Unit 2 The Environment
Task
Teaching aims:
1. Learn how to design a poster.
2. Cultivate the students’ abilities of listening, reading and speaking..
Difficult & Important points:
1. Listen and draw conclusions
2. Read for information
3. Present your point of view
Teaching methods:
Task-based teaching,
Practice
Teaching aids:
A projector.
A computer.
Procedure:
Step 1 Lead in
Environment protection is very important, so we should do our best to protect it.
Then ask students what we can do. We can design a post to educate people. How do we design a poster.
Step 2 Skills building 1
Listening and drawing conclusions
When you draw conclusions, you think about a situation and the information you have,
and try to decide what it means. Sometimes all the information you need about a
subject is not included in the source you are listening to. This is when you must draw
a conclusion. For example:
• If you hear’ Yet another skyscraper has been built in Shanghai.’
• What can you conclude?
• There are already some skyscrapers in Shanghai.
• If you hear the following dialogue
• Man: The train is going to be late today.
• Woman: I’m not surprised.
• What can you conclude?
• The train is often late.
Practice
A .Listen to these short descriptions from news reports and draw a conclusion about what kind of natural disaster occurred in each situation.
B. Listen to the news report and decide if each conclusion below is logical. If it is, tick(?) the box
• 1. The fires have been burning for quite some time.
• 2. Many people have lost their homes.
• 3. The police suspect citizens of Los Angeles helped start the fires.
• 4. The reporter thinks it is very sad that old trees will be burnt.
• 5. The fire department has given up hope of stopping the fires.
Step 1: listening to a lecture
A. Your Science teacher has asked your group to make a poster about desertification for a nationwide contest. Before you can begin your poster, you must learn about desertification. Listen to your teacher’s lecture and collect information about your topic.
• 1.What is desertification?_________________________________
• _______________________________________________________
• _______________________________________________________
• 2.Where does it happen?_________________________________
• _______________________________________________________
• _______________________________________________________
• 3.How are people affected by it?___________________________
• _______________________________________________________
• _______________________________________________________
• 4.Why does it happen?___________________________________
• _______________________________________________________
• _______________________________________________________
• 5.Who should be concerned?______________________________
• _______________________________________________________
• _______________________________________________________
B. Check your understanding of what you have just heard. Read the following
statements and match them with the conclusions that can be made from them.
• 1. Your teacher wants you to help • a. The ending –ification means a
educate people about process.
desertification. • b. One way to stop
desertification is to allow the • 2. A desert is an area of dry land.
Desertification is what we call it land a chance to rest between
when land turns into desert. plantings.
• 3. People plant things without • c. Some people become ill after
giving the land a chance to rest. breathing this air.
• 4. The wind carries sand from • d. Many people around the world
the deserts to the cities, causing do not know about
air pollution. desertification.
Step 3 skill building 2
Reading for information
When we read for information, we look for specific information that we need. We
read different sources to find different types of information. We often scan the text
while looking for the specific information that we require.
Practice
A. In pairs, think of reasons why you might want to read the following.
• 1. a newspaper • b_________________
• a_________________ • 2. a plane ticket
• a_________________ • b_________________
• b_________________ • 5. a bus timetable
• 3. a magazine • a_________________
• a_________________ • b_________________
• b_________________ • 6. an advertisement
• 4. a website • a_________________
• a_________________ • b_________________
B. Read the following from a newspaper and underline the information which answers
the questions that follow.
B.Read the following from a newspaper and underline the
information which answers the questions that follow.
Cinema times13.00 17.20
2The lord of the rings:14.30 18.001The return of the king16.45 20.15The Martrix: RevolutionsAccording to MrPirates of the CaribbeanZhao, the museum was With the opening of the visited by over city’s modern Art 3Museum hundreds of 10,000 people on 4people lined up to be its opening day. among the first to view Many of them modern masterpieces.were young Coffee cultureAccording to MrZhou people with Is coffee replacing Lin, Director of the teachers on class tea in the hearts museum, a line of more trip.of local peoplethan three hundredMuseum officials
•1. At what time can you see The Matrix: Revolutions?
•2. What is the weather like in Beijing?
•3. What has just opened?
•4. How many people went to the opening?
Step 2: listening to a lecture
A. You found this article about desertification during your research.. Read it and
underline all of solutions to desertification it mentions.
B. Your teacher has asked you to include a list of three things students can do to help
stop desertification in your poster. Work in groups and write your answers in the
space below.
1. _____________________________________________________
2. _____________________________________________________
3. _____________________________________________________
Step 4 Skills building 3
Presenting your point of view
• When you present your point of view, you usually want people to accept your
ideas. There are certain things you can do to make what you say more polite
so that people will be more likely to agree with you.
• You can use these words to help you introduce your point of view:
• I think / believe that…
• From my point of view it seems that…
• It seems to me that…
• Personally I agree / disagree because
• Use these words to explain your point of view:
• because… as a result of…
• due to… on account of…
Practice
A. Match the beginning of each sentence in the left-hand column with an appropriate
ending in the right-hand column. Write the correct letters in the blanks.
1. I believe that things a. students are being given more cost more in cities. homework.
2. As a result of last year’s poor b. because I think she has the right idea.
test scores, c. because of the higher wages people 3. This winter has been very cold; make.
4. Personally, I agree with Wei Li d. therefore I have worn my down coat 5. I disagree with that score because every day.
6. It seems to me that due to his mistake e. we will all get in trouble.
f. the result I got was much higher.
B. Discuss this list of things people can do to help the environment. Rank them in
the order from most important (1) to least important (8).
• Turn off the tap when you are cleaning your teeth.
• Recycle paper and glass.
• Use unleaded petrol in cars.
• Walk or cycle everywhere.
• Turn off the lights when you are not in a room.
• Take a bag with you when you go shopping.
• Get something repaired rather than buy a new one.
• Use both sides of a sheet of paper.
Step 3: designing a poster
A. You interviewed several experts on desertification, Read their viewpoints and discuss which one you agree with and which one your group plans to focus its poster on.
Step 3: designing a poster
A. You interviewed several experts on desertification,
Read their viewpoints and discuss which one you agree
with and which one your group plans to focus its poster
on. Desertification is caused We need to learn how to use water better. If we are careful, we’ll have enough water by people cutting down for people, animals and plants and then trees and digging up no deserts will formbushes.
People should Farmers not keep on should stop planting things letting their on the same animals eat all place of land. the grass. If The land needs there is no to restgrass, a desert will Deserts from form.naturally. We We must stop building shouldn’t worry factories. They pollute about the water and all the Out-dated farming desertification. plants die. Then the methods cause It will fix itselfland turns into desert. desertification.
B. You have decided to focus on the following areas in your poster. Discuss the questions below with your group.
1. How can desertification be prevented?
2. Can areas of desert be turned back into farmland and forests?
3. Is desertification a global problem?
4. Why is it important to fight desertification?
5. What progress has been made to fight desertification so far?
6. Can young people do anything to help fight this problem?
C. Discuss the content and layout of your poster with your group. Use the space
below to help with your planning.
• Heading________________________________
_______________________________________
• Content______________________________________
• _________________________________
• Pictures / layout_________________________
_______________________________________ Step 5 Homework
Design a poster with your group.