Dear Miss Ren,

There has been a current of the so called “escaping classes” since we stepped into the last year of college. On the surface, this current is undesirable. Unfortunately, many students counted that our courses were not reasonably set at this time of our college life. I must  acknowledge that it is indeed our own road that validates our increasing tendency of cutting classes, to some extent. Apparently, this mode of classes has already become a latent regulation, which has dominated many students’ choices. Therefore, giving it a name “Group  Consciousness” is not weird at all.

For this course, I’ve got some shallow ideas below.

Firstly, as far as I am concerned, interest is never a problem when studying Specialized English, thus utilizing this kind of interest correctly is necessary. Many students have been unfolding the excuse of time intensity when “encountered” with the translation assignment. In fact, translation is never inconsistent with their work at hand. We’d better choose some shorter essays whose topics are familiar to us students, thus creating a more active atmosphere in the class because everyone has something to talk about. Classes are not only set to learn how to write an abstract or literature reviews, but also to improve the skills of talking about our major in English. Mastering the practical skills of talking about our own major in English will do us much good in the future, whether for job hunting or the grad entrance examination. It is not difficult to find that by offering a solid teaching approach, class communication is comparatively impoverished. So give us more chances to speak out our major in English, and many of us will become vivid.

Secondly, we’d better choose a reasonable means of organization. As many students are always absent from the classes, an institutional group work can be a good way to supervise those who don’t want to do the work. This kind of group can be larger, but the assignment can be smaller as the essays are not so long or obscure for us.

Thirdly, it may be somewhat a wise choice if we are required to translate a text extracted from a theoretical book which focuses on the main sociologists in history. Take Durkheim, for example, every one of us may know about his theoretical viewpoints and methodology principles which centered on social facts. We can give a debate or discussion in English in our class about Durkheim’s social ideas or write a tiny paper in English before class and then give our interpretation of them respectively in class. Like wise, this step of work also has to be done by group work. There is only one representative to give a presentation in one class, with other classmates giving critical thinking to their ideas or even waging a debate in the class. I believe in oral practice more than handwriting papers, as oral ones are the ultimate product of ourselves when presented before the whole class.

With great anticipation that we’ll become prospective good interpreters of our own major, I hope my propositions are not considered of little use.

                                                                                                                  Yours,

                                                                                                               Sincerely

                                                                                                           Vivian Chan

                                                                                Sociology,Wuhan University