This section of Freshman English is designed to help students improve their listening, speaking, reading and writing abilities in English through various activities and exposure to a wide variety of materials in English. Using resources such as English interviews, news videos, newspaper and magazine articles, and intriguing talks on the Internet, we will focus on issues in the contemporary world. Students are expected to spend two to four hours a week to prepare for class, probably including reading an article, listening to an interview, or watching a video, in order to equip themselves with necessary knowledge and vocabulary for class discussion. In class, we will further explore the topic of the week through group discussion. Students are required to write a concluding paragraph to express his or her viewpoints after a topic is discussed. Besides this, we will also focus on speaking, and writing skills in English. One-third of in-class activities will focus on practicing writing and speaking skills. Finally, students need to give a 5-minute speech and a 5-minute group presentation.