and spend it, they’ll end up with less money. The best thing about a word bank is that, the more words you use, the richer you’ll become and the more knowledge of English you’ll have. Just remember to include the word class (noun, verb, adjective etc), the meaning and an example sentence when you enter a word into your vocabulary bank book.

Connect Passion with English

Having been a teacher of English for quite a while, I’ve heard stories of successful English learning related to one’s passion from time to time. I’ve met students who told me they learnt English through playing computer games. They chose websites written in English and communicated with international players in English. Some told me they acquired English proficiency through listening to English songs or watching English films. These are all fun activities to learn a language.

Read! Read! Read!

Everybody knows the importance of reading in language learning but few students can really do it. You don’t have to read for hours to improve your English. That’ll probably tire you out and kill your interest. Read for only 15 minutes per day. Always read books that you enjoy and can read without difficulty. Carry the book with you wherever you go. Read it on the MTR or when you’re waiting for your meal. As your ability and interest build up, reading will become a part of your life like eating or brushing your teeth. I bet nobody would think taking a bath is difficult!

Pay Attention in Class     

Believe it or not: time passes much faster when you pay attention in class. That means you’ll listen to the teacher’s instructions carefully and be on task all the time. As a result, you’ll be able to finish your class-work and probably part of your homework in class. With a good understanding of what you’ve learnt at school, assignments become easy and tests and dictation takes shorter time to prepare. Guess what, you'll have more spare time to enjoy your hobbies!

The above ways of learning English are all simple and easy. But they work and hence are worth taking. If you’ve read up to this point, that proves you do care about your English. Now is the best time to start learning English the easy way. Which of the four methods would you like to begin with?