Interview- Harris Kuo

Teacher Kuo Xingzhi also named Harris Kuo is known as a married English teacher with two daughters by students who teaches at the department of applied foreign languages of Lunghwa University of Science and Technology. He has been teaching English for over 30 years since now. At first, he was just a part-time teacher then he became a full-time teacher in August of 1986. Mr. Kuo was born in Taipei, and graduated from Fu Jen Catholic University in 1977. The reason why he decided to dedicate himself in teaching is because of his father who had been a teacher for 45 years and had pupils everywhere that influenced him the most. The other reason was when he worked at the trading company, he did not get used to doing business and dealing with business people. He also did not think he was good at it, plus he had chances to tutor his co-works in English; therefore, it inspired him to be an English teacher. There are several unforgettable things for him at LHU. One of them is that when he taught at weekends classes, a student made mistakes of English grammar which was uncomplicated. He asked him,” Who was your English teacher at college? He answered,” It was you, Sir.” It made a deep impression for him.

Teacher Kuo sometimes mentioned about his hobbies and favorite activities during our class, so we also asked him more information by this interview. He told us that he is a regular and methodical person who reads three kinds of newspapers and get up at 7:00 and go to bed at 12:00 every day. He loves reading, writing in both Chinese and English and singing during his spare time. About his hobbies: he prefers to drink a nice cup of coffee or some wine with good friends. Regarding with reading, military novels are his favorite and he also likes to watch movies related to military. It is because when he was in junior high school, he was fascinated by TV series “ Combat & 12’ o Clock High” especially, he enjoyed reading about Jet fighters and battleships, also liked to make models of them with his fellow classmates. His dad was a reader of “TIMES” magazine; he followed all the articles about Vietnam War. As his English improved he became addicted more to books and movies regards with marital affairs. He even has a full set of Tom Clancy novel.

At the end of the interview, we asked teacher Kuo if he was not a teacher what he will want to be. He replied us several answers. He wanted to be a civil engineer when he was in elementary school and junior high school. After went to high school, he once wanted to study at Naval School. In college he wanted to play band and be a guitar player; after watching Tom Cruise’s movie ,“Top Gun”, he wanted to be a pilot. About his retirement, he wants to travel with his wife to China and Europe, especially go to England and Norway. He also hopes to stay at those places for a long while; he wants to teach English to local kids who are from poor families. After the interview, we asked teacher “are there anything that he wants to tell his students (our class)”. At first, he said” He feels like a famous person with a spotlight, ha ha.” He also answered he wanted to tell us that we will accomplish our study in less than 80 days; it was not easy to endure till now. Don’t ever stop learning English after graduation. Don’t study just for tests; pick up books we like and read. Keep reading and writing it’s the only way to improve English.