The Third Period Extensive Reading

Teaching goals

1. Target Language目標語言

a. 重點詞匯和短語

sightseeing, available, delight, tower, royal, uniform, splendid, statue, communism, thrill

b. 重點句式

Worried about the time available, Zhang Pingyu had ... P14

But she was thrilled by ... P14

2. Ability goals能力目標

Enable the students to plan a tour around certain places.

3. Learning ability goals 學能目標

Help the students know more about the historical sites in London.

Teaching important & difficult points教學重難點

Help the students identify different kinds of tour and talk about the most interesting place for the tour.

Teaching methods教學方法

Task-based activities.

Teaching aids教具準備

A computer and a projector.

Teaching procedures & ways教學過程與方式

Step I Revision and Lead-in

Talk about London with the students.

T: London has been a capital city for nearly 1,000 years, and many of its ancient buildings still stand. Have you found any information about London?

S1: The most famous sites in London are the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral. But most visitors also want to see the House of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, which is the Queen’s London home.

S2: Once, London was a small Roman town on the north bank of the Thames, but slowly it grew into one of the world’s major cities with more than 7 million people. Different areas of London seem to be like different cities. And it also has many big parks, full of trees, flowers and grass. Sitting on the grass in the middle of Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens, you are in the country, miles away.

S3: Many people think that London is all gray, but in fact red is London’s favorite color. London is at its best when people are celebrating. Then the flags, the cheering crowds and the carriages and horses all sparkle in the sunshine — if it’s not raining, of course! However, it is often foggy. That’s why it’s called “fog city”.

Ask the students to read the passage and do the exercises after the passage.

T: “Sightseeing in London” is about a Chinese girl’s first visit to London. It tells us how it would feel to visit London for the first time. Now read and find the answers to the questions after the text.

Step Ⅱ Reading

Task 1: Ask the students to read the text to get the main idea.

T: Now please read the text and find the answers to the following questions.

Show the questions on the screen.

1. How did Zhang Pingyu plan her tour?

2. What were the buildings mentioned in the text? What were they famous for? Who built them? What happened to them?

Sample answers:

1. First, she made a list of the sites she wanted to see. Then she planed her four-day trip.

2. The buildings mentioned in the text were:

Tower, built by Norman invaders of AD 1066, it is a solid, stone, square tower which remained standing for one thousand years; St Paul’s Cathedral, built after the terrible fire of London in 1666, looked splendid; Westminster Abbey, contains statues in memory of dead poets and writers; Greenwich, the longitude line; Big Ben; Highgate Cemetery; Windsor Castle.

Task 2: Ask the students to study the structure of the text “Sightseeing in London”.

Show the following.

Task 3: Deal with reading task:  

A particular British celebration

Ask the students to read the passage quickly for the first time to find out the main idea of the text. Then ask them to read the text again carefully to obtain some details and do the exercises after the text.

T: Guy Fawkes Night is celebrated in Britain annually on November 5th. The event is accompanied by firework displays, the lighting of bonfires and the ceremonial effigy-burning of one Guy Fawkes. The origin of this celebration comes from the event which took place in 1605 and was a conspiracy known as “The Gunpowder Plot”, intended to take place on November 5th of that year (the day set for the opening of Parliament). Now read the text and then find the answers to the exercises.

Sample answers to Exercise 1:

Oct. 10: one of Fawkes’ Catholic friends, named Catesby, asked him if he would support a plan to change the government and replace it with another.

Oct. 27: Fawkes and Catesby arranged to buy a house close to the Houses of Parliament.

Oct. 28-31: Catesby and Fawkes bought large containers of gunpowder and stored them in the cellar.

Nov. 6: the king and all his advisers would be in the parliament for the meeting.

Sample answers to Exercise 2:

S1: I would not like to be King James, because he kept changing his mind. He would say, “I could not be tolerant of their religion.” And he took actions to stop people believing in Catholic.

S2: I would like to be Robert Catesby. He would say like this: The king is never so tolerant of the Catholics. So I decided that a violent action is the only answer. The thing to do was to blow up the Houses of Parliament. In doing so, we would kill the King, maybe even the Prince of Wales, and the Members of Parliament who were making life difficult for the Catholics. And to carry out the plan, Catesby and his men got hold of 36 barrels of gunpowder — and stored them in a cellar, just under the House of Lords.

S3: I would be an eyewitness: As the group worked on the plot, it became clear that innocent people would be hurt or killed in the attack, including some people who even fought for more rights for Catholics. Some of the plotters started having second thoughts. One of the group members even sent an anonymous letter warning his friend, Lord Monteagle, to stay away from the Parliament on November 5th.

S4: I would not like to be Guy Fawkes. Because he would say, “some of us have betrayed, so we should start the plan in advance.” So he tried to start the fire. But the soldiers found him before he could do anything and he was taken to the Tower of London to be killed.

S5: If King James had kept his promise, nothing would have happened.

Step Ⅲ Homework

Ask the students to review the words learnt in this unit.