Teaching Aims:
冨 To get the students to know what school life is like in a high school in the UK
冨 To develop studentsˇ reading strategies, especially in skimming and scanning
冨 To help the students learn how to talk about school life
Teaching Important & Difficult Points:
冨 How to make students understand skimming and scanning as well as apply them into practice
冘 Teaching Methods: Discussion in pairs or in groups, Careful reading to understand the passage better
Teaching Aids: a multimedia classroom; a tape-recorder
Teaching Procedures:
Step⒐Greetings and Lead-in.
冘 Say the following to the students:
Yesterday weˇve talked about the differences between the high school lives in the UK and in China. We know well about the high school lives in China, because we are Chinese. But we know a little about the high school lives in the UK. Yeah? Today we are going to read a magazine article which is written by an exchanging student. She has been studying in the UK for one year. Now she gives a clear brief introduction about her school life there. (Bb: School life in the UK)
Before we read the article, we are going to learn the reading strategy: skimming and scanning. Please look at page 3: Reading strategy.
(Bb: the following while learning the reading strategy.)
Skimming: to get a general idea of the article, without studying it in detail. Focus on the titles, headings, the first and last sentences or paragraphs, charts and pictures K
Scanning: to find certain information in an article quickly. Look for key words and phrases, dates and numbers, etc.
Step ⒑Reading
1. Reading strategy
Reading strategy is very important while we are reading a passage. Here, two reading strategies are introduced in this unit. Ask the students to read the ¨reading strategy〃 on P3 and finish the form on the screen.
Reading strategy Purposes Methods
Skimming To get a general idea of what the text is about By looking at the titles and headings, the first and last sentences of paragraphs and the first and last paragraphs as well as pictures and charts to guess what the text is about.
Scanning To find certain information in a text quickly By scanning the text for key words and phrases, dates, numbers, etc.
2. Skimming: To practice the strategy of skimming, the students will finish doing Part A on P2.
Sample answers:
1. WeiHua studied in Britain for one year.
2. The name of WeiHuaˇs class teacher is Mr. Heywood.
3. WeiHua made a table in her woodwork class.
3. Scanning: To practice the strategy of scanning, the students have to finish Part C1 and C2 on P4.
Sample answers to Part C1:
Q1: British schools usually begin at 9 a.m. and end at 3:30 p.m.
Q2: On average, there are 29 students in a class in the UK.
Q3: Because all the homework was in English.
Q4: WeiHua had an extra French class on Tuesday evening.
Q5: They eat lots of deserts after their main meal.
Q6: WeiHua went to Manchester.
Sample answers to Part C2: T T T F F T F
Correct answers: British students always have lesions in different classrooms so they always have different classmates.
British students can choose other languages such as Spanish and German.
WeiHua hopes she can be back to Manchester again.
4. Reading in detail
Let the students discuss in groups and decide the main idea of each paragraph.
Sample answers:
Para 1: Brief feeling and school hour in the UK.
Para 2: School assembly
Para 3: Teacher and class
Para 4: Subjects students learn in the UK
Para 5: School activities
Para 6: School subjects
Para 7: Food and lunchtime break
Para 8: Hope of the author
The next step is to ask the students to scan the text and find out how many parts the text can be divided into and get the main idea for each part.
Part 1(Para1): The authorˇs feeling about staying in a British high school for one year.
Part 2(Para2-7): Different aspects of school life in the UK.
Part 3(Para8): The authorˇs hope.
5. Further understanding of the text
It was really exciting and enjoyable for me to experience school life in the UK for one year. What I like best was that the time I spent at school and there was much homework to do after school. But there was something that is quite like the school in China, that is, if you want to earn respect from the school, you must work hard and achieve high grades.
My class there was quite small with only 29 students. This is the average size for British schools. It was interesting that we kept changing classrooms for different classes. The teachers there were all very helpful. My favorite teacher was Miss Burke, who taught us English Literature. At first it was a bit challenging for me to do all the homework in English. But as time went on, my English was greatly improved and I enjoyed all my subjects. Students there have to study Maths, English and Science, but can drop some subjects they donˇt like. On Tuesday evenings, I even had an extra French class. We also had some subjects that I donˇt have in China, such as Cooking and Woodwork.
I think I was lucky to have a chance to study in the UK. And I miss all my classmates and teachers there very much.
Step ⒒ Words
After reading the passage, Iˇm sure you had a general understanding of the whole article. Now listen to the tape and try to find the words in Part D on P4, and try to match them.
Sample answers: 1 d 2g 3 a 4 e 5 b 6 c 7 f
After the match work, Part E is used as a consolidation of the words in the passage.
Sample answers: experience, Literature, desserts, headmaster, different, life, preparing
Step ⒓ Discussion
Topic: Nowadays, more and more young students are going abroad to study. What effects will the new school life have on them?
One sample answer:
Advantages: 1. Widen their views. 2. Improve their English. 3. Learn to be independent and cooperate with others. 4. Learn about foreign customs and cultures. 5. Let the foreigners learn about China and attract them to invest in China. 6. Learn advanced technology.
Disadvantages: 1. Cost a lot of money and cause a heavy burden to their parents. 2. Feel homesick. 3. Form bad habits. 4. Stay in a foreign country and refuse to come back.
Step ⒔Homework.
冨 Read and remember the new words appears from page2 to page 5 (from attend to immediately) at page 68.
冨 Read the two articles in reading on pages 82 and 83 in WB and answers the questions below them.
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