5岁学英语被问“怎么这么晚？”不如换条路吧！
双城记
之三
写在前面
从香港到北京，Ta和Ta所追逐的梦，是否让奋斗中的你也有感触？
在香港回归祖国20周年到来之际，英语环球广播推出系列微纪录片《双城记》，带你们走近5位在北京的香港同胞，听听他们的“双城故事”。周一起，每天一期，敬请期待。
Hong Kong is going to mark the 20th anniversary of its return to China on July 1.
NEWSPlus brings you a series of reports concerning the lives and careers of Hong Kong people here in Beijing.
今天，我们带你认识醉心于戏剧教育的叶逊谦。
Experienced in the educational drama field, William Yip is a Hong Kong drama educator and consultant at various institutes since 1997. Now he is working with kids in Chinese mainland.
现如今，中国的家长们有多焦虑，孩子们的童年就有多辛苦。
看看最近微博上的一条热搜：
“英语，词汇量4000左右，可与外教正常语速交流，能写300字左右英语作文；数学，心算1万以内加减法、心算两位数与一位数乘除法，学过数独，知道小数、分数、负数并进行加减；语文，会背千字文，50首左右唐诗，学完拼音，认识1000多汉字……”这是一个6岁小女孩的妈妈在家长群里列出的“学习清单”。
另一位家长把女儿送到培训机构，老师一听孩子已经5岁了，立刻问道：“怎么这么晚才来，别的孩子都学了两年了！”
为了不让自己的孩子“输在起跑线上”，家长们焦虑、恐慌，孩子们则压力山大。
既然如此，何不换一条路试试呢？来自香港的叶逊谦正在做这样的尝试。
在他的课上，孩子们说英语，学表演，最重要的是他们很快乐！
请听报道：
Born in Beijing, William Yip moved to Hong Kong when he was 5.
He built his career there as a theatre director and owns his theatre company.
Since 2015, he moved back to Beijing and focuses on new musicals and drama education for young people in Chinese mainland.
"I'm really into promoting arts, promoting drama for 4 to 94 or maybe 104, because I think it's joyful, it's happy. I feel like we are promoting a very positive impact to the society, to young people."
William's drama education has been proven effective and unexpectedly popular in Chinese mainland.
In 2011, he created a musical called With Love, by William Shakespeare.
It was first premiered in Hong Kong, when the English version was brought to Beijing, the audience loved it.
He was asked to do a mandarin version in Beijing.
Since then, the show toured Shanghai, Guangzhou, Changsha, Shenzhen and Kaohsiung.
Overall, he did the musical for more than 150 performances in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
"I've never thought of an original musical that we created in Hong Kong can be brought to Beijing doing it in mandarin version. The producers loved working with us, and since then I created almost like 1-2 shows every year, so that brought me back as a director working in Beijing."https://v.qq.com/txp/iframe/player.html?vid=z05186yx947&width=500&height=375&auto=0
In 2015, William decided to move back to Beijing.
To his surprise, many believed that drama education was getting increasingly important.
Yet, there is a lack of experienced drama people who can also work with kids and education.
It's a duel identity that combines director and educator.
That is the reason why people like him are quite needed.
Since then, he has been brought to about 20 cities in China.
"We are preparing the young people for the 22nd century, so if we want them to be successful, maybe we need to change a lot of education methods that we have been using which are quite ineffective to a way."
Animal Farm, a musical that William did in Hong Kong that was awarded The Top Ten Most Popular Production in the 20th Hong Kong Drama Awards.
William surely has received many more honors.
To him, those achievements back in Hong Kong were very important foundation for the new career that he has in Beijing now.
He used to do many western theatre works in Hong Kong, such as Shakespeare, Indian or African stories; while in Beijing he uses musicals or drama as a tool to pass on the value and significance of Chinese culture to the kids.
"We are incorporating more Chinese elements or Chinese traditional cultures into the work that we are doing. Drama is a very interactive way, very creative way to look at the stories that we have in our culture as a Chinese."
Drama education, in William's own words, is able to provide the children happy memories in their childhood.
He thinks that drama can do a lot, it's unlimited and it's a vast ocean that we can swim into.
He uses drama to teach kids to work with people, stay positive and take responsibilities.
The most important thing is that drama can bring out their creative minds.
As a result, it will not only benefit them now, but also their entire life, and help them to be successful in their future.
Two of his students said, "I'm Eva, I'm seven years old. I'm Coco, I'm seven years old too. I like most about drama class is when we play we can still learn things...He is like a chicken..."
William said, "I can rate myself 20 out of 10. Ha-ha, yeah. One kid, right after the lesson he jumped on me and gave me a big hug and was like 'Woo, thank you'... You know that young people they don't lie, they are very honest to you, they love you and they love the things that you have done for them."
The bond between William and his students in Beijing is so strong.
To many surprises, he even invited all his students to his wedding recently.
He says that students are very important part of his personal life.
He loves to share his happy moment with them. They all mean family to him.
As a Hong Kong citizen, moving to Beijing is a very important decision.
But, William does it for a reason.
"Always to follow your heart, if you have an authentic passion and you've made up your mind, you will definitely find your way in any cities in China and to adapt to live happily in that city."
Passion changes everything, that's what William believes.
END
看完叶逊谦的故事，小编只想说：原来学习也可以这么快乐！好羡慕他的学生啊，有没有？
现在，问题来了：你是几岁开始学英语的？
Tomorrow we'll bring you the fourth episode of the special report on Hong Kong, with a story on a physiotherapist.
精彩回顾：
最后留一个小小悬念，还有两天：
微信：NEWSPlus
网站：NEWSPlusRadio.cn
搜狐新闻客户端：英语环球广播
新浪微博：英语环球广播