Warm-up activities
1 Read the conversation between Eddie and Hobo. Allow Ss enough time to make sense of the comic strip: heavy rain-Hobo is wet and cold-His house is wet. Try to elicit from Ss what might happen to Hobo’s house.
2 Ask some open questions about each picture.
* What’s the weather like?
* What happened to Hobo?
* What do you think happened to Hobo’s house?
* How does he feel at Eddie’s home?
* Why doesn’t he want to go home alone?
* Will Eddie help him?
Ask two more able students to role-play the conversation.
3 Elicit from Ss other bad weather conditions.
Presentation
1 Prepare Part A by providing more vocabulary to help Ss understand headlines in English.
2 Ask students to consider whether the disasters are natural and tick the appropriate boxes. Ss can do it individually and then compare their answers with a partner. Check the correct answers with the whole class and elicit a definition for a natural disaster..
4 Read the words in Part B and ask more able students to describe each weather condition only with simple phrases and words.
5 Ask Ss to complete the task on their own and check the correct answers with the class as a whole.
Language points
Natural disasters, really warm, for too long, mop it up, lose the game, kill thousands of people, a car accident, crash into a tree, wash the village away, start a big fire
Homework
1 Learn the language points by heart.
2智能点拨 exercise I
3 Preview the Reading Part.
Presentation (Reading A)
1 Talk to Ss about the context of surviving an earthquake. Elicit any information about the earthquakes in Taiwan or in other parts of the world. Bring some newspaper articles about earthquakes.
2 Ask Ss to quickly skim the text on their own. Ask them to highlight the words they do not know. Then ask Ss to discuss them in pairs and try to work out their meaning from the context.
3 Ask Ss to make a list of words and phrases used in the text which describe noises and movements/destruction, fear and hope.
* noise: big noise, thunder, screamed, real noise, bombs, shouted
* movement/destruction: slight shaking, earth started to shake, ran (wildly), pieces of glass and bricks fell down, walls began to come down
* fear: screamed, frightened, dark, could not at all, a moment of fear
* hope: calm down, still alive, bright daylight, safe
4 Read Timmy’s story aloud. Ask Ss to listen carefully.
5 Check general understanding of the different paragraphs by asking some ‘ Wh-’ questions.
Para 1: Where was Timmy?
What happened in the shopping centre?
Para 2: What happened to the building?
How did people react?
What did Timmy do?
Para 3: Where was Timmy when the shaking stopped?
How did Timmy feel?
Para 4: What did Timmy do while he was waiting for help?
Para 5: How was he rescued?
Presentation (Reading B)
1 Explain the context of Part B. Ask students to do Part B1 on their own. Encourage students to check their answer with a partner.
3 Ask students to study the words in the box for one minute, then cover them and complete the diary entry in Part B2.
Presentation (Reading C)
1 Explain the context and point out to Ss the idea of telling a story with pictures. Divide the class into teams of 4-5 students to study each picture first.
2 Ss write the captions in the blanks individually. Check answers with the whole class.
3 Ask Ss to arrange the pictures in the right order.
Presentation (Reading D)
1 Explain the context and remind them about story telling from memory. Ss work in pairs to complete the task.
2 Check the answers with the whole class.
Language points (Part A)
Feel a slight shaking through my body, a big noise like thunder, in fear, be frightened, start to shake, run in all directions, know where to go, run wildly, fall down, calm down, be over, could not see at all, be trapped, say to oneself, a moment of fear, go through my mind, since, hear excited shouts, in a great hurry, move away, see the bright daylight.
Language points (Part C)
Be very good at telling jokes, vote
Homework
1 Learn the language points by heart.
2 智能点拨 exercise II
3 Preview the Vocabulary Part.