Unit 8, Book 1 Description of the class: The students are freshmen with the age between 17-21. They are not very active and enthusiastic. As a result, they sometimes can not concentrate on what is going on in class. They have already completed 42 class hours of English learning at the university. Previous learning: The students have already learned the writing knowledge and skills of cause-effect, time sequence, listing, problem-solution pattern and sequential actions in the previous seven units. Besides, they have also learned some skills in speaking and translation. Objectives: To involve the students in conversation. To discuss something about bright ideas To give the students practice in reading both for the general idea and specific information (skimming and scanning) To give the students practice in paraphrasing the important words and sentences To give the students oral accuracy practice To give the students oral fluency practice To give the students writing practice in contrast To give the students writing practice in comparison Duration: This unit is supposed to be finished within 6 periods (300 minutes). Contents Period One: Objective 1: (Estimated time: 12 minutes) Task: Topics for discussion Have you ever had bright ideas? If you have, what are they? When do you usually have bright ideas? Activity and class organization: The teacher asks two students to answer the above questions. After S1 and S2 have answered the questions, the teacher asks S3 and S4 to add some new information about the two questions. Then the teacher summaries the main points mentioned by the four students and encourages the other students to add their opinions. Possible problems: The students may have difficulty in expressing themselves clearly and make a number of errors in their speaking. The teacher will not correct the mistakes (unless serious) and will then use gentle correction in order to encourage the students to speak. Objective 2: (Estimated time: 18 minutes) Task: Understand the text Activity and class organization: The students skim and scan the text individually and do the following tasks: Find out the main idea of the text. (How bright ideas are formed.) Analyze the organization of the text. Fill in the chart with the missing information. Argument:   Supporting examples         Conclusion:  Possible problems: The students may not use the right reading skills of skimming and scanning. They may also make errors in finding out the main idea of the passage. The teacher should make his instructions especially clear in these respects. Objective 3: (Estimated time: 30 minutes) Task: Learn some important words and sentences from the text. Activity and class organization: The students are divided into four groups and they ask and answer questions in turn. The questions are mainly about how to paraphrase some important words and sentences from the text. Then they make some sentences by using the important or new words. Pay more attention to the following points besides the students’: particular about: hard to please e.g: She is very particular about her clothes. personal/ individual/ personnel/ personality/ personification intensify/ reinforce intensify: to become more intense, to become stronger e.g: The strong wind seems to intensify the cold. Reinforce: to add strength or support to; to make stronger or firmer e.g: Their arguments are strongly reinforced by the latest trade. Newspapers like this tend to reinforce people’s prejudices. sleep on sth.: leave sth. undecided or unattended until the next day e.g: He often sleeps on his tasks. take shape: take on a defined form e.g: A good idea was slowly taking shape in his mind. Possible problems: The students may not have vocabulary or language they need in paraphrasing. They may not paraphrase the words or sentences preciously. The teacher will act as a resource in this case. That’s the end of the first period. Period Two Objective 4: (Estimated time: 8 minutes) Task: Oral accuracy practice Activity and class organization: The teacher mainly asks some questions and the student answers the questions: T: Why do bright ideas sometimes burst into your mind? S: ___________________________________________________________. T: Can you, according to the text, mention some fields in which people can form bright ideas comparatively easier? S: ______________________________________________________________. T: How did Wagner feel when he fell into a sleeplike condition one day? S______________________________________________________________. T: What happened to Henri Poincare one night? S: ____________________________________________________________. T: What was Descartes’ discovery? S:____________________________________________________________. Possible problems: The student may not answer the questions fluently and may make some mistakes. The teacher will give some hints to make the conversation move on as smoothly as possible. 4. feedback: The teacher comments on the oral accuracy practice and corrects the errors on time. Objective 5: (Estimated time: 10 minutes) Task: Oral fluency practice Activity and class organization: Group dicussion: The students are divided into 5 groups. Each gorup has a picture of a famous people: Group One: Thomas Jefferson Group Two: Confucious Group Three: Bill Gates Group Four: Nelson R. Mandela Group Five: Mr. Deng Xiaoping Then the students are asked to talk about the stories of the above famous people. Possible problems: The students may not speak fluently. They sometimes may not express themselves clearly. The teacher will provide some information to the students. Feedback:The teacher asks some group leaders to have a presentation of their discussion and comments on their work. Objective 6: (Estimated time: 15 minutes) Task: Writing practice in contrast Activity and class organization: The teacher gives the some key words and then asks the students to have brief discussion about how to write a paragraph. After that, the teacher writes the passage on the blackboard. Then the students are asked to write a passage according to the given topic and key words. Key words: Afred Nobel/ Swedish/ inventor/ industrialist/ bankrupt/ millionaire/ scientist/ literature/ remain/ idealist/ fortune/ somple/ cheerful in company/ sad in private/ mankind/ patriotic/ foreign/ explosive/ hynamite/ peacetime/ weapon/ useful/ useless/ world-fmaous/ personally/ throughout/ avoid/ publicity/ Model paragraph: Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor and industrialist, was a man of many contrasts. He was the son of a bankrupt, but became a millionaire; a scientist with a love of literature, an industrialist who managed to remain an idealist. He made a fortune, but lived a simple life, and although cheerful in company he was often sad in private. A lover of mankind, he never had a wife or family to love him; a patriotic son of his native land, he died alone on foreign soil. He invented a new explosive, dynamite, to improve the peacetime industries of mining and road building, but saw it used as a weapon of war to kill and injure his fellow men. During his useful life, he often felt he was useless. Although he was world-famous for his works, he was never personally well-known, for throughout his life he avoided publicity. Task: Write a passage according to the subject and key words given below. Subject: Lectures and Group Discussion Key words: worthless/ boring/ interesting/ mathematics/ all the time/ whisper/ yawn/ history/ information/ exciting/ different/ opinions Objective 7 (Estimate time: 15 minutes) Task: Writing practice in comparison Activity and class organization: The teacher gives the some key words and then asks the students to have brief discussion about how to write a paragraph. After that, the teacher writes the passage on the blackboard. Then the students are asked to write a passage according to the given topic and key words. Key words: raise/ pet/ involve/ care/ knowledge/ child/ sensitive/ envoronment/ healthy/ tender/ similarly/ require/ physical/ mental/ development/energy/ Model Paragraph: Raising pets involves nearly as much care and knowledge as rwaising children. Friest, both pets and children are sensitive to their envoronment. If a pet is raised on an envoronment of tender, loving care, it will grow faster and be much healthier. The same is true for children, who will be happier and healthier if their parents love and take good care of them. Similarly, proper care of pets requries a basic knowledge. The owner of a pet must know, for example, which food is suitable for the pet, how to avod dieases, etc. Parents, too, must have a basic knowledge of their children’s needs in order to provide what is necessary and enssential for the the best physical and mental development. Finally, the owner of a pet must be willing to provide th best possible care for his pet. The parents must also spend time caring the chidren, such as talking and playing with them. In a word, healthy and happy pets and children are the result of knowledge, energy and extra time. Task: Write a passage according to the subject and key words given below. Subject: Learning and Depositing Money Key word: just as/ step by step/ little by little/ gradually/ work hard/ Feedback: Peer correction and comment on the compositions Homework: Read the text as many times as you can. Next time I’ll ask some of you to retell the text. Write a passage based on the information given on page 183 of this book. The passage should be at least 150 words. Please preview the next texts. That’s the end of the second period. Period Three I. Check the homework: (Estimated time: 20 minutes) Retell the text: Ask three students to retell the text. Check the compositions: Ask three students to read their compositions. II. Move on to Section B Objective 1: (Estimated time: 10 minutes) Task: Topic for discussion Activity and class organization: The teacher asks the students to answer the question: How can you increase your creativity? Possible problems: Some students may just repeat the ways mentioned in the text. Some of them may not have good ideas about this topic, so they may not answer the question smoothly. The teacher will guide them to express themselves clearly. Objective 2: (Estimate time: 20 minutes) Task: Answer questions Activity and class organization: The teacher asks the students to skim and scan the text individually and answer the following questions: What’s the main idea of this passage? How many ways are mentioned in this text about increasing creativity? What are they? What’s the topic sentence of each paragraph? Can you share your opinion between your partner of the writing skill of this section? Possible problems: Some students may not find out the topic sentences correctly. That’s the end of the third period. Period Four Objective 3: (Estimated time 20 minutes) Task: Learn some important language points in Section B Activity and class organization: The students are divided into four groups and they ask each other questions about the important words or sentences or other language points from the text. Pay attention to the following points besides the students’: right away: right off, at once e.g: You must deal with that event right away. emerge: appear e.g: The moon emerged from behind the clouds. scarcely … when: hardly …when; no sooner …than e.g: Scarcely had we got to the station when the train started to move. take advantage of: make use of e.g: They took advantage of the great opportunity and made great progress. Possible problems: The students may not give clear definitions or expressions of the words or sentences asked. The teacher will provide some necessary information. Objective 4: (Estimated time: 10 minutes) Task: Oral accuracy practice Activity and class organization: The teacher and a student have a conversation based on the text: T: Have you ever met somebody who suddenly had a good idea? If you have, who was he and when and where did it occur? S: __________________________________________________. T: Have you yourself ever had a bright idea when you were in trouble? If you have, please tell us the story. S: __________________________________________________. T: What do you think of daydream? Is it positive or negative? S: ___________________________________________________. T: Do you like challenges? Why or why not? S: ____________________________________________________. T: Are you interested in other subjects besides your major? Why? S: _____________________________________________________. Possible problems: The student may have difficulty in expressing himself clearly and make some mistakes. The teacher will give some hints and correct the errors in time. Objective 5: (Estimated time: 18 minutes) Task: Oral fluency practice Activity and class organization: Pair work. The students work in pairs. The conversation they’ll have is based on the one just had between the teacher and the student. Feedback: After the students have practiced for about 10 minutes, the teacher asks some pairs to have a demonstration. Then the teacher and other students give some comments. Homework: (2 minutes) The students are supposed to visit the web site at http://www.famouspeople.com to find two or three famous people and their achievements. Next time, the students will be asked to tell the stories of the famous people. The students will be asked to read Section B carefully and then write a summary of it. That’s the end of the fourth period. Period Five I. Check the homework: (Estimated time: 20 minutes) Five students are asked to tell the stories of the famous people they fuond at the web site. Feedback on the stories: The teacher asks other students to add something new. Then the teacher comments on the work done by the students, pointing out and correcting mistakes if any. Three students are asked to read the summaries they have written based on Section B. Feedback on the summaries. The teacher points out the strong points and weak points of the summaries written by the students. II. Do the exercises of Section B. (Estimated time: 10 minutes) III. Section C Objective 1: (Estmated time: 10 minutes) 1. Task: Topic for discussion: Small findings and great ideas. 2. Activity and class organization: Group work: The teacher gives the students the topic to discuss and then asks some representatives to summarize their opinions. 3. Feedback: The teacher asks the others to comment on the opinions the representatives have given. Then the teacher shares his opinions with the students. Objective 2: (Estimated time: 10 minutes) 1. Task: Understand the text. 2. Activity and class organization: The teacher asks the students to read the text individually and then do the following tasks: Find out the main idea of the text. (Small findings may be great ideas.) Retell the big ideas as many as they can from the text. That’s the end of the fifth period. Period Six Objective 3: (Estimated time: 15 minutes) 1. Task: Learn some important language points. 2. Activity and class organization: In Section C there is not a word list in the end of the text. So it is not easy for the students to paraphrase the words. The students are divided into four groups and they ask and answer questions in turn. The questions are mainly about how to paraphrase some important words and sentences from the text. Then they make some sentences by using the important or new words. The following words and phrases should be attached importance to: discover/ invent/ design damage/ destroy/ ruin apply/ apply for figure out be supposed to do sth. 3.Feedback: The teacher acts as a resource and corrects the mistakes in time. Objective 4: (Estimated time: 15 minutes) 1. Task: Oral practice 2. Activity and class organization: Group work. The teacher gives the students the topic ‘My View on Small Ideas’ to discuss. Then some group leaders will be asked to have a presentation. 3. Feedback: The teacher points out the strong points and weak points and then corrects the mistakes. Objective 5: (Estimated time: 15 minutes) 1. Task: Writing practice 2. Activity and class organization: The students are asked to write a short passage in comparison and contrast by following the model essay. Model Essay: There are some silmilarities and differences between men and women about their appearance. Firstly, both men and women want to have a plesant and good image. They spend some time making up. However, women pay much more attention to their image, and spend more time each day making up. Secondly, both men and women like looking in the mirror. But women look in the mirror more frequently than men do. Thirdly, both men and women know that the appearance of different persons is different. They also know that there is no absolute beautifulness and ugliness. Nevertheless, up to 8 out of 10 women are dissatisfied with their appearance while most men are pleased with theirs. The students are asked to write a passage titled The American People and the British People. Summary of this unit: (Estimated time: 3 minutes) Homework: (Estimated time: 2 minutes) 1. Observe the things which you are familiar with and then form some bright ideas to improve them. 2. Review the whole unit and learn the important information by heart. 3. Previewthe next unnit.