高中英语人教大纲第三册：Unit8 Lerning foreign lnguge(第一课时).doc

Unit 8Learning a foreign language.Brief Statements Based on the UnitAs we all know,English is widely used in the world today.It is becoming an international language.In our country,English is taught as one of the main subjects in all middle schools.How can we learn English well so as to master it?After you learn this unit,you will surely find your answer.Unit 8 “Learning a foreign language”,is a great help to the students who are now studying English.At the beginning,in Warming up,twenty-one methods of learning English are listed to let the students tell which are the most important and which are the second important.In discussing these methods,the students will judge and accept some of them.In addition,in Speaking,the students are required to give advice to six of their classmates,who all have difficulty in learning English.In the course of giving advice,the students can tell which way is the best and which they should avoid.While they are discussing and giving advice,their speaking ability will be improved greatly.In Listening,the students will be asked to listen to a radio show,called “Students Corner”.Two listening passages show different topics to let the students discuss.When they finish the exercise,the students will improve their listening ability.In Reading,the text “Learning a foreign language:twice as hard?”is interesting,instructive and practical.By comparing learning mother tongue with learning foreign language,the students will realize that they are two different matters.In the fifth paragraph,the author describes how the successful language students learn a foreign language.The good ways to learn a foreign language are what most of the students want.At last,the article encourages the students to adopt the good method mentioned in the text and develop their own study skills.If so,everyone of them will become a successful language learner.Learning a foreign language will in fact become twice as easy and a lot of fun.A lot of useful words and expressions are contained in the text and exercises.So we must say that after learning the text,the students reading ability as well as the ability to use useful words and expressions will be improved.In Word Study,different exercises give the students a good chance to master and apply the useful words and expressions appearing in the unit.In Grammar,different exercises are designed to get the students to further master the grammar item:the Subjunctive Mood.The last part of this unit,Integrating Skills is made up of two parts.One tells the students how to study abroad.From the demands to become an exchange student,advantages and disadvantages of doing this,to the detailed steps of going abroad,the author shows all these clearly.The other part requires the students to fill out an application and write an essay,telling us briefly about themselves and the reason why they want to go abroad.The students writing ability will gradually be improved in the course of doing all this part.Teaching Goals1.Talk about learning and study skills.2.Practise talking about attitudes and motivation.3.Practise giving advice.4.Review the Subjunctive Mood().5.Write a personal essay.Background InformationThe Way to Learn EnglishNow,have you all got your dictionaries?Yes?Well,pick them up and put them in the waste paper basket.Yes,the wastepaper basket.Thats how an American professor at one of Chinas leading universities used to start her English reading course.And she got excellent results.The greatest harm done to students of English in China is Intensive Reading.I.R.is not really reading at all.Its analyzing.It teaches students not to read but to use dictionaries and grammar books.It teaches very bad study habits which are hard to break.It does more harm than good.Chinese students read too slowly.The students of my class could read only about 150 words a minute at the beginning of the course.But the minimum requiement for an undergraduate college student is to read 300 words a minute.They may know every single word in a passage of English,but not grasp the meaning of the passage as a whole.If you read fast,you understand better.If you read too slowly,by the time youve reached the end of a page,youve forgotten what the beginning is about.Fast reading makes you concentrate on ideas.Intensive Reading makes you see the trees but not the wood.Through I.R. you may learn a little vocabulary but you wont gain much information.Through Extensive Reading you can learn a lot of vocabulary and gain a lot of information.What if you come across new words?Dont look them up in the dictionary.Guess their meaning from the context.You may not guess quite right the first time;but as new words come up again and again in different contexts their meaning becomes clearer and clearer.If they dont come up often,theres no hurry about learning them.Theyre probably not important.You must get into the habit of guessing boldly.But dont guess wildly.Guess with the help of your knowledge of grammar.Chinese students know plenty of grammar.Perhaps too much.But above all,guess from the context.Thats the way to build up your vocabularynot poring over dictionaries or making lists of words and memorizing them out of context.If you look up every new word,youll never finish a book.Depend on your brain,not your dictionary.Perhaps in China today a little I.R. may be unavoidable.Why?Partly because for the moment we havent enough Extensive Reading books.Also because many of the books we have are hidden away on library shelves,gathering dust,instead of being brought out into the light of day where the students can get them.Almost 300 years ago.Swift,the author of“Gullivers Travels”,wrote a work called“The Battle of the Books”.What we need today is a “Liberation War of the Books”,to liberate the books from the library shelves.We also need more simplified books;and more unsimplified books originally written in simple language.That doesnt mean that the content should be childish.Its no good giving childrens books to grown-up students.So our schools and educational departments need to assign a large staff to writing and simplifying books for Extensive Reading suited to different age levels and language levels.It might be best to have native speakers of English take part in this work and be hard to avoid Chinese-English.Meanwhile,if I.R. is allowed to exist,it should be cut down on size,put in its place,kept under control.It should not take up much of the students or the teachers time.It certainly should not be allowed such an unfair share of the timetable as it has now.Much talk by the teacher and little practice by the student is no way to teach language.It only teaches about language.And that is dangerous,for merely learning about language gives the student a false impression.It gives him the feeling that he knows the language when he doesnt.Knowing without using is not knowing it at all.Its deceiving oneself(but it doesnt deceive others).In fact its very good to be able to appreciate good style.In fact this appreciation of other peoples style helps one to achieve good style oneselfbut only after one has experience of using the languagenot just hearing a teacher explain it.In other words what is needed to the first two years of language study,is not hours of so-called Intensive Reading,but hours and hours of something else:Oral or Written Practice.The more of that,the better.Intensive Reading as it is generally taught is not a practice course;it is a lecture course.And nobody ever learnt a foreign language by listening to lectures on grammar and vocabulary.Teaching Time:Four PeriodsThe First PeriodTeaching Aims:1.Talk about learning and study skills.Enable the students to further understand what is important in the study of a foreign language.2.Practise giving advice.Through practising giving advice enable the students to find a better way to learn English.Teaching Important Points:1.Enable the students to acquire a good way to learn a foreign language and raise their interest of studying English.2.Improve the students speaking ability by class activities such as talking,discussing,etc.Teaching Difficult Points:How to improve the students speaking ability efficiently.Teaching Methods:1.Talking method to enable the students to express themselves freely.2.Pair work or group work to make every student active in class.3.Careful listening to improve the students listening ability.Teaching Aids:1.a computer2.a courseware3.a tape recorderTeaching Procedures:Step GreetingsGreet the whole class as usual.Step Warming upT:Do you like English?Ss:Yes,very much.T:Do you find it hard or easy?Ss:We find it hard.T:In this class,well talk about learning English first.Open your books at Page 64.Look at Warming up.Please read this part carefully and see what you should do next.You can have a discussion with your partner or in a group.A few minutes later,well talk about it.(A few minutes later.)T:Are you ready?Ss:Yes,we are.T:Now please tell us which of the things listed above are the most important when you are learning English and why you think so.S1:I like English and Im interested in studying English.I think that memorizing new words and useful expressions very important.Without large quantities of words and expressions,you can neither listen to nor speak,nor read or write English.S2:I think learning study skills is important as well.Take memorizing new words as an example,you should not memorize them word by word.I mean,it is not a good way only to remember many words but not to know how to use them.A lot of useful expressions are as important as the English words.The words“cut” “out”and “up”are common to every English learners,but the phrases “cut up” and “cut out”are perhaps unknown to some English learners.If you can not remember a word or a phrase,try to remember a sentence which contains it.In this way,you can remember them easier.S3:I think to talk with my classmates or some other person is a good way to practise spoken English.Choose any topic and talk with anybody at any time,including my classmates,my friends or relatives.When we talk with someone,we should try to use as many English words as we can to express us or our opinions so as to make him/her understand.This is a good way to learn and apply English.S4:I think listening to the tape is important.If we often listen to the tape,we can correct our pronunciation and intonation,and improve our listening ability.Thus,we can learn English not only from books,but from the radio,TV and English films.S5:I think besides the good ways above,to make a study plan is another good way to learn English.Whatever we do,we should do it orderly.We have much to do every day,especially as middle school students.If we cant arrange the things we should do orderly,well waste some of our time and leave some of them undone.S6:I think practising writing in English is one of the most important ways to learn English.If we can keep on writing an English diary or sending an e-mail to our friends or classmates,we can review the useful words and expressions we have learned,improving our writing ability.S7:I think listening to the teacher is very important.In and out of class,our English teacher gives us many chances to let us listen to,speak,read and write English.He often tells us some good ways to learn English.If we can do as the teacher tells us to in class and finish the assignments the teacher asks us to do on time,Im sure we can learn English better and better.S8I think talking to native English speakers must be a good way to learn English.If we have a native English speaker to work and study together,things must be quite different.We can communicate with each other as we like.Whatever he says will be a help to our English study.Any interesting topic is a good chance to practise our spoken English.He is sure to tell us more about English and England.I was told several days ago that an Englishman would come to our school and work as a teacher to teach us English.All of us are glad to hear that.T:So much for this topic.Most of us like English because we know that English is a useful tool in the modern world and in international affairs.Where there is a will,there is a way.I hope all of us stick to it and work hard at it.In that way,we will be able to master it and use it in our future work.Step ListeningT:Lets do listening.You are going to listen to a radio show called“Students Corner”.This is a call-in show in which people can call and ask questions about the topic being discussed.Before listening to the tape,lets see what we should do after we listen to the two parts.Now turn to Page 65,read the request,please.(After the students read the request.)T:Do you know what you should do after you listen to the passage?(Ss:Yes.)Ill play the tape three times.When I play it for the first time,just listen.After I play it for the second time,Ill give you enough time to write your answers.If you have anything you are not clear about,please listen to it for the third time.At last,Ill ask some students to give their answers.Please be ready.Lets begin.Step SpeakingT:Please look at Speaking on Page 65.Suppose some of your group members have some problems in learning English.Work in groups and help them solve their problems.What advice will you give them?Have a discussion in groups of four and make notes of what you say.A few minutes later,well share your answers with the class.(A few minutes later.)T:Are you ready?Ss:Yes.T:Who will give some advice to Wang Lei?S9:I will.Wang Lei,you say that it is difficult to remember new words.I once had the same problem as you.With the help of a friend of mine,I gradually find some good ways to remember English words.Remembering is a process of repeating.We should not read or write an English word again and again.Doing some English exercises or reading some English newspapers,magazines or stories are all good ways to review English words.You can also try to make sentences or copy some good sentences which you are interested in from a dictionary as long as it includes the new words you want.Youll not be tired of doing this.Put a new word in a phrase or a sentence,and you can remember it easier.Besides,pay your attention to the English words on things we use every day.That will increase your collection of English words.Try the ways above and youll succeed.Thank you.S10:(To Li Qiang.)You say you are not interested in studying English.I think you should not do so.“A foreign language is a weapon in the struggle of life.We often say well make a contribution to our motherland.We have a long way to go,so you should not give up the“weapon”.You liked English once.So I think you should find the reason why you are not making progress.For example,English words are hard to remember or you have difficulty in speaking English,etc.When you find the reason,have a discussion with your friends or your teacher.Then youll find a way to solve the problem.Im sure youll make greater and greater progress.S11:(To Fang Zhe.)I think we can improve our spoken English from two sides.Firstly,dont be shy.To a certain topic we are discussing you should say whatever you want to say.Perhaps youre afraid youll make mistakes.I think every one of us can make a mistake.Most of our classmates are