You are the Sun in Our Hearts

-- a speech at graduate celebration of ZJUT local learning center on November, 25

By Yang Haiqing (杨海清)

Ladies and gentlemen,

Today is a special day for us! For the day, we’ve been waiting for three or more years. Today we have read a dream of earning the certificate of English Major or BA degree from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Today is our day. We gather together here to celebrate such an unforgettable day. Being a representative of this year’s graduate students, I’d like to say, “We are the winners of the new Long March of English distant education”.

Today I’m glad to learn that there are so many senior students in our local learning center got the BA degree from Beiwaionline. I became jealous of your success but I really enjoy your great performance in the years past. You are the best students. You are the brightest students. So I’d like to use an English idiom to express my feeling: you are “the best and the brightest.” You are the honor of Beiwaionline. You are also the honor of our local learning center. Congratulations! …

Today, we also see that there is another group of students sitting here. They are this year’s graduate students, my dear fellows. Being a speaker of this group, I’d like to say we are over the moon actually for this special day. I remember in the beginning of our courses three years ago, we had more than 40 students, but today we just have no more than 20 left to finish all of the courses. We are not easy either. Here I’d like to use another English idiom to express my feeling: we are “the cream of the crop”. Congratulations to ourselves! … We are also the honor of Beiwaionline and local learning center.

Today is our day. Today is also our tutors’ day. We’ve never forgotten the first tutorial you gave us a warm welcome. We’ve never forgotten your numerous encouragements when we hardly advanced our English learning. We’ve never forgotten your careful comments on our assignments and gave detail instructions to our writing. We’ve never forgotten your happiest feelings when you heard we had earned excellent scores in the finial exams. You’re the sun in our heart to lighten our roads ahead. These days I tried to find some exact words to show my appreciation to you, but I failed, because it is beyond any expressions to describe your scholarly performance and great contribution. Maybe simple words are not simple. The western Thanksgiving Day was just going on the day before yesterday. Here following the western style of giving thanks, I’d like to say, “Thanks you vary much, our dear tutors!”

Although the spring of success is just around the corner, We’ve never forgotten the past three or more years with difficulty in English learning. Like a famous saying goes, “no pain, no gain”, we’ve paid tremendous energy and precious time to realize our dream of becoming an excellent English speaker. As far as I am concerned, I still remember lots of events happened during the days and nights at Beiwaionline.

I still remember the first time when I was called to give my self-introduction to others. I got quite nervous while trying to find some words to express. It was terrible to me at that time.

I still remember the events how my fellow students managed to survive among their working, their household activities, and their English learning. To some students, the life became tougher and tougher. Some of them had to drop out, not because they didn’t like English, but because they suffered a lot from their energy-exhausting business. We came to have no Saturday and Sunday available to share with our family members. We had to learn English day after day, month after month, and year after year.

During this period, out tutors were also working very hard for us. I still remember one night when Madam Zhen(郑老师) gave me a call to inform me of the re-arrangement for the next day’s tutorial due to some unexpected order from local university authority. It was almost at 11 o’clock. Here I want to emphasize on the time when she was still working for us. The same things also happened to other tutors. It was due to their diligence and selfless contribution that we passed all the courses and gained our achievement smoothly and successfully.

After the painful experience of learning English at Beiwaionline, we are now in the autumn full of sweat fruits and rich harvest. We are enjoying what we have achieved from our persistent efforts. But what exact gifts have we gained from Beiwaionline? What is our secret to achieve such an admirable success? Here I’d like to quote some words written by my fellow student, Ms. Ye Lei（叶蕾）, another excellent graduate student of this year. She says in an article in Chinese, “在三年的网院生活里，我第一感受到北外网院的专业性，第二感受到工大学习中心老师的责任心，第三感受到同学们的互助情。” Yes. It is absolutely right, I should say.

Beiwaionline, as a predominant organization for English distance education, has always been reshaping us to be “a whole person”, teaching us up-to-date language knowledge and a variety of western cultures, and encouraging us to use it in our daily communication. Beiwaionline has invested a lot to create an informative website and friendly VOB and VOC systems, through which we could apply our newly learned knowledge as well as share our enjoyment and frustration with web-tutors and countrywide schoolmates. Learning English has become an exciting style of life.

The local learning center is also our big family. We had enormous chances not only to communicate with our local tutors face to face but also to enjoy their unique academic experience. Not only did they teach us how to use English well, but also focus on how to improve our humanitarian spirits of both being a bilinguist and a biculturalism. We are lucky to have such a professional teaching group to support our English study. It is out of question that they are the cornerstones for Beiwaionline education system.

The most emotional expressions would be given to our dear fellows. During the previous years, it was your sincere encouragement and heart-warming help that saved us from the cliff of dropping out. It was your sweet smile and humorous words that eased up our increasing depression. It was your timely message that reminded us of delivering the assignments and learning record cards before the deadline. Without your strong support, we might as well fail to follow the learning schedule.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The honor and achievement belong to the past. What should we do after today’s ceremony? Here I’d like to share with you what Prof. Gu Yue-guo had addressed in the graduate celebration at Beiwai headquarter. He said seriously that if we failed to give him something, he would take back all we had gained from Beiwaionline. He raised the Law of Irascibility, that is, if we fail to use English for a period of time, we would lose the ability of using it. Let us remember the old man’s warning: being a soldier to fight against the losing of English ability. If we insist on using English, we will keep the knowledge and skills we have learned from Beiwaionline forever.

Finally, given to today’s distinguished leaders and tutors from both headquarter and local learning center and dear fellows are my best wishes: keeping fit, good luck, family happiness… and in western style, crossing my fingers to you!

Thank you!