I. Brief Statements Based on the Unit
Do you like poetry? Have you read a limerick? The whole contents of Unit 4 are about poetry. Four separate parts consist of this unit. First, the simple questions bring the students back to the poems, songs and rhymes they have learned. By reciting them, the students will be struck by the words and colorful meaning of some poems. Then they are arranged to read and enjoy a special, funny poem-a limerick, listen to a passage about poems and talk about all kinds of poems written by some great masters. This will greatly raise the students' interests about poems. They will be sure to want further information about English poems. The text“English Poetry”describes the advantages of reading poems. Plenty of detailed information about the history and development of English poems is also given in the text. The comparison of English and Chinese poems shows us a clear picture of the similarity and difference between the poems of the two countries. The text sings high praise for the two great translators --Lu Xun and Guo Moruo. However, at the end of the text, the writer tells us that something of the spirit of the original works is lost in translated works. This means that we should read original works instead of translated ones as many as possible. Plenty of exercises before and after the text get the students to understand the whole text and grasp its detailed information. The third part is mainly about past participle used as attribute and adverbial. Through different kinds of exercises the students can master this part well. At the end of this unit,
a simple but interesting passage tells us a lot and gives us a perfect answer to the question why people read and sometimes even write poetry. A simple and practical way to enjoy the poems is shown to us. This will encourage more students to join in the learning and appreciating poetry. The students will improve their ability to listen, speak, read and write as well as learning plenty of useful words and expressions after they learn the unit.
II． Teaching Goals
1. Talk about English poetry.
2. Practice expressing intention and decision.3. Learn about the Past Participle (3) used as Adverbial.
4. Write about a poem.
III. Teaching Time: Five periods
IV. Background Information
1. Shakespeare
For any Englishman, there can never be any discussion as to who is the world's greatest poet and greatest dramatist. Only one name can possibly suggest itself to him: that of William Shakespeare. Every Englishman has some knowledge, however slight, of the work of our greatest writer. All of us use words, phrases and quotations from Shakespeare's writings that have become part of the common property of English-speaking people. Most of the time we are probably unaware of the source of the words we use. rather like the old lady who was taken to see a performance of Hamlet and complained that it was full of well-know proverbs and quotations!
Shakespeare, more perhaps than any other writer, made full use of the great resources of the English language. Most of us use about five thousand words in our normal employment of English; Shakespeare in his works used about twenty-five thousand! There is probably no better way for a foreigner (or an Englishman) to appreciate the richness and variety of the English language than by studying the various ways in which Shakespeare used it. Such a study is well worth the effort (it is not, of course, recommended to beginners), even though some aspects of English usage, and the meaning of many words, have changed since Shakespeare's day.
It is paradoxical that we should know comparatively little about the life of the greatest English author. We know that Shakespeare was born in 1564 in Stratford-on-Avon and he died there in 1616. He almost certainly attended the Grammar School in the town, but of this we cannot be sure. We know he was married there in 1582 to Anne Hathaway and that he had three children, a boy and two girls. We know that he spent much of his life in London writing his masterpieces. But this is almost all that we do know.
However, what is important about Shakespeare's life is not its incidental details but his products, the plays and the poems. For many years scholars have been trying to add a few facts about Shakespeare's life to the small number we already possess and for an equally long time critics have been theorising about the plays. Sometimes, indeed, it seems that the poetry of Shakespeare will disappear beneath the great mass of comment that has been written upon it.
Fortunately this is not likely to happen. Shakespeare's poetry and Shakespeare's people ( Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, Falstaff and the others) have long delighted not just the English but lovers of literature everywhere, and will continue to do so after the scholars and commentators and all their works have been forgotten.
2. About Shakespeare's Plays
William Shakespeare ( 1564 ～ 1616), English dramatist and poet, is regarded by many people as the greatest English writer of all time. He wrote his first play when he was twenty-six years old. Within about twenty- two years of this writing career, he gave to the world nearly forty plays, including comedies, histories and tragedies. Of all his plays,“Hamlet” is perhaps the best known. His plays, written in the late 16th and early 17th centuries for a small theatre, are today per- formed more often and in more countries than ever before. Many of the words first used by him, and many of his expressions have become everyday usage in English speech and writing.
Of Shakespeare's plays have come down to us. Their probable chronological order is arranged as follows： The First Period(1590～1600)
1590--Henry VI, Part I.
Henry VI, Part II.
1591--Henry VI, Part III.
1592--Richard III.
The Comedy of Errors.
1593--Titus Andronicus.
The Taming of the Shrew.
1594--The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Love's Labour's Lost.
Romeo and Juliet.
1595--Richard II
A Mid-summer Night's Dream.
1596--King John.
The Merchant of Venice.
1597--Henry IV, Part I.
Henry IV, Part II.
1598--Much Ado About Nothing.
Henry V.
The Merry Wives of Windsor.
1599--Julius Caesar.
As You Like It.
1600--Twelfth Night.
The Second Period( 1601～ 1608) :
1601-- Hamlet.
1602--Troilus and Cressida.
All's Well That Ends Well.
1604--Measure for Measure.
Othello.
1605--King Lear.
Macbeth.
1606--Antony and Cleopatra.
1607--Coriolanus.
Timon of Athens.
1608--Pericles.
The Third period(1609～1612) :
1609--Cymbeline.
1610---The Winter's Tale.
1612--The Tempest.
Henry VIII.
The First Period
Teaching Aims:
1. Talking about poems to raise the students' interest in poems.
2. Listening to improve the students' listening ability.3. Making up dialogues to improve the students' speaking ability.
Teaching Important Points:
1. How to get the students to grasp the main idea of a passage by listening.
2. How to improve the students' speaking ability.
Teaching Difficult Point:
How to direct the students to grasp the detailed information to finish the listening task.
Teaching Methods:
1. Pair work or group work to make every student join in the class activities.
2. Discussion to make every student express himself freely.
Teaching Aids:
1. a tape recorder
2. a computer
3. a projector
Teaching Procedures:
Step I Greetings and Revision
T: Good morning, everyone!
Ss: Good morning, Mrs/Mr × !
T: Sit down, please. Have you finished your homework?
Ss: Yes.
T: Please take out your exercise-books. Let's check your homework. Wu Dong, …
(Teacher checks the students' homework. Then the teacher and students learn the new words of this period together. )
Step II Warming up
T: Do you like poetry, SA?
SA: Yes, I do. I like it very much.
T: Why do you like it?
SA: I learn a great deal from poetry. When I was a small child, my mother taught
me the poem: 锄禾日当午，汗滴禾下土。谁知盘中餐，粒粒皆辛苦。And she explained the meaning of it. I know from a little child that grain comes from pains and we should not waste whatever we eat.
T: How about you, SB ?
SB: I don't like poetry very much, because I had a bad memory when I was a small child. I like to make something.
T： What English poems, song words or rhymes have you read? Can you recite any?
Sc：I've read some English poems when I was in Junior Middle School. And it is
like this:
I Love the Sun
I love the sun,
I love the spring,
I love the birds,
That gaily sing.
I love my school,
I love my play,
And I love all,
That is nice and gay.
SD: I remember I've read a poem about the names of the months. It is:
Thirty days have September.
April, June and November,
All the rest have thirty-one,
Excepting February alone,
And that has twenty-eight days clear,
And twenty nine in each leap year.
T: Very good. Now turn to Page 25. Do the third part. Do you know“打油诗”?
In English limerick is like“打油诗”in Chinese. It is a special, funny poem and is written just to make people laugh. Read the two limericks and enjoy them.
(Students read the poems together and at last two students are asked to read them.)
T: What is the pattern of each poem? “pattern” means “格调”.
SE: It's funny. It is written just to make others laugh, I think.
T: Now, please answer the last question on Page 25.
SF :To talk about poets and poetry, we often use the words ：“good, bad,
interesting, funny, dull, meaningful, meaningless, etc”.
Sa: We will also use“ moving, instructive, encouraging, make me happy, sad, etc”.
T: What phrases do you think will be useful when you express your intentions
and reach decisions?
SH :When we want to express our intentions, we often say: I'm going to…; I
intend/mean/plan to… ; I will…; I feel like (doing sth. )…; I'd like to… ; I'm ready to…; I would rather not…etc.
SI：When we want to reach decisions, we often use: In my opinion, we should…;
What's your opinion? I think/believe/suppose we should…;I don't think it's
necessary to…; We must decide…; I hope we can reach/come to/arrive at/ take/make a decision, etc.
Step III Listening
T： Now let's do Listening. Please turn to Page 25 and read the instructions first. (Students begin to read the instructions. Some minutes later, teacher says the following. )
T: Do you know what you should do after you listen to the tape?
Ss: Yes.
T： Now I'll play the tape. When I play it for the first time, do Ex. 1, please.
When I play it for the second time, do Ex. 2. If you have anything you don't
hear clearly, please let me know. At the end of listening, I'll play the tape once more and give you enough time to check your answers. Then check your answers with your partner. I'll ask one or two students to give us their answers at last. Do you understand what I've said?
Ss: Yes.
Step IV Speaking
T: Let's do speaking. Please open your books on Page 26. There are four circles on this page. Each circle lists some information about poems. They are topics for poems, periods of time, groups or names of poets and human feeling shown in poems. Ask your partner what kind of poetry he or she might want to read. Choose a word from each circle and explain why you want to read a poem like that or not. Work in groups or pairs. Have a discussion and make up a dialogue to express what you want to say. The useful expressions on the screen might be helpful to you.
(Teacher shows the screen.)
Useful expressions
I'm interested to…but…
I think it will be too difficult to…
I think I might want to…
I think it will be boring…
I want to…
I'm very interested in…so…
I'd like to…
I'm not very interested in…so…
I've never heard of…so…
I hope to find…
I've never read any…so…
I don't know much about…
but…
T :( After a few minutes. ) Have you finished?
Ss: Yes. T: Now who will tell us your opinions? Volunteers?
Sa: and Sb : (Standing up. )We'll try. …
Sample dialogue: Sa--A; Sb--B
A: What kind of poetry do you like to read?
B: I like to read poems about nature.
A: Why are you interested to read such poems? B: When I read this kind of poem, it seems that I was in a different world. The things described in the poem seems to be real ones. They seem to be around me. I feel them and enjoy them.
A: What kind of poems are you not interested in?
B: I'm not interested in poems about pets. We have a lot of important things to do and I think I have no time to have pets. What about you?
A: I'm interested in poems about humour, because it can bring happiness to us. All the unhappy things are gone with the laughter.
T: Very good. Who else will do this?
Sc and Sd : We'll try. …
Sample dialogue:
Sc-A; Sd--B
A: I know that you can recite plenty of poems. Can you tell me what kind of poems you like?
B: I like the poems by Li Bai, especially the ones to describe nature.
A: For what reason do you like them?
B: When I read them, I feel comfortable. A poem of his is a beautiful picture hanging before us. I would go into the picture as I read them.
A: What kind of poems are you not interested in?
B: Poems about broken hearts. They make me sad. What's your opinion?
A: I like the poems about the sea and I don't like the noes about death and broken hearts.
B: Just like me!
Step V Summary and Homework
T: In this period, our topic is about poems. We have talked a lot about
poems. What kind of poems do you like? This is an interesting topic. After class, go on with you topics and discussion. You can use the expressions we just mentioned on the screen. Do you remember them? OK. Please tell us. (Students repeat the expressions and teacher writes them on the blackboard. ) That's all for today. Class is over
Step V The Design of the Writing on the Blackboard
Unit 4 A garden of poems The First Period
Useful expressions:
I'm interested to…but…
I think I might want to…
I want to…
I'd like to…
I've never heard of…so…
I've never read any…so…
I think it will be too difficult to…
I think it will be boring…
I'm very interested in…so…
I'm not very interested in… so…
I hope to find…
I don't know much about…but……
Step VII Record after Teaching
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