I. Brief Statements Based on the Unit
Every one of us has a friend or some friends in our daily life. But what is a good friend? What should a good friend be like? What qualities should a good friend have? This unit just deals with such topics. There are three questions which talks about what qualities a good friend should have in the part of Warming Up. Listening part provides students with a dialogue among friends. It tells us that friends should help each other, and that sometimes friends have contradictions between them and how to solve their contradictions. Speaking part supplies some oral materials about self-introduction to students. Reading part is a narrative story which is about the plot of the American film “Cast Away”. The questions of Pre-reading and Post-reading benefit to train students’ abilities to think and distinguish.
In the aspect of Language Study, teacher should let students further understand new words, in particular master learning methods of words through the contest. As to the grammar “Direct Speech and Indirect Speech”, students should master their changes between them. The part of integrating skills designs a real assignment “sending an e-mail”. It’s very useful and popular with students, because it presses close to students’ life. Teacher should help students master such skills.
II. Teaching aims and demands
Category Contents based on the new course standard
Topics 1. Talk about friends and friendship
2. Discuss problems occurring in a friendship and suggest solutions
3. Write an e-mail to find an e-pal
Functions 1. Likes and dislikes
He/She likes/ loves… He/She is fond of …
My interests / favourite hobbies are reading and singing.
He/She doesn’t like…
He/She doesn’t enjoy … He / She hates …
He / She thinks … is terrible / boring.
2 Making apologies
You said that you would …
Why did / didn’t you …?
You promised to … Why didn’t you …?
Please forgive me.
I’m very sorry … It won’t happen again.
I’m sorry I forgot.
Words and expressions. Honest brave loyal wise handsome smart argue classical fond match mirror fry gun hammer saw rope movie cast deserted hunt share sorrow feeling airplane lie(n.) speech adventure notebook error fond of hunt for in order to care about such as drop somebody a line
Grammar Direct Speech and Indirect Speech(1)
1. to report what someone said-The Declarative Sentence
“I like reading adventure stories,” said John.→
John said that he liked reading adventure stories.
“I don’t enjoy computers,” Sarah said to her friends.→
Sarah told her friends that she didn’t enjoy computers.
2. to report what someone felt uncertain about –The General Question
“Ann, have you seen my blue notebook?” Peter asked. →
Peter asked Ann if she had seen his blue notebook.
3 to report what someone asked-The Special Question
“What differences does it make?” Peter asked Jim. →
Peter asked Jim what differences it made.
III. Teaching time: four Periods
IV. Background Information
1. How to be a friend
Too many people want others to be their friends, but they don’t give friendship back. That is why some friendships don’t last very long. To have a friend, you must learn to be one. You must learn to treat your friend the way you want your friend to treat you. Learning to be a good friend means learning three rules: be honest, be generous, be understanding.
Honesty is where a good friendship starts. Friends must be able to trust one another. If you don’t tell the truth, people usually find out. If a friend finds out that you haven’t been honest you may lose your friend’s trust. Good friends always count on one another to speak and act honestly.
Generosity means sharing and sharing makes a friendship grow. You don’t have to give your lunch , money clothes, of course. Instead you have to learn how to share things you enjoy, like your hobbies and your interests. Naturally you will want to share your ideas and feelings. These can be very valuable to a friend. They tell your friend what is important to you. By sharing them you help your friend know you better.
Sooner or later everyone needs understanding and help with a problem. Something may go wrong at school. Talking about the problem can make it easier to solve. Turning to a friend can be a first step in solving the problem. So to be a friend you must listen and understand. You must try to put yourself in your friend’s place so you can understand the problem better.
No two friendships are ever exactly alike. But all true friendships have three things in common. If you plan to keep your friends, you must practice honesty, generosity and understanding.
2 Real Friendship
by Rachel Chastain
You know you have a friend for life when they answer your phone at one o’clock in the morning because you can’t sleep and have a lot on your mind, and they don’t mind talking about nothing to get your mind off everything.
When they spare some time to spend with you.
When you know that if something bad happened to you they’d be there for you, no questions asked.
When you can look at them when something is wrong and they know it just by the look in your eyes and all they have to do is offer a hug and you feel a thousand times better.
When you know that they’d never lie to you, and would never hurt you, and if they did, it would only be for your betterment.
When they make you laugh when skies are the darkest; and they’re there with a good movie and some popcorn when you’re totally depressed.
And even if you’re a thousand miles apart, it doesn’t matter because what you share with this friend is so much deeper than what lies on top that distance plays no role in your friendship.
Friendship is when they push when you need it, but never too hard; and stands back when the time is right but never too far.
When you feel life is so much better because you know them, and they bring out the best of you that lies with.
The First Period
Teaching Aims:
1. Learn and master the following words:
quality, honest, brave, loyal, wise, handsome, smart, introduce
Phrases:
be fond of
Sentence Pattern:
So/Nor + link (modal or auxiliary) verb + subject
2. Train the students’ listening ability
3. Improve the students’ speaking ability by describing, talking and discussion.
Teaching Important Points:
1. Train the students’ listening ability.
2. Master the new phrase and sentence pattern and make the students be free to talk about their names, ages, hobbies and so on.
Teaching difficult Points:
How to improve the students’ listening ability.
How to finish the task of speaking.
Teaching Methods:
1. Listening-and-answering activity to help the students go through with the listening material.
2. Individual, pair or group work to make every student work in class.
Teaching Aids:
1. a tape recorder 2. a projector 3. the blackboard
Teaching Procedures:
Step I Greetings and Lead-in
T: Good morning/afternoon, everyone.
Ss: Good morning/afternoon, teacher.
T: Sit down, please. Now you’re Senior Middle students. From now on I’m your English teacher. I’m very glad to know you and willing to give you lessons. First let’s introduce each other. All right? Do you know “introduce”? (Bb: introduce) “introduce” means “to make known for the first time to each other or someone else”. So I introduce myself to you now. My name is …. What about you? Hello, what’s your name? Nice to know you.
(Go around the class and get individual Ss to introduce themselves.)
T: Yeah, from now on we have known each other. Maybe I’m not only your teacher, but also your good friend in future. Do you think so?
Ss: Yes.
Step II Warming up
T: Today we’re going to learn Unit 1 “Good friends”.
(Bb: Unit 1 Good friends The First Period) “The first period”. First, let’s look at some words.
(Show the following on the screen)
quality honest brave wise loyal smart handsome
Kind, happy, strong, beautiful, rich, funny
(Teacher teaches the words in the first box and explains them, and says the following.)
T: OK. Now I want you to discuss two questions.
1. What should a good friend be like?
2. What qualities should a good friend have?
(Bb: Write them on the blackboard.)
Yeah, please discuss them in groups of four. After a while, everyone is asked to make a sentence using the words in these boxes on the screen. Of course, you can use other words if you like. Is that clear?
Ss: Yes.
T: OK. Please discuss these questions.
(After a while, teacher asks some students to describe a good friend. If time permitting, teacher may ask more students to answer.)
T: Ok. Time is up. Who wants to say first?
S1: I think a friend should be kind and honest.
S2: A good friend is someone who makes me happy.
S3: A good friend should be loyal, wise and brave.
S4: I think a good friend should be smart, kind and funny. When I am bored, he can entertain me. When I am lonely, he keeps me company.
…
T: Very good. Your opinions are all right. Now who can describe yourself in three adjectives? You try please.(Teacher comes to one student.)
S: I think I am beautiful, strong and wise.
T: What about you? (Teacher comes to one boy)
S: Yeah, I think, first I’m honest, and I’m well educated, of course I’m handsome.
…
Step III Listening
T: Now please turn to Page 2. Let’s do some listening. You are going to hear two friends arguing. What are they arguing about? How to solve their problems? It needs your listening. Write down what you hear. At last I’ll check the answers with the whole class. Is that clear?
Ss: Yes.
T: OK. Let’s begin. (Teacher plays the tape for the first time. Then play for the second time, and during this time, teacher may pause for students to write down the information. Play some parts of the tape more times if necessary. Finally teacher checks the answers with the whole class.)
Suggested answers:
1 Peter is often late for football practice. I think that he should try to be on time in the future.
2 Ann usually borrows things without asking and she doesn’t return things on time. She should ask the owner if she wants to borrow something and try to return it on time in the future.
3 Adam borrowed John’s CD player yesterday and now it is broken. Adam can ask his uncle to fix it.
T: OK. Now please turn to Page 85. Let’s listen to another passage. Then fill in the blanks in Part 1. (After a while teacher checks the answers.)
Suggested solution:
1 Solution: Try to understand your friend/ Try to talk about the problem in a different way.
2 Solution: Start by telling each other that you are sorry and take it from there. A simple apology is often enough.
3 Solution: Keep your secrets to yourself.
Step IV Speaking
T: Now I’d like to know something about your favourite hobbies. (Teacher comes up to one boy.) What are your favourite hobbies?
S1: I love football and hiking. I also like reading a lot. I think reading can make people rich and wise.
T: Yeah, what about you?
S2: I enjoy computers and music. I often surf the Internet and listen to some pop music. But I don’t like classical music.
(Teacher may ask more students to answer.)
T: Yes, we know different persons can have different hobbies. Now look at the part –“Speaking” on Page 2. You are given four minutes to read the following self-introduction. After that, fill in the following form.
(Show the form on the screen)
Name Steve John Peter Ann Sarah Joe
Age
Gender
Likes
Dislikes
T: OK. Time is up. I’ll ask six of you to fill in the form. Each student fills in one person’s related content. For example, as to “Steve”, you can fill in “Age 14, Gender girl, Likes skiing, reading, Dislikes hiking, rock music, football”. Do you understand?
Ss:Yes.
T: OK. Who can fill in John’s related content? Sun Jing, you try, please…
(Teacher asks another five students to fill in the form, then teacher shows the suggested answers on the screen.)
Suggested answers:
Name Steve John Peter Ann Sarah Joe
Age 14 15 15 16 14
Gender Girl Boy Boy Girl Girl Boy
Likes Skiing, reading Footall, reading Singing Dancing, computers, rock music Reading, football Computers, skiing
Dislikes Hiking, rock music, football Sing, computers, rock music Football, classical music dancing Hiking, reading Dancing, computers Football, hiking
T: Now please discuss in pairs who could be friend in just now. of course, you’d better give your partner your reasons. When you express your ideas, you can use such sentence structures. Look at the screen. (Show the following on the screen.)
Structures:
1 I’m sure ___ and ___ could be friends, because …
2 I’m not sure if ____ and ____ could be friends, because …
3 Perhaps ___ and ___ could be friends, because …
(Teacher reads the structures, then says …)
T: Is that clear?
Ss: Yes.
T: OK. Please begin to discuss them.
(Teacher goes among the students and listens to their discussion. Then choose several students to express their ideas in different ways.)
T: Who can use Structure 1 to express your idea?
S1: I’m sure John and Sarah could be friends, because both of them like reading and football.
S2: I’m not sure if Steve and John could be friends, because both of them like reading. But Steve thinks that football is boring, while John loves football very much.
S3: Perhaps Ann and Joe could be friends, because they both like computers and dislike hiking.
…
Step V Language Study
T: That’s all for discussion. Now let’s learn some language points. First, pay attention to a phrase: be fond of. (Write it on the blackboard.) Then we’ll learn a sentence pattern: So/Nor + be(have, did, etc.) + subject. (Write it on the Bb) Now look at their usages. (Show the following on the screen and explain them.)
1 be fond of : like
e.g. He is fond of sweet food.
I am fond of swimming in winter.
2 So/Nor + be (have, did, etc.) + subject.
e.g. (1) –I have finished the work.
--So have I.
(2) –Mr. Smith is really a kind person. –So is his wife.
(3) – I can’t swim. – Nor can I.
(4) – Tom is not a student. – Nor am I.
Step VI Summary and homework
T: In this class we’ve done some listening and speaking. We’ve also talked about some self-introduction. Of course we’ve learned a new phrase and a very useful sentence pattern. After class, practice more talking about self-introduction in English. (Points to the Bb) Then do Ex. 2 on Page 86. You can imitate Exercise 1 in the part of talking. At last, don’t forget to preview the reading material “Chuck’s Friend”. Is that clear?
Ss: Yes!
T: OK. So much for today. Goodbye everyone.
Ss: Goodbye, teacher.
The design of writing on the Bb
Record after Teaching (Sum-up)
1． 本課作為新學期第一節英語課，學生學習的興趣較為濃厚。
2． 11班的同學整體的能力高于6班，課堂上能有所創新。
3． 個別學生的語音語調不夠準確，今后的教學中應該注意加以糾正。
4． 學生英語學習的方法還需要加以傳授，以便能更快的適應高中英語學習的要求。