记者：苗泰

3月23日，持续了一天的大雨也无法浇熄外教和同学们参加英语角的热情，共有四位外教参加了今晚的英语角，他们分别是：Ms. Rebecca Reel, Mr.Byron Boaz Sherman, Mr. Robert K Mateja和Dr. Troy Maurice Smith。

来自南非的Byron向同学们展示了他流利的中文。同学们都很好奇他如何能说这样一口流利中文，他回答到他的中文是自己努力自学的。此外，他还勉励大家学习一门新的语言时只要有热情和动力就可以取得优秀的成绩。之后他跟同学们聊到了口音的问题，他认为不同口音之间没有优劣之分，只有差异之别。英语是一门全球性语言，我们需要尊重来自不同地区的不同口音。最后他还向同学们展示了南非的英语口音。

Troy是一名具有斯拉夫血统的美利坚人。一位同学根据他在一些电影中对俄裔美国人得到的印象，问Troy俄裔美国人说英语的时候是否都有浓重的口音。他说这个问题因人而异，比如他自己就没有浓重的口音。他还跟一名来自哈尔滨的同学交流了各自对俄罗斯文化的看法并且和同学们分享了他曾经在利比亚与沙特阿拉伯教书的经历。

白驹过隙，今夜师生相聚而坐，席地而谈，共度了美好的时光。所有人都期待着下一周英语角再会!

English Corner：The Differences of Accents

By Miao Tai

The heavy rain continued all day on March 23rd, but foreign teachers and students still came to the English corner tonight because of their enthusiasm. Ms. Rebecca Reel, Mr. Byron Boaz Sherman, Mr. Robert K Mateja and Dr. Troy Maurice Smith attended today’s English Corner.

Byron, who came from South Africa, showed his fluent Chinese to students. All the students were curious about how he could speak such excellent Chinese. Byron said he learned Chinese by himself and told students as long as they had passion and motivation , they could do well in learning a new language. Then he shared his opinion on accents with students. Byron said there was no good accent or bad accent,there were only different accents. What’s more, English was a global language and we needed to respect different accents from different areas. Moreover, he showed South Africa''''s English accent to students.

Troy was a Russian-American. A student said he was impressed by Russian Americans in some movies, so he asked Troy whether Russian Americans had a strong accent when they spoke English. Tory said he didn''''t have such a strong accent but he thought the accents varied from person to person. Troy also exchanged ideas about Russian culture with a student who came from Harbin and shared his past experiences as a teacher in Libya and Saudi Arabia.

Time passed very quickly,. Teachers and students had a wonderful time to get together this evening. Everybody would look forward to next week’s English corner!