About 25 years ago, it was a nice day, we were all classmates, all in service secondary school teachers, as well as Nanyang University alumni gathering in the lecturing room of British Council. No one was absent today because today was last day of our in-service English training course in BC ! We greeted each other : “Good luck and good health “ because departure was around the corner ! Few minutes later a lady lecturer from Canada was coming in with hurry. : ” Sorry, I am late for a few minutes. May I congratulate every member of this class that you have completed this half year training course by today and this is the last lesson with you all. Today`s topic given to me is [ Basic knowledge of international phonetics ] , It is a quite long story to elaborate in one period of 45 minutes. I think I have to change my schedule to a period of [ Free-talk ] ! Now who is the 1st speaker, please ? " All kept silent for 5 minutes, then I raised my hand. " OK, Mr. Wong, go ahead ! " , I said: " We being sent here for this course are to learn speaking standard English, not Xinglish ! With the basic knowledge of international phonetics, we could rectify my, even other`s oral English mistakes ! We then have confidence to speak openly ! " , She said : " I would like to give you 2 tips : just listen frequently, especially BBC-news, speak English frequently and boldly, you would be OK ! since I did not learn International phonetics in Canada school, I still could speak English very well ! " , Then I realized her shortcoming that she could not manage to teach this topic at all ! I said ironically : " You are really a wise-madam ! " , She surprised : " How come you suddenly praise me ! Mr. Wong " , I replied : " The greatest ancient Chinese teacher, Confusius（孔子） had said that if you know, you may say : I know ! if you do not know, you should say: I don`t know ! then you would be a wise-man （知之为知之，不知为不 知，智也 ！） ! “:, She felt embarrassed : ” Oh, I have heard the saying of Confusious but th more I heard the more I get confusion ! ” If I were her, I dare not go into this class at all !
