The analysis of teaching material
|
What |
Status& Function |
The topic of this unit is about game show, closely related to students’ daily life. The function of this unit is to discuss preferences and make plans. This period is reading. The main task of this period is to train students’ reading skills, cultivate students’ cultural awareness and lay a good foundation for the output ability. |
Content& Theme |
The passage mainly talks about the American cartoon character--Mickey Mouse. Through reading, students will find out the history of Mickey Mouse and the reasons why it is so popular. The theme is about cultural symbol. Mickey Mouse is a famous symbol of American culture. |
How |
Language& Structure |
This passage is well organized and arranged, with the topic sentences stated at the very beginning. The topic is not new to the students, so words and expressions are not that difficult to understand in the context. |
Why |
Writer’s intention |
This passage aims to arouse students’ interest in exploring the cultural symbol, thus cultivating students’ cultural awareness. |
The analysis of the students |
Cognitive Psychology |
The students have learned English for almost six years. Students have a keen interest, curiosity and motivation in knowing more about cartoon characters, but they are easily distracted, so the teacher designs kinds of activities to get them involved in the class and help them to understand the passage.
|
Knowledge Basis |
The students have learned some words about game show in the preceding periods, and they are very familar with Mickey Mouse, both of which create better conditions for the development of this class. It’s not difficult for them to understand the meaning of the passage. |
Capability |
Students lack some effective reading skills and find it a little difficult to retell the passage in their own words. The teacher guides the students to retell the passage in the form of dialogues. |
Teaching Objectives |
According to New English Curriculum for Chinese Primary Schools and Junior Middle Schools（2011）, the teacher sets the following objectives. |
Knowledge Objectives |
1.Through the explanation, students can pronounce and recognize those new words: famous, rich, successful, character,etc. and tell the meaning of such reading skills as skimming and scanning; 2. At the end of this lesson, students are able to tell the history of Mickey Mouse, and list the reasons why it is so popular. |
Ability Objectives |
1. During this period, students can accurately find out the main idea and relevant information from the reading material, thus improving their learning ability and thinking ability; 2. Through the post-reading activities, students’ language ability can be enhanced. They can speak and communicate with others based on the reading material. |
Emotional Objectives |
Through reading, students learn to face difficulties like Mickey Mouse and know the importance to love, cherish and support Chinese cartoons. Students’ cutlural awareness can be developed. Meanwhile, through a series of exercises, students’ spirit of cooperation can be cultivated and their interest in learning English can be stimulated. |
Teaching key points & difficulties |
1. Important points: 1) Students can pronounce the new words and phrases correctly and use the reading skills (topic sentence, skimming and scanning) to finish the activities. 2) Students’s cultural awareness can be developed. 2. Diffcult points: Students can get the main idea and details while reading and realize the language development from input to output. Therefore, the teacher will encourage students to have a group discussion and cooperative learning to solve he difficult problems, and if necessary, they can ask teachers for help. |
Teaching methods |
1. Communicative Approach (Through pair work and group discussion, students will be encouraged to communicate with the teacher and other students. ) 2. Task-based Language Teaching Method (Through activities, students will finish the tasks and improve the abilities of reading and speaking.) 3. Situational Teaching Method ( In the post-reading part, students work in pairs and play the roles of interviewer and interviewee respectively to finish the dialogue.) |
Teaching aids |
To improve the teaching effect, multimedia devices and blackboard design are used throughout the whole teaching process. |
Teaching procedures |
Teaching steps |
Teacher’s behaviors |
Students’ behaviors |
Justification |
Step1: Leading in (3 mins)
|
1. The teacher greets the students. 2. The teacher invites students to recognize some cartoons, shows them a video clip about Mickey Mouse and raises some questions to begin the new lesson. |
1. The students greet the teacher. 2. The students watch the video clip and answer the questions. |
Through greeting, the students will be ready for the class. The leading-in questions and the video clip can arouse students’ interests in this lesson. |
Step2: Pre- Reading (7 mins) |
The teacher asks the students some information about Mickey Mouse and discusses some useful words and expressions with the students. |
Mickey Mouse is a very familiar cartoon character to the students. Through brainstorming and discussion, the students learn the useful words. |
This step mainly focuses on activating the prior knowledge, learning new words and eliminating reading barriers. |
Step3: While- reading (17 mins) |
Fast Reading The teacher leads students to read the passage quickly to find out the main idea and guides them to tell the importance of the topic sentence(s).
|
Students read the passage quickly, underline the topic sentences of the passage and conclude that topic sentence(s) can tell the main idea.
|
According to the fast reading, students can grasp the topic sentence(s). Students’ skimming skills will be trained. |
Careful Reading 1. The teacher directs students to read the passage carefully and complete the time line about the history of Mickey Mouse. 2. The teacher requests students to read the passage again, fill out the table and have discussion about Mickey Mouse. |
The students read the passage and get the key information and details of each paragraph and complete the timeline and the table.
|
Through careful reading, students understand the passage better and their scanning skills will be improved. Moreover, the discussion about Mickey’s qualities permeates the emotional objectives (such as bravery and so on) in an invisible way.
|
Step4: Post- Reading (14 mins) |
1. The teacher asks the students to work in pairs and make a dialogue about Mickey Mouse based on the questions about the passage. Then, the teacher lets students form groups of four and discuss their favorite cartoon character. 2. The teacher focuses the students’ attention to the Chinese cartoons. |
1. After practice, the students in pairs make a dialogue about Mickey Mouse in front of the class. Then, after discussion, the students from each group send a representative to show their favorite cartoon character in front of the class. 2. The students participate in discussions about Chinese cartoon characters. |
1. Retelling the text in the form of dialogues and making presentation can help students deepen their overall understanding of the text, and consolidate their English knowledge. 2. Through talking about Chinese cartoons, students’ cultural awareness of loving Chinese culture will be enhanced. |
Step5: Summary (3 mins) |
The teacher guides the students to sum up what they have learnt in this class. |
With the teacher’s guidance, students make a summary of the key points of this period, i.e. the new words, history about Mickey and reading skills. |
Making a summary enables students to have a clear idea about the teaching and learning objectives achieved in this period. |
Homework (1min) |
1. The teacher requires all the students to retell the passage and present it next class. 2. The teacher assigns an optional task: students write a short essay about their favorite Chinese cartoon character by answering the following questions: 1. How was it created? 2. Why was it popular? 3.Why is it still famous today?
|
Students listen and show agreement. And they promise they will finish the task(s) on time.
|
Homework is assigned to help students review what they have learned and improve their ability of practice. Homework stratification not only conforms to the learning conditions but also agrees with the Double Reduction Policy. |
Design concept and ideas |
This instruction design closely follows the core competence of English discipline (language ability, thinking quality, cultural awareness and learning ability), concentrates on the learning outcomes(guided by OBE), and implements “students-centered& teacher-guided” model and the Outlook on English Learning Activities. Firstly, through leading-in actitvities, the enthusiasm of students is aroused, and students are ready for the topic today. Secondly, because the topic is not new, in pre-reading step, presentation of the useful words and expressions in brainstorming and discussion can lay a good foundation for students to improve language ability and thinking quality. Thirdly, while reading, students are supposed to learn and use such reading skills as skimming and scanning to find out the main idea and get the details. Their learning ability and thinking quality are cultivated. The discussion about Mickey’s good qualities permeates the emotional objectives in an invisible way. Fourthly, post-reading acitivties require students to retell the passage in the form of dialogues in pairs, finish the survey with group members and make presentation individually in front of the whole class, so as to realize language internalization and application. Students’ language ability, learning ability and thinking quality will be enhanced. Meanwhile, through talking about Chinese cartoons, students’ cultural awareness of loving Chinese culture will be aroused. Fifthly, under the teacher’s guidance, the summary is mainly finished by the students. Sixthly, based on the analysis of learning conditions and the requirements of the Double Reduction Policy, homework stratification helps students review what they have learned and improve the core competence. Last but not the least, with the development of the class, the affective infiltration, including the good qualities of Mickey Mouse and the love for Chinese culture, will be finished in an invisible way, and sublimated in the end. To sum up, this design always puts students in the center, integrates learning with application, and realizes the unity of humanism and instrumentality by exploring the humanistic connotation of teaching materials.
|
Teaching reflection |
Firstly, the teaching objectives have been basically achieved. Because Mickey Mouse and Chinese cartoon characters like Monkey King are very familiar to the students, so it is very easy to cause the emotional resonance. The goal of moral education has been achieved. In the post-reading activities, the students could use the relevant words and expressions to make dialogues to introduce the history of Mickey Mouse and list the reaons why it is so popular, and could simply discuss some complicated questions and share their own opinions in front of the class. That shows the knowledge objectives and ability objectives have been basically achieved. However, the way of presenting the new words could be more flexible. Although the topic and some words are not new to the students, it is necessary for the teacher to add corresponding output activities to help students correctly pronounce and spell new words through effective repetition. Secondly, the arrangement of teaching process and activities is basically clearand reasonable. This reading class follows “PWP”teaching model. Important points and difficult points have been greatly emphasized. In the post-reading part, because time is limited, the teacher didn’t invite many students to talk about their favorite Chinese cartoon characters indivually. Next time, the teacher will pay more attention to this. Thirdly, such teaching methods employed as Communicative Approach, Task- based Language Teaching Method and Situational Teaching Method are feasible and scientific. Through the pair work and group discussion, students will be encouraged to to communicate with the teacher and other students. Through while-reading and post- reading activities, students will finish the tasks and improve the abilities of reading and speaking. In the post-reading part, students work in pairs and play the roles of of interviewer and interviewee respectively to finish the dialogue. Fourthly, thanks to the complete design and full preparation before class, the interaction between teachers and students is perfect, and the students’ learning effect has basically reached the expected teaching objectives. However, sometimes the instructions are clear but not simple enough. The teacher should practice teaching instructions. Last but not least, blackboard design is relatively simple. It is informative but not thought-provoking enough. Maybe next time the teacher will try the stick figure, the mind map or even the fishbone diagram, to achieve the unity of scientificalness and artistry.
|
Blackboard Design |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
