自年頭開始試用新浪博，一直也是把文章在新、舊博兩邊貼（慶幸所寫的文章不多）。但在最近這一個月，一直沿用的這博每天也受到垃圾郵件轟炸，每日只是清理這些垃圾也令我感到煩厭，所以立下決心從今天開始轉用新浪。

請各位以後到此網址：http://louisakkw.mysinablog.com

看來這個暑假又多了一項要處理的項目 — 把這博的文章搬到新浪去！

今天完成了每年一度的退修營，有很大的得著，但營地卻帶給我極大的困擾！

認識我的人會知道我很怕去宿營。最怕是要和很多人一起排隊等廁所、等洗澡。

青少年時代還好，因為大家在晚上根本不會睡覺，不是聊天，便是「玩通宵」。在任何時段洗澡也沒問題。可是現在去的宿營已與學生時代去的有很大分別。現在整天不是聽講座，便是工作坊。由早上9時開始至晚上10時結束。年紀大了，參加了一整天的活動後，精力本已用得八八九九，最想做的事便是盡快洗澡、睡覺。但這次的營地是某神學院宿舍，14間房的同工（每房住2人）共用6個浴室、3個廁格，只有一個浴室有熱水供應。不想等，選擇了「淋凍水」浴。結果，現在傷風了！

一到新學年，我最抗拒的是退修營，原因頗「無聊」，但這就是我！

忽然想起某教育工作者曾說現今青少年吃不得苦，我卻說他們不知多能吃苦！連續玩兩、三晚通宵也可以面不改容；兩、三天不洗澡也能忍耐；24小時坐在電腦前「打機」也不會頭痛，兼且練得一手好「屁股」功。所以我說現今青少年絕對吃得苦，只是在「為甚麼事情而吃」出了分歧而已！

Band Fair 2006 starts today.  If you have time and enjoy band music, you can check with this website and attend the concerts.  The Festival Concerts and Out Door Concerts are free of charge. 

My band (NPAC Windband + Psalmwind) will perform tonight and tomorrow night.  Tonight we will perform at APA (7:30pm) and tomorrow on Avenue of Stars (6:00pm).

Forgot to inform all of you that I bought the new intel duo iMac in April.  Today, I tried out one of its programme - "Photo Booth".  The photos are really hilarious.

Enjoy yourself.

Quite stupid, right?  I love the middle one most.  And I forced my husband to take some too.  Here they are.

The last photo of his really resembles the filthy grandfather in "Rama 1/2". 

The long awaited holiday has finally arrived.  I have two and a half week to relax.  Then I have to resume my duty on 4 August.  What am I going to do in the holiday?

At the beginning, travelling ‘was’ a definite option.  We couldn’t afford any long trip at this moment (because we have to save up for our trip to Japan in the coming Easter holiday), places like Bangkok, Singapore and Macau became our target.    However, because of the heat and humidity, we gave up the plan.

No travelling, the only option left is indulging myself in something I yearn for doing but so far I have no time to do.  What is it?  Playing PSP.

I spent 2 days finishing the above game.  It is a great game.  I love RPG and this one is far better than UL1.  The next game I am going to conquer will be "Monster Hunter Freedom".

Since we gave up our plan to travel, we invested our money in another great stress relieving gadget - XBox 360.

Of course, I will not be glued to the screen.  I will also mark my students summer holiday assignments, play flute and revise Japanese.  What a ‘meaningful’ summer holiday!
   

　私は、日本の漫画とアニメが大好きだ。小学生時代から、いつも漫画屋で、漫画を借りていた。でも、新しい漫画は、中国語に訳すのに時間がかかるから、だいだい、２、３か月待っていた。あのとき、日本語の漫画を読むために、日本語を勉強しようと思っていた。 　勉強法について、私は、日本語のドラマやアニメなどを見たり、日本語の歌を聞いたりして、聞き取りを練習する。話すことの練習は、シャワーを浴びながら、自分で会話を練習する。時々、インターネットで、日本語のニュースを見る。単語帳を作る、時間があるとき、復習をする。私の苦手なことは、聞き取りだ。ゆっくり話してもらったり、何回も聞いたりして、やっと分かる。　そうでないと全然分からない。 　来年の目標は、日本語能力試験２級に合格することだ。

Last week, I found some very interesting drawings when I went to Cityplaza.  They were portraits of fathers and mothers, drawn by Japanese children.  Some of these drawings are very interesting.  Click the play button below and enjoy some pictures I took on that day.

If you find the drawings lovely, you can try another version of the quick time movie. This version is a lot bigger (a bit over 10MB) but the pictures are clearer. Definitely worth loading. Click here for a better look. 

Attached Media: video/quicktime (1 431 ko) video/quicktime (1 531 ko)

My colleague has introduced an artist to me and I found his pictures very fascinating. His name is Julian Beever. He is a British artist who is very famous for pavement drawings. His expertise is to create the illusion of three dimensions in his pavement drawings.

Here are two of his masterpieces.

You can find more of his fantastic works in the following websites:

http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/index.html

http://www.rense.com/general67/street.htm

Blogging is like a hobby. Once you are addicted to it, you want to do it every day. However, if you do not touch it for a while, you may lose interest in it.

My problem is too much workload and too many deadlines to meet. Finally, when I have time, I prefer relaxing my mind through watching TV, reading books and sleeping. Perhaps I am so used to not writing blogs, so used to not using my mind, I could tolerate not posting any new entry for 3 whole months!

I don’t want to let this habit die. Luckily, school term is going to end. Summer is coming. My blog can continue.

多謝網友 Alan 及 T 嘗試為例題改錯及作出解釋。根據考評局的 marking scheme，老師所得的等級並不是像改默書那樣答錯扣分，看看最後，你還餘下多少分數，便按分數給等級。閱卷員主要是按印象評分，考生若能把所有錯處也解釋得清清楚楚、詳詳細細，兼且會用正確及大量的文法詞彙來解釋錯處，這考生便可拿五級之成績。

 現先給各位看看那四句例子的正確寫法及解釋。（所有改正答案及解釋均轉載自考評局出版的評核綱要）

例子一：

Wrong:    When I change a new school in this year

Right:      When I changed schools in this year

解釋：

There are two major problems with this item.  The first is that the verb "change" should be in the past form as it refers to past time.  The student might have meant to use the past tense but forgot to add the "d" to "change".  As the school switch involves more than one school, "school" should become "schools" to show that it is plural in number.  The second problem is with the use of the preposition "in".  It is used when a definite time is referred to e.g. "in January this year" or "in 1999" but not when a general reference is being made.  So, in this case, the word "in" should be omitted.

例子二：

Wrong:    I don’t know their play with me or not

Right:      I didn’t know if/whether they would (like to) play with me or not

解釋：

First of all, the verb "know" should be in the past tense.  the writer here referred to a remote, past event and at the point of writing the writer knows already whether the students and teachers in that school are friendly or not.  Hence, it should have been "I didn’t know".  The second problem with this expression is the use of the pronoun "their"; it should have been "they".  The word "play" is the verb, and "they" is the subject of this verb.  The third problem is related to grammatical rules governing "reported questions" or the use of "indirect questions".  "I don’t know they play with me or not" should be "I didn’t know if/whether they would play with me or not".  A modal verb "would" should be added before "play" to indicate a sense or "willingness".

例子三： 

Wrong:    she must teach me

Right:      she will help me/she gives me extra help

解釋：

The wrong use of the modal verb "must".  Words like "will", "wants to", "always" should have been used to indicate that this occurs regularly when the teacher reacts to students’ problems.  The other less obvious but common error here is the wrong use of the word "teach", an error possibly originating from the student’s first language.  In English, "teach" is often used to refer to an instructional activity at a more formal or global level, as in "Miss Chan teaches me English." or "I am not teaching this Monday".  It does not usually refer to specific acts of instruction.  In the present context, words like "help" or "extra instruction" should be used.

例子四：

Wrong:    He like our friend more than a teacher, because she very friendly and unlike other teacher always punish the student, when we do some wrong thing

Right:     She is more like a friend than a teacher because she is very friendly, and unlike other teachers who always punish (the) students when we do wrong thing/wrong things/something wrong

解釋：

The first problem here is the pronoun "he"; it should be "she".  The confusion of "he" and "she" is a common error among many local learners of English.  The second problem is the use of "like".  The word "like" as a verb and the word "like" as a preposition look the same, but have different meanings and follow different grammatical rules.  Here "like" as a preposition should be used.  Another error is the use of "friendly".  Like "like", the word "friendly" should be used together with a linking verb such as "is".  The third problem is number agreement such as in "other  teacher" and "the student".  "Other teacher" should be "other teachers: and "student" should be either "we" or "students".  Also, "some wrong thing" should be "wrong things" or "something wrong".  The last problem in this item is that the writer failed to use a relative clause to modify "the other teachers".  This can be achieved by adding the word "who" after "the other teachers".

怎樣？二個小時的考試， 一小時考作文，一小時考改錯及解釋。正式考試用的文章，考生須為十至十二句句子作出修改及解釋，時間真的很緊湊！語文基準試其實並不難，若閣下曾在 AS Level UE 中取得 C 級或以上的成績，加上平時喜愛閱讀英文書籍、雜誌等；又愛看西片、Mr Monk 等劇集，你絕對能在 Listening，Reading 及 Speaking 這三份卷中取得好成績！Classroom Language 這卷對於現職教師們實在是 "a piece of cake"。餘下的 Writing 才是—項挑戰。

考基準試時，我沒怎樣備戰；只看了評核綱要及到考評局買了一年 past paper來做。慶幸是，在大學時，我有修讀 Linguistics, English grammar 及 Syntax 等課程；所以改錯及解釋那部份對我來說也不是很大的考驗。最難反而是作文那部份。自畢業後，我根本從未試過再在有時間限制的情況下寫文了。為了考試，我特意多寫英文 blog posts 及作了兩篇文，拜托我校的 NET 幫我改及給我評語。

各位還未考、或準備應考、又或仍在不斷考基準試的同行們，請努力，千萬不要因這試把我們打跨了！

剛剛那個星期四在朋友家看了無線的「新聞透視」，開始的十五分鐘是與基準試有關的。看了後心有忐忑，不吐不快！

每當公佈基準試成績時，傳媒往往只集中報導有多少人不合格，又或是訪問那些一次又一次不合格的應考者。像這集「新聞透視」，起初它像為教師抱不平，指出其中一卷的難度甚至連以英語為母語的人仕也沒把握拿到好分數。但隨之又訪問一大學講師（相信她有份參與閱卷的工作），那講師舉例指出有考生連一些很簡單的錯處也不能正確地指出。接著記者便拿著那例子在街上進行抽樣調查，看看受訪者能否指出句子中錯誤的地方。

整句例子我已記不起是怎樣，只記得有錯的部份是這樣的：my mother and father was doing …

當然，受訪者（不知一共訪問了多少人，也不知是否所有人也答對，這裡是指節目播出的所有受訪者，包括有學生，OL等）均能指出錯誤所在。正確句子應為：my mother and father were doing …

可笑的是那講師說有一位考生竟改成：my father and mother was … 

能正確地指出錯誤是該卷的其中一項要求而已，考生還要解釋為何要作出這樣的改正。以上句為例，句子中的主體（subject）是 my mother and father，是一個複數主體 (plural subject)，所以要用複數動詞 (plural verb)。相信很多網友也懂得解釋。偏偏那位不知在做甚麼的考生，居然以中國倫理傳統去解釋甚麼父親應該排在母親之先，今人不禁慨歎老師是否連學生也不如？若你有這樣的想法，又中了傳媒的計了。這只是其中一位考生的答案，這位考生是否一位老師我們也無從稽考，就這樣一竹篙打一船人，似乎有點那個。

基準試初推行的兩三年，我沒打算應考，因教統局允許所有在大學修英文的老師申請豁免權，所以我與同事們一起申請豁免。可是每年聽到傳媒報導偏低的及格率，實在心有不忍，決定相約數位同事一同應考，拉高及格率，提高英文老師的士氣！結果，我們所有人不單只合格，更拿了 merit（整體有四分或以上的成績；一分為最差，五分為最高）。當然傳媒沒有興趣報導我們，他們繼續集中報導低合格率。

老實說，這基準試的要求真的一點也不低。我們要考五份卷，分別是 Reading, Writing, Listening, Speaking 及 Classroom Language。五份卷中，Writing 再分為 Organisation and coherence, Grammatical accuracy, Task completion, Correcting errors/problems 及 Explaining errors/problems 等五部份。Speaking 一卷又細分為六部份（Pronunciation, stress and intonation; Reading aloud with meaning; Grammatical accuracy; Organisation and cohesion; Interacting with peers; Explaining language matters to peers）。Classroom Language 又分四部份（Grammatical accuracy; Prounciation, stress and intonation; The language of interaction; the language of instruction）。

分這麼多部份幹嗎？讓你知道合格老師的水準有多高！何為之合格，就是老師要在所有卷中（包括細分之項目）均能拿到三級或以上的成績！當中最難的卷目也就是及格率最低的卷目 - Explaining errors/problems。有多難？讓我給各位一些例題，你們便略知一二。（選自考評局出給預備應考基準試的人的評核綱要）

網友請嘗試改正及作出解釋！（只須改有間線的句子。）

You went to Canada to study about four months.  Do you enjoy your school life?  Is busy or not?  Is there very cold?  When I change a new school in this year, I’m very afraid.  Because in there, I haven’t any friends.  I don’t know their play with me or not. 

She know me is a new student, when I have any problem in my lesson or homework, she must teach me.  He like our friend more than a teacher, because she very friendly and unlike other teacher always punish the student, when we do some wrong thing. 

答案改天揭曉。 

好想好想買！仲要買二十吋那部！但從宣佈推出起至現在，也忍著手沒有買！為甚麼？原因主要有二：

1.  起初只接受網上預訂，沒現貨供應。不可以買完後立即用，我是不會買的！所以我願意等。
2. 老公下令不准我在三月前買！他說Apple的第一批新機多數會有問題，要我「睇定先」，看看買了新機的人有沒有投訴才再作決定！但為甚麼是三月才可以買？也是他說的。他說從MacGrass那裡看到Apple在三月會有另一個news，到時可能又有新產品，所以要我等！

我不想等呀……

三月快些來就好了！但農曆年假又可否不要那麼快便放完？16項 to do list，我只完成了一項，怎樣辦？

也不算小了！他們已經三歲零九個月大，若換轉以人的歲數來計，他們將踏入廿八歲了。

這是他們在三個月大時為某寵物雜誌所拍的照片。那期剛好介紹西施狗，而他們又有別於一般的西施，故賣狗給我們的老闆向我們重借兩隻小狗作拍照用。

今年是他們的年，當然要邀請他們來向各位拜年。

我小魔怪祝所有學生們個個聰明伶俐，學業進步，準時交功課，千萬不要「激親」老師；特別是我媽咪，她心靈十分脆弱，若然她看不開，自尋短見，我和阿矇就會變成要在單親家庭長大，這樣對我們的成長是不好的。請各學生哥為著小弟和小弟弟的前途著想，生生性性。