our school, shiyan middle school in fuling, was founded only four years ago. it is rather a new school, but now it is getting well-known for its teahing. we have a foreign english teacher, named hans barthel. he is the only foreign english teacher in all the schools in our city.

　　hans is a tall man with blue eyes. he comes from munich①, in germany. that is to say, german is his native language and yet he masters several foreign languages, including english. he teaches us spoken english. i still remember the first time he asked me to answer a very easy question, but i was too nervous to answer it, standing dumbfounded②. he smiled, encouraged me and let me sit down. from then on, i made up my mind to study english harder.

　　one evening i plucked up ③ my courage to visit hans. when i rang the doorbell, he came out and let me in. at first i was a bit nervous when talking with him. to make me feel easy he spoke very slowly, and i could understand quite well. i was so glad that i felt quite at home. now, i always go to his room on saturdays. we talk a lot and watch tv together. with his help, my spoken english greatly improved.hans is learning chinese all by himself. he can speak some chinese now. he can talk with our chinese teachers. if he doesn't know how to say a certain thing in chinese, he will ask us to teach him till he can say it correctly.

　　on christmas i sent him a gift, which he accepted. he spent that evening merrily with us chinese students and didn't feel lonely at all.this is hans, a kind man and a good english teacher.

　　【词语解释】

　　①munich ['mju:nik] n.慕尼黑(德国城市)

　　②dumbfounded [d)m'faundid] a.惊讶得发呆的

　　③pluck [pl)k] up 鼓起;振作;振作精神