I Theoretic basis

According to the New English Curriculum Standard, when teaching, teachers should lay emphasis on the four skills----listening, speaking, reading and writing. What’s more, the four skills should be integrated well because when we communicate, we often use more than a single skill. Thus, when they are planning lessons, English teachers must integrate them, for instance, I use listening instead of fast-reading.

II Understanding of the teaching material

My understanding of the teaching material includes 3 parts: the status and the function, teaching objectives, the important and difficult points.

First,this is the 7th unit in SEFC Book one. It is an essay that shows us a great city—St Petersburg. The whole text uses the construction of St Petersburg as an example of how cultural relics and sits can be restored or rebuilt, suggesting that they are important parts of the city’s and the people’s culture. In the first part, the writer shows how St Petersburg came into being. In the second part, he tells us many important events in the history which happened here. Then he tells us how the city was built. In the last part, the central idea is stated in an affirmative way: the people of St Petersburg are the modern heroes. In lesson one, we have talked about 3 famous cultural relics, students have gotten some information about cultural relic and can use the kind of language needed to talk about them. In this lesson, students will get much information about a great city—St Petersburg, they can know the history of it and the spirit of the people.

Second, teaching objectives contains 3 aspects: moral objectives, ability objectives and knowledge objectives.

A. Moral objectives

As we know, Unit 7 is mainly about some famous cultural relics, it describes St. Petersburg in detail and from the text, and we know that lots of cultural sites arebeing destroyed. So I’d like the students to set up a consciousness of protecting cultural relics through my teaching.

B. Ability objectives

1 read the whole passage with fast-reading to underline the topic sentence of each paragraph and careful-reading to find the detailed information;

2 make a conversation with the detailed information from the passage, such as who, when, where, why, what’s it like;

3 self-culture by searching more information about St Petersburg through the Internet;

C. Knowledge objectives

Students should be able to know the history and cultural background of the great city----St Petersburg;

Well, so much for the teaching objectives, let's come to deal with the third part: the important points and the difficult points.

A. Teaching important points:

a. Read the whole passage with fast-reading to underline the topic sentence of each paragraph and careful-reading to find the detailed information;

b. Make a conversation with the detailed information from the passage, such as who, when, where, why, what’s it like;

c. Learn the spirit of St Petersburg and the spirit of the people there (united, brave, strong, proud…);

B. Teaching difficult points:

a. Read the whole passage with fast-reading to underline the topic sentence of each paragraph and careful-reading to find the detailed information;

b. Learn the spirit of St Petersburg and the spirit of the people there (united, brave, strong, pride…);

c. Have more confidences and strong wills after learning the city of heroes

 

III Teaching method and study way

A. Teaching method

According to the New English Curriculum Standard, students should be the real masters in language study. During my teaching process, I’ll play a role as a participant, adviser and prompter, try my best to create contexts, ask questions, enlighten and guide the students to learn independently. Exercise and discussion will be the main forms of teaching in my class.

Also, task-based language teaching is adopted in this lesson. One task concerning the theme of this period is for students to complete through cooperation in group work. The task is to make a discussion about some other opinions.Through discussion, cooperation in group work and oral presentation, they have the opportunity to explore experience and participate in the process of leaning.

I’ll use textbook, blackboard, chalks, recorder, tape and a computer as my teaching aids.

B. Learning Methods

a. Reading strategy:

Reading is a silent and individual activity. In this period, students need to develop some reading strategies such as skimming, scanning, summarizing information, making inferences and so on. In this lesson, students are instructed to develop the above mentioned reading strategies.

b. Resource strategy

It is significant for students to learn from current problems and events in their real life as well as books, magazines, newspapers in a library and the Internet. Students should develop their ability to collect useful and needed information from a vast sea of information in the information age. Students are requires to search information to complete the tasks in the assignment after class.

 

IV Teaching procedure

Here comes the most important part, the teaching procedure. It includes 4 steps: Step I: Warming-up and pre-reading, Step II: While-reading, Step III: Post-reading, Step IV: Homework.

Step 1 Warming-up and pre-reading (10mins)

1 Greeting& Doing the speech (3mins)

Greet the whole class as usual at the beginning of the class, and then ask one student to come to the front to give a 1 minute speech about cultural relics which we’ve learned last period. It is a natural lead-in.

2 Brainstorming (3mins)

Ask the students to give some examples of well-known cities in the world and choose one to discuss what makes a city great. It can not only train their ability of analysis and comprehension, but also cultivate their spirit of cooperation.

3 Introduction of the city (4mins)

Students will be interested in the pictures, map and brief introduction about the city, then have a desire to learn the test.

 

Step 2 While-reading (24mins)

While-reading is the main part and it will take 24mins. Here I adopt the top-down reading model.

1 Check the preview (2min)

Last period’s homework was to preview the reading text. This will lay the foundation of the test.

2 Listening instead of fast reading (9mins)

(1) (Listen to the tape once and try to find the topic sentence of each paragraph.)(8mins)

    This will help the students to get a general idea of the test.

(2) Give a key word for each paragraph, and ask the students to take notes of the clue.(1min)

    Give a clear clue of this passage to the class.

3 Careful reading (13mins)

(1) Table-filling (8mins)

Read the whole passage again by heart individually, and try to get the detailed information for the table. Then, asking four students to show their answers on the blackboard.

    This activity will give directions students to find the detailed information of the city.

(2)Exercises (5mins)

Ask the whole class to answer the T/F questions and multiple choices as quickly as possible.

    These activities will help the students to get a clearer understanding of the passage. And they will exercise students’ ability of prompt response.

 

Step 3 Post-reading (8mins)

That is all for the while-reading. Now let’s move to the third step. In this step, I will design the role-playing activity and I will spend 8 minutes on it.

Role-playing

Ask the Students do the role-playing of acting out the conversation in pairs and give an example before the preparation. Give 3 minutes to prepare and ask two pairs to perform.

    This activity will help them to know the city of heroes in detail and improve the students’ communicational ability.

 

Homework (3mins)

1 Read the text in a loud voice after class

2 Retell the text according to the above main ideas of each paragraph

3 Optional task：Look for more information about St. Petersburg from the Internet.

These tasks are for them to consolidate what they’ve learnt.

 

V blackboard design

 

VI Prediction of teaching efficiency

  After this lesson, students will have a better understanding of the text, both in general and detailed information; know more about the city----St Petersburg. The most important one for them is to know the spirit of the people there. And the atmosphere will be very active. Maybe it’s a little difficult for them to fill in the blanks on the blackboard, but I’ll try every effort to encourage them.

That’s all for my interpretation. Thank you for your attention.