> Western society is almost the same in this denial of aging, this cult
> of youth. Western women are more likely to dye their hair than men
> but it's on the rise. I think with the aging populations in 1st World
> countries things may change or maybe they will not as all these
> expensive medical treatments are really catching on to reverse aging.

From all the posts, we have heard alot of your opinions, but where is the answer? All the schools hired white Caucasian Native Speakers to raise the enrollment and income. Foreigners came to See the World, and let others pay their bills. Enjoying the respect from the people in another land, otherwise not many would have anything to be mentioned in their eulogy. Lots of parents never had the chance of going to have a higher learning, now they want to have their dreams be realized by their children. Then, what's lacking? The motives of the children!

I was born in an ordinary family. My parents were office workers. They were busy most of the time. They never pushed me. When the Japs slaughter my people by the millions, I wanted to be a soldier. But I was too young. I ended up to be a cadet in the air force. We learn all kinds of new stuffs. I remembered the ways my Chinese English teacher taught us with a heavy accent. I was very happy that I had learnt something interesting. Being interested, I just paid a little attention, and found one day that what my teacher taught was not correct from the ones I heard from a foreign drunken soldier. We didn't have record player, recorder, TV, and "Native speakers" then, but we, once in a long while, went to a remote town to see movies, where, at the beginning of the show, news reels were shown. I imitate the voices. From the imitation, I improved my voice, the pronunciation, the tone and intonation of the sentences. Before I got my first degree, I had taught English for more than 10 years in a private English school. The society, all the world around, pays to mucn attention to that piece of paper, a diploma. through learning and teaching, I got qualified and certified in five teaching courses. My students loved me. To this date, they still send me email with greetings and problems in learning. Now I am retired and come back to pass my surer experience to the people who brought me up, I feel like being discriminated, yet I still want to tell everybody that: Motivation and Imitation are the two most important factors in learning anything! You can't force to horse to drink if it doesn't want to. Teachers might be great scholars themselves, without proper sills to motivate the learner, the success is only half way, even the kids want to. Without imitation, a learner might accumulate enough knowledge, but not to articulate them eloquently.

Alex Wu