Analysis and Division Essay
Why I Don’t Have a Credit Card
There are three reasons I don’t have a credit card. The first reason
is that using a piece of plastic instead of cash makes it too easy for
me to buy things I can’t afford. For Instance, last week I saw a $75.00
pair of pink sandals, nor can I afford them. With a credit card, however,
I would now own those sandals and be worrying about how to pay for them.
The second reason I don’t have a credit card is that I would end up in
debt like my friend Sara the Shopaholic(購物狂).Sara got a credit card
last year, and she already owes $4,000. She buys things that she doesn’t
really need, such as jewelry and designer sunglasses. Sara makes only
minimum payments, so her balance never decreases. She will be in debt for
years. The third reason I don’t have a credit card is the difficulty in
understanding the fine(細微難察的)point print in the credit card contract.
If I don’t read the fine print, I can be surprised. For example, some
credit card companies will raise my interest rate if I make a payment even
one day late. To sum up, credit cards may be a convenience for some people,
but for me, they are a plastic ticket to financial disaster.
Que Es la Problema?
What is bilingualism? It is a method of teaching in which students for
whom English is a second language are given the opportunity to learn in
their native language. Bilingual education uses three different methods:
transition(雙語過渡式), which helps students move from their native
language to English; enrichment(綜合增益式), which uses their native
language to enrich their studies; and maintenance (維持母語式), which
allows students to continue to learn in their native language throughout
their school careers. Of these three types of bilingual education, the
maintenance method is the least effective. Indeed, this approach creates
several problems. Bilingual maintenance programs in schools in the United
States cost additional taxes, isolate students for whom English is a
second language, and may even keep these students from becoming productive
and successful citizens.
The first problem with the maintenance method is that it is expensive.
In contrast to the transition and enrichment programs, which provide extra
instruction for only three to five years, the maintenance program requires
extra instruction for the entire thirteen years that the student is in
the school. Thus, the maintenance program is approximately three times
as expensive as the other methods of bilingual education. With an average
teacher’s salary of $30,000, the difference in expenses for the school
with between one and three teachers would be $60,000. Although a district
can often put in a single classroom several students whose native language
is Spanish, an even greater problem arises when a district has only two
or three French, German, or Japanese students because ideally each group
would be placed in a separate classroom. Of course, extremely small
bilingual classes are even more expensive to each than average sized
classes.
Another problem with the bilingual maintenance program is that it
isolated students in the program from the rest of the student body for
their entire school career. School teaches students not only writing and
arithmetic but also how to get along with other people and other cultures.
Isolating students in the maintenance program requires that they interact
only with people from their same culture. Some may argue that this
isolation is only in the classroom because students are able to interact
with other students at lunch and playtime. However, students are much more
likely to socialize with those whom they know from their classroom
experiences. The placement of English-as-a-second-language students in
separate classrooms may make other children see them as different and
ignore or even ridicule them. At my own high school, the Spanish-speaking
students always ate at a table by themselves, usually speaking Spanish,
and the English-speaking students also ate by themselves. The maintenance
program is governmentally supported segregation.
Perhaps the greatest argument against the maintenance program; however,
is that it often keeps its students from becoming productive and
successful members of society. For example, if children are taught
entirely in Spanish, they will never be able to compete in the job market
in an English-speaking country. They will have difficulty completing job
applications in English, will have trouble communicating on the job, and
are likely to remain in a lower paid position while those who have a better
command of the English language are promoted.
Supporters of the bilingual maintenance program offer two opposing
arguments. First, these supporters argue that English-as-a-secondlanguage students will be more successful in school if they are taught
in their native languages. Certainly, these students might initially
succeed better in their native languages, but the negative long-term
career effects outweigh the short-term classroom effects. Besides, a good
bilingual transition program can prepare students to succeed in an
English-speaking classroom as well as an English-speaking society. Second,
supporters of the maintenance program argue that if students are taught
in English, they will soon forget their language and will lose their
cultural heritage. Certainly, students should have the right and ability
as well as the desire to hold on to their cultural heritage, but the
classroom is not the only, or even the best, place to promote cultural
values. English-as-a-second-language students can continue to speak
their native language in their homes and communities, thus truly becoming
bilingual by using two languages.
Certainly, the public schools have a responsibility to establish
reasonable bilingual programs, such as transition or enrichment programs,
that allow English-as-a-second-language students to succeed in school.
However, the various costs of the bilingual maintenance program are too
high. This program costs the taxpayers more money. It isolates and
separates bilingual students from other cultures, and, most important,
it keeps these students from competing and succeeding in the job market.
We must help English-as-a-second-language students become less dependent
and more independent and truly bilingual.
Assignment: Reasons for Surfing the Internet
Internet 之起源可追溯到 1968 年，美國國防部高級研究計畫署，為維持電腦
與通訊系統免於戰爭的破壞，所進行的一項計畫叫做 ARPA (Advanced Research
Project Agency ；高級研究專案組織)計劃。簡單的說，就是透過電腦與電話網
路的連結，再與全球個個國家的系統相連，形成一個全球最大的網際網路系統。
Internet 原只用在學術研究及教育方面，之後由於許多線上服務公司相繼連上
Internet 及學生自學校畢業後把使用 Internet 的習慣帶到企業界，製造了
Internet 商業服務的市場。
Thesis: The reasons for surfing the Internet can be classified as the
following three categories: information, entertainment and business.
Topic sentence:
1. The Internet is a most convenient tool to provide the newest
information.
2. Surfing the Internet for amusement will let us feel relaxing in free
time.
3. It became more popular to buy and sell by the Internet.