外研版 (2019)必修 第一册Unit 5 Into the wild教案

Teaching Design

How to answer the main-idea type questions of expositions in reading comprehension tests

Longquan High School

Jiang Yan

1Theory of question setting

Based on the overall requirements of the evaluation system of the college entrance examination and oriented by English core competences, the focus on reading comprehension turns to improving comprehensive language ability and avoiding stereotypes. The texts selected for the college entrance examination are all from foreign publications, media and networks, making sure both the context created and the language are authentic. Thus, moral education and cultivation can be fulfilled. Furthermore, the examination of thinking quality is constantly reflected in innovative question setting.

2 Analysis of teaching material

The teaching material is reading comprehension exercises including 3 passages.

Theme of context

The themes of these passages are about man and society, and man and nature. The subtopic includes transportation advancement, health care, culture-saving project and spreading green snow. For pre-set homework, Passage A talks about technological advancement on transportation, which informs students of the development of transportation over time. Passage B is mainly about G7 smartwatches, which guides students to pay attention to science and technology to cultivate innovative consciousness. Passage C focuses on saving native Indian culture by collecting lullabies, which guides students to develop cultural awareness and value traditional  culture.

Genre of discourse

The genre of these passages is exposition. In recent years, exposition texts have been selected in college entrance examination frequently, including achievements of scientific research in high-tech fields, hot social issues and so on. Exposition is usually placed in Passage C or D, which shows that it is relatively difficult in the reading comprehension part. For one thing, figuring out the stylistic features and structure is an effective way to help students understand the texts. For another, it is beneficial to cultivate students’ logical thinking.

3 Learning objectives

After the class, students will be able to 

Linguistic ability:

① understand the type, main idea and purpose of expositions;

② analyze the structure and stylistic features of expositions;

③refine and expand the meaning of the theme, and analyze the logical relationship among main idea, purpose and best title.

Thinking quality:

① extract common features of exposition based on the information obtained from several exposition;

② solve new problems by new techniques summarized.

Cultural character:

① value science and technology to cultivate innovative consciousness;

②develop cultural awareness and spread traditional Chinese culture analogically;

③ cultivate logical thinking and face difficulties calmly.

Learning ability:

① obtain information from multiple channels;

② use problem-solving strategies actively;

③ draw inferences about other cases creatively from one exposition.

4 Important points and difficult points

(1)  Important points

①  Guide students to accumulate a knowledge of exposition, including stylistic

features, structure, main idea and writing purpose.

② Help students to obtain information from multiple channels.

(2)  Difficult points

① Instruct students to analyze the logical relationship among main-idea, purpose and best-title questions.

② Enable students to solve new problems by summarizing, transferring and applying learned knowledge. Thus, use problem-solving strategies actively and creatively.

③  Cultivate thinking capacity in terms of logical thinking and reasoning.

5 Teaching preparations

(1)  The analysis of the text;

(2)  The exercises of variant training.

6 Teaching procedures