A Taste of English Humor
單元教學目標
Talk about different types of humor；a taste of English humor
Learn how to express one’s emotions
Learn the –ing form as the Predicative, Attributive and Object Complement
Learn to write humorous stories
目標語言
話題 Different types of humor; a taste of English humor
詞匯 1. 四會詞匯：
slide, skin, cruel, content, astonish, particular, entertain, entertaining, throughout,
homeless, worn-out, failure, overcome, difficulty, boil, fortunate, snowstorm, chew, bottom, mouthful, direct, star, outstanding, Switzerland, fortune, swing, pancake, mountainous, whisper, vast, sense
2. 詞組：
be content with, badly off, pick out, cut off, star in, knock into
功能 情感 ( Emotion )
I enjoy this very much because… It surprises me that…
I laugh at that kind of thing because… I felt happy because…
This is fun because… I’m pleased we were both amused at…
How wonderful / surprising It’s amusing that…
語法 動詞的-ing 形式作表語，定語和賓語補足語的用法
Their job is “panning for gold”.
That was the problem facing Charlie Chaplin.
Do you find it funny to see someone sliding on a banana skin?
課時分配
1st Period Reading
2nd Period Speaking
3rd Period Grammar
4th Period Listening
5th Period Writing
6th Period Summary
分課時教案
The First Period
Teaching aims: Enable students to talk about some types of English humor and Chinese humor.
Key points: Help students learn how to understand and enjoy English humors.
Difficult points: Help students know the differences between English and Chinese in humor.
Teaching aids: pictures
Teaching procedure:
Step 1: Lead-in
Show some pictures to students, let them talk about the pictures and then ask them what they think of the pictures, whether they are funny or not.
Questions: 1) Do you know who these comedians are? What makes them funny?
2) Do you know other comedians who are funny in the same way?
3) Have you seen any of these comedians or programmers? What do you think of them?
Step 2: Warming up
Task 1. Brain-storming
Ask students to name some types of humors they know. Write those they are not familiar with on the blackboard, then show some pictures and summarize.
Types of humor Example of English humor Chinese humor
Nonverbal Charlie Chaplin Pantomimes（啞劇）劉全和，劉全利
Mime and farce Mr. Bean Funny plays 陳佩斯，趙本山
Verbal jokes Play on words, usually Cross talk 馬季， 姜昆
Funny stories Two lines Jokes
Funny poems Edward Lear Doggerel（打油詩）
Task 2. Talking
Ask students to talk about some funny stories, any English or Chinese humors they know.
Task 3. Reading on P22
The purpose of the reading is to introduce the kind of verbal jokes. They use a “play on words” to be funny. Let students read the three jokes and then match the joke with the explanation. Then check the answer. After that, teacher can show some other jokes on the screen.
Joke 1:
Patient: Doctor, I’ve lost my memory.
Doctor: When did this happen?
Patient: When did what happen?
Joke 2:
Garcia: Thank you doctor. My fever is gone.
Doctor: Don’t thank me. Thank God.
Garcia: Then I will pay the fees to God.
Step 3 Homework
Ask each student to give a joke and present it in class next period.
The Second Period Reading
Teaching aims: Enable students to learn what humor means and what is nonverbal humor.
Key points: Help students divide the text into several parts according to the meaning.
Difficult points: Divide the paragraphs and give the main ideas.
Teaching aids: A recorder and a projector
Teaching procedure:
Step 1. Revision
Check homework: ask students to present their jokes in class.
Step 2. Pre-reading
Questions: (1) What do you like to laugh at?
(2 ) What does humor mean? Is humor always kind?
Give students some time to discuss. The purpose is to help students know that different people have different taste about humor. It is difficult to say which one is better or which one is worse.
Step 3. Reading
The purpose of this reading is to introduce nonverbal humor. This reading material takes Charlie Chaplin for example. It tells us what nonverbal humor means; what is Charlie Chaplin’s style of acting; how he made a sad situation entertaining and so on.
Task 1. Divide the text into several parts according to the meaning.
Part One: the first and the second paragraph
Part Two: the third and the fourth paragraph
Part Three: the last paragraph
Task 2. Give the main idea of each part
The main idea of part one: It tells us that there are two kinds of humor. One is bad, while the other can inspire people.
The main idea of part two: It tells us something about Charlie Chaplin’s acting style and how Charlie Chaplin made a sad situation entertaining.
The main idea of part three: it gives us a short biography about Charlie Chaplin.
Task 3. Discussion
Let students have a discussion about the text, then answer some questions.
Questions: (1) What is behind fun?
(2 ) Why did people like Little Tramp?
(3 ) Do you think Charlie Chaplin’s eating boiled shoes funny? Why?
Step 4 Language points
1. content (adj.): satisfied, happy, not wanting any more
phrases: content with sth; content to do sth
e.g. (1) She is quite content to stay at home looking after her children.
(2 ) Are you content with your present salary?
Content (n.): that which is contained in sth
e.g. I like the style of her writing but I don’t like the content.
2. inspire sb. ( with sth.) inspire sth. (in sb.): To fill sb. with thoughts, feelings or aims.
e.g. His speech inspired us with hope.
3. badly off: in a poor position, esp. financially
The opposite is “ well off”
e.g. (1) They are too badly off to have a holiday.
(2 ) In fact most people are better off than they were five years ago.
Step 5 Practice
Finish the exercises on page 18, 19, it is a good time to consolidate the whole content of the text and the useful words and expressions from the text. It is easy for most students to finish. So leave students several minutes to finish and check the answers by showing them on the screen.
Step 6 Homework
Preview grammar by finishing Exercises 3, 4 on page 20, all the exercises on page 21.
The Third Period Grammar
Teaching aims: Enable students to learn how to use the –ing form as the attribute, the object complement and the predicative.
Key points: Let students know the structures of the sentences with the –ing form
Difficult points: Help students to tell the –ing form as the predicative and the use of the present continuous tense.
Teaching aids: A computer
Teaching procedure:
Step 1. Revision
Check homework: the exercises on page 20 and 21.
Step 2. Word formation
Suffix Example
-able valuable lovable comfortable
-ing amusing misleading neighboring
-ful hopeful cheerful useful
-less endless homeless harmless
-ed excited interested moved
-ish Irish childish selfish
-ive active attractive expensive
-ate fortunate affectionate passionate
-ant important pleasant ignorant
-ly friendly orderly costly
There are ten suffixes in the chart. And there are some new words in it. But the purpose of showing this chart is to let students learn more about the adjective suffix.
Step 3. Discovering useful structures
Task 1. Revision
Have a revision about the –ing form used as the subject and object. Give students some sentences to translate:
(1) Talking to him is useless.
(2) Smoking does harm to your health.
(3) Walking is my sole exercise.
(4) Collecting stamps is my hobby.
(5) I suggested bringing the meeting to an end.
(6) He admitted taking the money.
(7) I couldn’t help laughing.
(8) Your coat needs washing.
Task 2. New usage of the –ing form
Ask students to look at the Exercises 4 on page 20. And then wake in pairs to finish the exercises.
Teacher checks the answers and give the explanations.
(1) A cooking pot: A pot that is used for cooking.
(2) A drinking horse: A horse that is drinking water.
(3) The man sitting on the sofa is a friend of my brother’s.
Here the –ing form are used as attribute.
(4) I saw the man sliding on a banner skin yesterday.
(5) Did you notice the man picking up that broken bottle and putting it in his bag?
Hear the –ing form are used as object complement The structure of the sentence with an object complement is:
Subject + Predicate + Object + Object complement
(6) Her job is looking after babies.
(7) What he likes is playing chess after supper.
Here the –ing form are used as predictive. Pay attention to the differences between –ing form used as predicative and present continuous tense.
(1) Her hobby is painting.
(2) Her favorite sport is skiing.
(3) This was very disappointing.
(4) The test results are very discouraging.
(5) She was very pleasing in her appearance.
(6) His concern for his mother is very touching.
(7) The photograph is missing.
(8) The article was misleading, and the newspaper has apologized.
In the first two sentences, the –ing form is used to show the character of the subject. In the next four sentences the words of the –ing form are all about the feelings. In the last two sentences, the words of the –ing form show some states and qualities.
(9) It is snowing hard.
(10) She is teaching in a night school.
In these two sentences, the –ing form are used as the predicate in the present continuous tense.
Step 4. Using Structures
Turn to page 56. Look at the Using Structure. There are two exercises in this part. Exercise 1 is to let students correct some errors in the sentences. This is not an easy job for most students, because it needs other knowledge, besides what the students learned today. So better leave them more time to do this exercise. For exercise 2, let students finish it in a short time. With the help of the pictures, students can easily understand the meaning and correctly use the –ing form to finish the blanks. Teacher can check the answers in class.
Step 4. Homework
Finish all exercises on page 56.
The Fourth Period Listening
Teaching aims: Enable students to understand the humor in the listening material.
Key points: Train the students to get the key wards by reading the questions before listening.
Difficult points: Get the main idea from the listening materials while listening.
Teaching aids: A recorder
Teaching procedure:
Step 1. Revision
Check homework: (1) Ask a couple of students to tell their jokes in class.
(2 ) Ask some students to come to the blackboard to write their translation. After they have finished, teacher correct some errors with the whole class.
Step 2. Listening ( page 23 )
This is a funny story. Mary made some plum jam and left some in the pan. Five days later, her husband came home and poured the jam into the chicken. Later Mary came home and found all of her chickens were behaving strangely. What had happened? Give students two chances to listen to the story. First, go through Exercise1 and 2 to know what are the things they will do while listening. After that teacher plays the tape for them to finish Exercise 1. The second listening is to check the answers. For Exercise 2, teacher should leave some time for students to discuss the question.
Questions: (1) Did you find this story funny? Give the reason.
(2 ) What do you think of John’s behavior?
Step 2. Listening ( page 55 )
This is a story about a thief and a man. The situation is very interesting. Before listening, ask students what they would do if they find a thief in their home one day; whether they will be afraid of the thief and so on.
There are three steps for this listening. At first let students read the questions to make sure that they know what they should do in this listening. Next, play the tape for the first time to let students finish Exercise 1. Then play the tape again and let the students finish the questions in Exercise 2. After that, let the students check their answers with each other. At last, listen to the tape again, teacher can make a pause where there is an question to the question, in this way students can check all the answers.
Step 3. Listening ( page 58 )
There are four exercises in this listening. The first one requests students to get the general idea of the material. The second one is to ask the students to know some details of the material. The third one is a question that asks the students to speculate the teacher’s feeling. And the last one is a good exercise, it gives the students another chance to practice their oral English.
Step 4. Homework
Collect as many funny stories as possible, do some preparations for the writing in the next period.
The Fifth Period Writing
Teaching aims: Help the students learn how to write funny stories using the target language and according to the writing steps.
Key points: Teach students to write according to the writing of the writing steps.
Difficult points: Help students make up a dialogue, using the target language.
Teaching aid: A projector
Teaching procedure:
Step 1. Revision
Check homework: Ask several students to read their funny stories in class.
Step 2. Writing ( page 23 )
Give students some instructions on writing a funny story.
1) Writing down your story in a logical order.
2) For each of your story try to find the most interesting words you can to describe how you felt or what was happing.
3) Then write out your story using these interesting words.
4) Read through your story.
5) Then show it to your partner. Let him/ her suggest some new and exciting words.
6) Write out the story and put it into a class collection of stories.
Give students enough time to finish the task and give them enough help in the writing. Tell them to give the outline first, then finish the story.
Step 3. Talking
Task 1. Show students some pictures. Ask them to describe the pictures and explain what is happening, whether it is funny or not.
Task 2. Imagine you want to play a trick on someone, maybe an April Fool’s trick. Work with partners, think up a funny thing and share it with the class.
Step 4. Speaking and writing task
This is a chance for students to learn limericks. It has only five lines. Three of them are longer than the other two. The longer lines all rhyme with each other and the shorter ones rhyme with each other. When introducing the poems, teacher read them first, and let the students enjoy the beauty of the rhyme. And at the same time point out that there must be two sets of rhyming words in the same poem, so the students can grasp the main feature of the poem.
After reading, ask students to tell the rhyme of the first and the second poem. Let students read the poems several times and feel it. Find more limericks for students to enjoy.
Give students some instructions on how to write a poem, let them think of rhyming words before writing. They need two sets of rhyming words.
Step 5. Homework
1) Finish Exercise 5 on Page 20.
2) Make a summary about what has been learnt in this unit.
The Six Period Summary
Teaching aims: 1) Learn to express the sentences that are connected with the positive and negative view of the same thing. 2) Make a summary about what has been learnt in this unit.
Key points: Sum up what we have learnt in this unit.
Difficult points: Sum up what we have learnt in this unit.
Teaching aids: A projector
Teaching procedure:
Step 1. Revision
Check homework: Ask students to present their dialogue in class.
Step 2. Reading
This reading task gives us another joke. The title is “An April fool’s joke: The Noodle Harvest”. Ask students to read the sentence : “A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.” After reading, explain the meaning of the sentence. (The meaning is that the thing is the same, but the way to treat it is different between a fool and a wise man.)
Give students some time to read the passage, then answer some questions and retell the whole story.
Questions: 1) What do children usually do on April Fool’s Day?
2) Why did people believe the programme Panorama?
3) Do you think the advice that the BBC gave people who asked how to grow noodle trees was serious? Give a reason..
4) What would you do to find out whether a story like this was true?
Step 3. Project
Ask students to make their own collection of jokes, funny poems or short stories. They can be the ones that they enjoy in the books that they have read. Make sure they add either a joke, a funny poem or a funny short story of their own. Copy them into a book and display it in the class so that all your classmates can enjoy them.
Step 4. Summing up
This is a summary about what they have learned in the unit. Leave students some time to finish the frame. Then teacher give students a dictation about the useful words and expressions.
功能句式：
1. I enjoy this very much because….
2. I laugh at that kind of thing because…
3. This is fun because….
4. How wonderful / surprising！
5. It surprises me that…
6. I’m pleased we were both amused at…
7. I felt happy because…
8. It’s amusing that…
語法：
1. Word formation
2. The –ing form of the verb used as predicative, attribute and object complement.
重點句子：
1. Do you find it funny to see someone sliding on a banana skin, bumping into someone else round a Conner, or filling down a hole in the end.
2. Perhaps it makes us feel more content with our life…
3. He became famous for using a particular form of acting, including mime and farce.
4. But he was lived by all who watched the film for his determination in overcoming difficulties and being kind even when people were unkind to him.
5. Imagine you are hungry and all there is to eat is boiled shoe.
6. He solved it by using nonverbal humor.
7. Their job is “panning for gold”.
8. This was the problem facing Charlie Chaplin in one of his most famous films.
Translate the following sentences into Chinese and pay attention to the use of the –ing form.
1. The two comedians performing on the stage are from Liaoning Province.
2. Who is the girl walking by the river.
3. The children playing the violin will give a performance next week.
4. The man with sunglass standing near the car is a cross talk artist.
5. The old lady talking to the children is a famous musician.
6. I saw a group of policemen coming out of a green jeep and running to the building.
7. I saw a dog carrying a piece of meat entering your garden.
8. I heard her singing a beautiful song at the party last night.
9. I got frightened when I saw a man playing with a snake in the park.
10. There were some boys shouting and crying under my window, so I could not fall asleep.
Step 5. Check yourself
1. Do you find it difficult to understand English humor? Why?
2. What role do you thing humor plays in your life?
3. What language points have you learned in this unit?
4. How well have you done in the exercises on the –ing form?
5. Did you have any problems in understanding this unit? How did you solve them?
Step 6. Homework
Do some preparations for unit 4.