I have gained so much by giving the workshop... e.g. the thank you letter I got from students.

Another piece of special memory of Toastmastering. This was the first time for me to watch the Toastmaster contest. Oh... the standard is really high in terms of quality of content and language skills. I really should invite some of my friends, so that they will know how Toastmastering could be their interests which not just for fun but also for sharing our life.

During the 3-hr contest, Vinci and Rachel, two secondary three girls, were sitting next to me and we have a good chat throughout the contest. And I acted as their grammarian to answer their questions. Though we were disturbing to the lady sitting in front of us. It is so good that I can see their protentials in the field of toastmastering. Then I imagine that... one day, I will attend such contest with my daughter (or son). I will kiss him/her every time they take the courage to give a speech.

Dear my friends, if you want to take a look at the Toastmasters Club, pls leave me a msg and I will show you.

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This evening, I visited the HKU SPACE "Community College Toastermasters Club". The president of the Club is Mohit Nanwani and he has visited the PolyU Toastmasters Club for several times. Henry Yim was the Toastmaster of the Evening [TME] and he really did good preparation for the role. Stevian was the Table Topic Master and I knew her the last time she visited our club.
The Grammarian was Mr Norman Bird, a very interesting guy who has been teaching English in Hong Kong for tens of years. He gave me a very amusing answer when I asked about his teaching experience on whether girls are more intelligent in learning language... And he said, "The girls are more eager , risk takers, in talking when they are in a group of girls. They get more practice and they won't stop. On the other hand, men are more concern on what the content they talk when they are in a group of men. When men and women are together, the situation is then different. Men are tend to be dominant and they do not want to have any silence. In the meantime, girls are more concern on how other people look at them as they have been told since they grow up. And after the girls get back to a group of their own, they will start talk much again and especially on how the men talked before." "Women are tricky... be careful of them" is the advice made by him.

Language Evaluation

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Recent years, life-long learning is a concept we've heard from many people. Someone believes it is very positive and encouraging for people to keep improving themselves by continuing education. However, someone thinks that attending classes after an awful working day is another awful thing. Nowadays, many people work more than 10 hours a day. They don't even have time, nor energy, to enjoy the life with their families and friends. The life-long learning idea just brings us too much extra pressure to bare.
Q1. What do you think about the concept of life-long learning?

According to an Education and Manpower assessment report released yesterday, local primary three students are creative and eager to express themselves but they are not good at writing.
Q2. How did you learn language when you were in primary or secondary school?

Q3. Throughout the path in acquiring eduation, which learning method do you like most?

Last year when I was in Canada, a grandfather told me that everyone he met, just enrich his life. It is true! I do also believe that we could learn so many things from people around us. Let's learn from each other by having a humble heart!
Q4. The following topic is 'Telling us a piece of experience which you've learnt much from one of your friends.'

Same topic, but a little bit different. Well you can talk about more than 1 friend this time.
Q5. 'Telling us a piece of experience which you've learnt much from your friends.'

The Christmas is coming very soon.
Q6. How do you treasure it, so that you can make it a special Christmas?

Let's think about a plan for the new year
Q7. Your plan for year 2005.

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Tonight, I walked in to attend the Toastmasters Club meeting at PolyU. I did enjoy it as I found that it is another place for me to practise and improve my English (in public speech).

The club has an agenda every meeting and the run-down is well-organised. It has 3 so called facilitators, 'Ah-counter' counting the frequency of unnecessary sounds, 'Timer' counting and reminding speakers of the time, and 'Grammarian' giving grammatical advices on ppl's speeches.
I appreciate the 'Timer' most as I don't like any over-run meeting.

A 'Table Topics Session' is a 20-min ad hoc sharing session. Everyone will have a chance to be invited to give a 2-min speech. I was one of them tonight and I quite enjoyed it. The atmosphere was relaxing and easy to talk for all of us. There were also a few (usually TWO) people giving some prepared speeches as well.

Experienced speakers would give some evaluations after the meeting break.
Some points jotted down tonight:

1. Not necessary to say 'Sorry' nor 'Thank you', the speaker should be the one being thanked. (well... might be right ^.^)
2. Never say you're nervous, the more you say it, the more you feel nervous.
3. Start commenting on others' speeches with appreciation. 'Let's give him/her a big round of applause', 'give her a big hand.'
4. Give speech with 'Confidence' and 'Sincerity'
5. Wrap your speech up even the time is out. Don't just stop.
6. No 'BUT', which erases (rub away) what you've just talked.

Friends I met tonight:
Irene Chen (Dist. TM); Denial Wong (President of DTM); Teri (SAO staff) and her husband Warran; Eva; Shannon; Jack (sang a song as a part of speech, GREAT!); Simon and Vivian; Jeffrey Hui(CC TM Pres.); Elaine (PU TM Pres.); Osmaan; KK(Palestinian); Chia (Malay)

http://www.geocities.com/dynamictoastmastersclub/DTC.html

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