●Intro簡介：
Taiwan recently celebrated Dragon Boat Festival, and we want to take some time to reflect on the meaning and importance behind the festival, and how we can apply the history and key ideas behind the festival to our English language learning.
近日台灣人們在慶祝端午節，讓我們花一些時間來探討這個節日的意義及重要性，以及藉由這個節日背後歷史和主要思想運用在英語學習中。
●History歷史：
As the story goes, Qu Yuan, a poet and minister of the ancient state of Chu during the Warring States period of the Zhou dynasty, was banished for opposing the emperor’s alliance with the powerful state of Qin. While he was banished, Qu Yuan made use of his time by writing a lot of poetry.
相傳，戰國時期楚國詩人兼大臣–屈原，因為反對楚國國王與強國秦國結盟而被流放。被流放期間，屈原幾乎都在寫詩。
Twenty-eight years later, Qin captured the capital city of Chu, and Qu Yuan threw himself into the river in despair. The local people heard of this and went out on their boats to try to find Qu Yuan. When they couldn’t find him, they dropped lumps of rice into the river, so the fish would eat the rice instead of Qu Yuan. This is said to be the origin of the practices of dragon boat racing and zongzi.
二十八年之後，秦國攻陷楚國，屈原絕望地投江自盡。當地的人們得知這個消息後便乘著船嘗試尋找屈原的下落。但還是沒有屈原的消息，於是他們丟了些許米塊到江中，讓糯米塊代替屈原被魚吃。
How does the story of Qu Yuan apply to us? 屈原的故事給帶給我們什麼啟發？
Qu Yuan’s exile bears some resemblance to our own exile from family, friends, classmates and colleagues due to the pandemic. There have been disruptions to English lessons, with many classes moving online where out of necessity the English teaching can sometimes focus more on the receptive skills of reading and listening more than English speaking and English writing.
Just like Qu Yuan, a good way to make use of this time is to work on our own creative projects, such as writing poetry or short stories (or even just diary entries) in English.
屈原的流放就好比我們自身因為疫情的關係無法與家人、朋友、同學和同事相聚。英語課程受到影響，許多課程都轉為線上課程，英語教學有時更多是關注在閱讀和聽力理解的部分，而不是口說和寫作。
如同屈原一樣，在非常時期開啟自我創作模式，可以用英語寫詩或短篇小說 (就算只是簡單的日記)。
The many benefits of Zongzi! 粽子好處多多
Zongzi is traditionally eaten during Dragon Boat Festival, as a way of remembering the lumps of sticky rice that were fed to the fish to prevent them from eating Qu Yuan. If you are wary of eating out at restaurants at the moment, why not have a cooking party at home with your family and friends, and make lots of really easy to make zongzi? Cooking and eating together is a really good way to socialise and, if your family and friends also like to speak English, will provide lots of opportunities for English speaking and English conversation.
傳統上粽子是在端午節時吃的，流傳是餵給魚的糯米塊，以防止牠們吃 掉屈原。 如果你現在對於在外用餐很謹慎小心，何嘗不在家與家人朋友們一起 做菜，做簡單上手的粽子呢？ 一起做飯和吃飯是種很好的社交模式，如果你的家人和朋友們也喜歡說英語，這也大幅增加了許多口說會話的機會。
●Outro結尾：
To end the article, I thought you could say that even though life isn’t operating normally due to the disruptions caused by the pandemic, we can take lessons from Dragon Boat Festival for how to make the best use of our time no matter what the situation is.
在文章的結尾，我想你可以說，雖然生活因為疫情的關係而無法正常運轉，但無論如何我們都可以藉由端午節這個節慶來學習如何善用時間。
There are always some ways that we can practice our English speaking and English writing skills even if our usual English conversation classes aren’t running as normal. And there is always tasty zongzi to eat!
即使我們的日常英語會話課程沒有正常進行了，我們還是能利用一些方法練習我們的英語口說和英語寫作技巧。再說，還有美味的粽子相伴呢！
