Talk about a lesson in 7A.( 说课)
I’m going to talk about a lesson in 7A. It’s the third unit of Module Three. The title of the unit is “Sea water and rain water”. This lesson is the first period of this unit. I try to create the conditions in which learning can take place.
I set up the following three teaching aims for this lesson. The first is to learn the new words and understand the text. The second is to experience the wonderful world under the water, grow the love for the nature and realize that people must protect the water. The last is to use the expressions in the text to talk about the water and show the feelings about the wonderful world under the water.
I think the focal point of this lesson is to understand the text and experience the beautiful world under the water. To achieve this goal, I must clear away obstacles of new words first. There are only six new words in the vocabulary of the textbook. But I think it’s not enough for my students. Perhaps they have ever used some words but don’t know them clearly. So I list eleven words and phrases for them. I present all the new words by pictures. I choose the typical pictures from the net for each new word. As the students learn the new words, they will be impressed by the nice pictures.
Then to understand the text, two competitions are helpful. One competition is used as warming-up. The question “How much do you know about the earth?” leads to this competition. The other one is after learning the text. It’s the exercise on P49 and just an exercise like “Ask and answer”. But I think it’s necessary to do something about the text after learning it. In fact, there is another real “Ask and answer” but the questions are different from the ones in the second competition at all. They both help me to know how much my students have known about the text.
To experience the wonderful world under the water, I prepare two periods of a film. They are all from the film “Finding Nemo”. It’s a cartoon film. I use it because it has such colourful frames, it gives the students a strong visual appeal, and children like cartoons. Besides this, the pictures for the new words are helpful. And all the background of the slides is made of the pictures of the sea animals. Although there are not any real objects showed to my students, they will be interested in the world under the water.
The difficulty of this lesson is to talk about the world under the water. I set up a short play because my students have ever told me that they like this activity. I make the students be the sea animals, so they must show a world from sea animals’ point of view. And the contents of the text are not enough for them to describe a world. So they should add their own feeling into the conversation. It’s a good way to open up their minds. I think I can give some ideas to them when they are preparing, and I must play to the score. In such an open period, the teacher must think with the students and share our ideas.
The teaching aids I use in this class are the multi-media computer and the tape recorder.
(Now, I’ll say something about the teaching procedures.)
First, I show them a picture from space and ask them the question “What are the blue parts on the earth?” They learned the earth in Grade Six, so they will certainly answer “They are water.” Next, the question “Where is water?” will be asked. The students have learned this too. So I think they will give out the answer such as “in the streams”, “in the river” and so on. But I mustn’t stop until they give me the answer “in the oceans” because the title of the text is “Water in the oceans”. And if they really forget this one, I will show them the picture to remind them. Then the title “Water in the oceans” appears.
Secondly, we have a competition. It’s just the first competition I’ve mentioned before. It’s done as warming-up. I think some of my students are willing to show themselves and this one gives them a chance. No matter whether they answer correctly or not, they can learn some things about the earth and the oceans. Since it is a competition, I will give them a prize if they answer correctly. The other one is done in the same way.
Thirdly, the students learn new words by pictures. After each word, I ask a line of students to imitate. After learning all, the new words are showed in one slide and the students read together.
Fourthly, the students listen and read the text after the tape. Next, they read loud by themselves. At the same time, I go around, listen and help them with their pronuciation. Then the whole class read loud together. After that, I ask them some questions about the text. There are both wh questions and yes or no questions.
Fifthly, we have the other competition. The students just write the answers on P49. This is the part of writing of this lesson. For anyone, as soon as he answers all the questions, he can put up his hand to tell the class the answer.
Sixthly, the students use the expressions they have just learned to make a short play. As what I’ve said, in the short play, they must look themselves as sea animals and talk about the world under the water. So I give name the short play “Our home is beautiful”. The title makes them clear that they must focus on a beautiful world and use the first person to talk. I set up four frames. In each frame, there are two roles, and the figures of the roles are all the characters in the film “Finding Nemo”. The relationship between each two roles is different. They are Husband and Wife, Father and son and two different pairs of friends. The lovely figures arouse the students’ interest and make them to see the wonderful world through sea animals’ eyes more easily. It’s a pair work. The students prepare for about three minutes. Then two or three pairs come the front to show to the class.
After the short play, after the students have full love for the world under the water, the sentence “Water is very important to all animals on earth” appears. (The oceans are very important to all animals on earth.) I think the students can understand more about the sentence now. But at once, I show some other pictures about the water pollution. The contrast may make the students pay attention to the water environment and realize that we must protect the water. Then I give out the question “What must we do?” and ask them to make a promise. We learned how to make a promise in Grade Six and it’s an important language point. The last sentence of the text is “We must keep sea water clean and stop polluting it. It’s a right way to join them.
Finally, I leave a question as homework for them to think about. That is “What will happen if there is no water?” It’s also the preparation for the second period. And there is some other routine homework, “Copy the new words” and “Recite the first two passages of the text”
I think the theme of this lesson is clear. All activities go around “water” and they are totally designed according to my students. From being interested, to learning, to expressing, the students use English more and more. In the meantime, they become conscious of the water environment. I think a language must be used in our daily life. We learn the language and we also learn from the language.
Before the class, I ask the students to get some information about the earth and the water from books or the net. It’s not only useful to the competition, but also make up for the limited knowledge in class.
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