Last week in class we talked about how to have a debate in English and then did partner, small group and class debates on a range of topics like dating and curfews in college, studying versus life experience and the one child policy. One of the more entertaining topics was debating which hot drink was better: coffee or tea. Most of my students sided with tea but a few helped me to defend coffee. For their writing assignment they had to choose one of the topics discussed in class and write their opinion about it and may chose to try and convince me about the benefits of drinking tea. Here are a few of their essays:
"I like tea better than coffee. Drinking tea is an old tradition in China. It is of great benefit to mankind. The reasons are as follows. Firstly, the tea contains some chemical elements which contribute to losing weight. It can also build up our resistance to disease. Besides, drinking tea can protect your teeth from being eaten by moths (?). I think the most important thing is that tea can relieve your tiredness and improve your memory. On account of all these advantages, I can't help choosing to drink tea!"
"I'd prefer tea because coffee is not a healthy food. it does damage to your health. Coffee contains caffeine and it helps to make the skin produce melanin. Coffee is more bitter than tea. Tea is good for our health. It can also make us slim. Tea has a long history in China. Tea is a part of Chinese culture and you can find a lot of kinds of tea in China like green tea, red tea and flower tea. They taste very delicious. So I think tea is better than coffee."
"I like tea because I am Chinese. Chinese people like to drink tea and often entertain friends and guests with it. So I choose tea because of my daily habit. Also drinking tea has some advantages. Drinking tea can quench one's thirst, help digestion and prevent some diseases. The constant drinking of tea is quite beneficial for people's health. And if you're not drinking 3-4 cups of tea today, you're definitely not doing your health a big favor. What's more, drinking tea helps with our body weight loss because tea burns fat. Finally, it protects our skin from the effects of the sun."
"Would you like coffee or tea?" I prefer tea. If we present teas as the east, coffee definitely represents the west. Obviously coffee is the combination of warmth, enthusiasm and romanticism, but tea is the unit of peace, calm and tradition. I like tea. Because tea doesn't have a dense and strong smell. Neither the sense of taste. I also think that tea can make me quiet. In addition, tea is always together with long-standing history and culture. I prefer it because it apparently helps us to be healthy. When we are free, tea can let us be more comfortable. What's more, tea helps us lose weight. I love tea, love its smell and weakness. So I prefer to drink tea rather than coffee."
All this being said, though I have drank my fair share of coffee this year, I have also started to drink a lot of tea as well. I'm taking some fresh green tea home this summer for others to try and to attempt to keep up this apparently healthy Chinese habit.
So cute :) "it helps to make the skin produce melanin" -- oh, if only our students were so informed!