Every year in the first week of English class, some students inform me that writing is too hard. They never write, unless homework requires it. They find the writing process painful and difficult.
How awful it is to be able to speak in a language but not to write in it, especially with its rich vocabulary. Being able to speak but not write is like living in an enormous mansion and never leaving one small room. When I meet students who think they can’t write, I know, as a teacher my duty is to show them the rest of the rooms. My task is to build fluency and accuracy while providing the opportunity in any writing activity to enhance（增强）the moral and emotional development of my students.
One great way to do this is by having students write in a journal in class every day.
Writing ability is like strength training. Writing needs to be done just like exercise; just as muscles grow stronger with exercise, writing skills improve quickly with writing practice daily. I often see a rise in student confidence and performance after only a few weeks of journal writing.
Expressing oneself in writing is one of the most important skills I teach to strengthen the whole students. When my students practice journal writing, they are practicing for their future academic, political, and emotional lives. They build skills so that some say they might write a great novel, a piece of sorely needed legislation（法规）, or the perfect love letter. That they write in their journals every day puts them a step closer to fluency, eloquence（雄辩）and command of the language.
小题1:What is the purpose of the passage?
A．To encourage students to keep a journal every day.
B．To analyze students’ problems in learning languages.
C．To stress the importance of writing in language learning.
D．To introduce an effective way of improving students’ writing.小题2:The underlined phrase “an enormous mansion” in Paragraph 2 refers to students’ .
A．writing opportunity
B．large house
C．large vocabulary
D．emotional life小题3:In the author’s view, what can students benefit from the journal writing?
A．It is beneficial to students’ future career.
B．It can make students more emotional.
C．It is helpful to students’ homework.
D．It can enlarge students’ vocabulary.
