Unit 3 Book 4 A taste of English Humor
 
Part one : Understanding of the lesson
 
本課選自人民教育出版社出版的普通高中課程標準實驗教材，高一年級必修四的第三單元Ataste of English humour。
 
A. The analysis of the teaching material
 
The purpose of this reading is to introduce the life and work of Charlie Chaplin and the kind of humour we can all laugh at --- nonverbal humour.
 
This lesson is designed as a reading lesson. According to the new curriculum standards of senior high school English, students are expected to achieve the skills of a. understanding the main idea; b. scanning for the needed information; c. grasping the details; d. guessing the meaning of new words; e. understanding the intension and attitude of the author and f. understanding the background and culture information.
 
B. Teaching Aims:
 
1. Knowledge and skill aims:

a. Enable students to learn what humor means and what is nonverbal humor.
 
b. Students are expected to improve the reading skills, ie, skimming and scanning skills as well as translating , interpreting and word guessing abilities, which are examined in recent years in NMET.
 
2. Moral culture aims:
 
By learning the passage, students will know that humour is particular to each culture. So the Enlish humour is certainly different from Chinese humour. However , there is a kind of humour that may be enjoyed by all cultures --- that is nonverbal humour. It is good that we can all laugh at something together.
 
3.Learning methods aims:
 
a. self-learning and cooperative learning methods; and use such kind of ability to gain and deal with language information.
 
b. develop the students’ questioning spirit to improve their ability of finding, analyzing and solving problems.
 
C. Teaching methods:
 
a. Task-based Language Teaching :
 
 During the course, different tasks are designed for Ss to carry out. Whether and how they finish the tasks can reflect on how much information they grasp from reading. In return, the teacher can adjust his/her teaching.
 
b. Cooperative Learning:
 
 Divide the class into small teams, each with students of different levels of ability. Every member of a team is responsible not only for learning what is taught but also for helping teammates learn, thus creating an atmosphere of achievement.
 
D. Important and difficult points.
 
a. Help students learn how to understand and enjoy English humors.
 
b. Help students know the differences between English and Chinese in humor.
 
E. Teaching aids:
 
Multi-media
 
pictures
 
blackboard
 
 
 
Part Two：Teaching procedures:
 
Step one: Lead-in and Warming up( 5 mins)
 
In order for students to get into the topic of humor quickly and smoothly, a piece of sketch video “Eating noodles”by Chen Peisi will be played for the students.

 
Question: Do you know who the Chinese comedian is ?( Chen Peisi)
 
        What makes his performance funny? ( his body gestures)
 
Then show some pictures of Charlie Chaplin to students.
 
 
 
Questions:  Do you know who he is ?
 
          What do you know about Charle Chaplin?
 
What do you expect to learn about from this reading? ( students’ answers may vary)
 
 
 
（簡評：這一環(huán)節(jié)的設計將會激發(fā)學生對文章中這一話題的興趣并能引起讓學生在短時間內集中精力，這對于學生完成下面的閱讀任務很有幫助。）
 
Step Two: Reading ( 22 mins)
 
Fast Reading ( Skimming) (7 mins)
 
Task 1:  Fast Reading  (3 mins)
 
What’s the passage mainly about?
 
A. The history of English humor.
 
B. The films Chaplin made.
 
C. The life and humor career of Charlie Chaplin
 
D. The Gold Rush in California.                   ( Key : C )
 
 
 
Task 2: Read to summarize the main idea of each paragragh and match the paragraph with its main idea. (4 mins)
 
Para 1: (E )             A. His achievements
 
Para 2: (C )             B.An example of a sad situation that he made funny.
 
Para 3: ( D)             C. What Charlie’s childhood was like.
 
Para 4: ( B )             D. What his most famous character was like.
 
   Para 5: ( A)             E. Charlie Chaplin brightened the people’s lives through two world wars and the hard years in between.

Scanning:  Reading for details ( 15 mins)
 
Task 1: Read the passage again and then fill in the chart. .

Task 2: Work in pairs to read for difficulties.
 
1. Explain in your own words the sentence “Charlie brightened the lives of American and British through two world wars”.
 
                                                                     

                                                                     
 
2. Why was“The Little Tramp ”loved by many people around the world?
 
 A. Because the appearance of the character is so funny.
 
 B. Because the tramp is a social failure.
 
 C. Because he is always made fun of by others.
 
 D. Because of his optimism and determination fo overcome all difficulties.
 
3. Find a sentence in the passage similar in meaning to the following one:
 
 Charlie’s real life was not so comfortable as it was showed in his films.
 
                                                                     
 
4. Translate the sentence into Chinese “You may find it astonishing that Charlie was taught to sing as soon as he could speak and dance as soon as he could walk”.
 
                                                                     
 
                                                                     

5. Guess the meaning of the word “convincing” in line 30 Page 18.
 
                                                                     

（簡評：這一環(huán)節(jié)沿用了英語閱讀教學中最重要的兩種閱讀技能，即略讀和查讀。這也是本課設計的重點。同時，在查讀這一環(huán)節(jié)的任務2中，我設計了高考新題型的相關練習，如翻譯，替換句子等等，這樣就有效地把高考和日常教學聯系了起來，也促進了學生應答這種練習的能力。）
 
Step Three : Retelling （5 mins）
 
 
 
People may laugh at others_______ on a banana skin, or falling down a hole, for it makes them _______ with themselves seeing others _______ _______ than themselves.
 
As an outstanding humourous actor, Chaplin could always _______ in the people deep feelings by using _________ forms of acting in the time of silent films. His charming _________ “the little tramp” is well-known all over the world, a poor and _________ person wearing large trousers, ________ shoes, and carrying a walking _______.
 
A social _______ as he was, he was loved by all the people for his ____________ in overcoming difficulties and being kind to people _______ to him. When playing the famous film The Gold Rush, Chaplin managed to make the sad situation—eating a _______ shoe, entertaining by using __________ humour.
 
Such is Charlie Chaplin who produced, _______ , and wrote the movies that he _______ in. He was given a special Oscar for his lifetime work ____________ of bringing humour to us all.
 
（簡評：這一環(huán)節(jié)是一鞏固練習，使得學生對文章中的既得信息有所加強，并對這篇文章有了更加整體的理解。）
 
Step Four: Pair work. ( Enjoying  4 mins)
 
Part 1:
 
JOKE 1  

Wife talking to her husband (who reads newspaper all day): I wish I were a newspaper so I'll be in your hands all day.
Husband: I wish that too, so I could change you daily
 
JOKE 2
 
TOM'S EXCUSE
Teacher: Tom, why are you late for school every day?
Tom: Every time I come to the corner, a sign says, "School-Go Slow".
 
Part 2:
 
Show the students some pictures of nonverbal homour to let them appreciate .   (omitted)
 
Step Five : Interview   ( Group activity 8mins)
 
The students are divided into groups of 4 . Then in each group students will take their turns to be Charlie and the other 3 act as reporters to interview him/her using the information from the reading.
 
 
 
（簡評：這兩個環(huán)節(jié)是為了知識轉化/過渡, 即讓學生切實體會到nonverbal humour is really universal, 又給了學生練習口語的機會，同時也體現了本課時的情感目的。）
 
Step Six :  Home work
 
Find more information about Chaplin through The Internet or from books and you are expected to present it to your classmates in the next class.
 
（簡評： 這是這節(jié)課的綜合落實環(huán)節(jié)）