Teaching Contents: A narrative about "How I Learned to Learn English".
Teaching Objectives:
(1) Knowledge objective
Students can understand the main idea of this passage and master the writing skills to describe how they learnEnglish.
(2) Ability objective
A fter learning the materials, students can write their own methods of learning English and their ability of readinga narrative will be well developed.
(3) Emotional objective
Students have the desire to share their own successful experience with others.
Teaching Key and Difficult Points:
Students can write down their own methods ofleaming English in detail.
Major Steps:
Step 1 Reading and listening (4 minutes)
The teacher asks students to read the passage about Wei Fen and answer the questions.
(1) Why did Wei Fen find it difficult to leam English
(2) What did she do in English class
(3) What is the secret to language learning
Then the teacher asks several students to answer the questions and listen to the tape about the passage to checktheir answers.
(Justification: This step can focus students' attention on the main topic of the reading passage. The listeningpractice makes students have a further understanding of the passage.)
Step 2 Pre-writing (6 minutes)
(1) Brainstorming
The teacher asks students in pairs to write the reasons why they like learning English or not and the methods oflearning English.
(2) Mapping
The teacher asks students to select the useful infbrmation from the brainstorming mad organize these ideas.
(3) Freewriting
The teacher asks students to start writing freely about the reasons why they tike learning English or not and themethods of learning English following the mapping. They don't need to care too much about spelling and grammar.
(Justification: Brainstorming can get students to think freely and put down all possible ideas that come to theirminds. Mapping is a useful way for students to organize contents in writing. Freewriting can help students developfluency in writing.)
Step 3 While-writing (10 minutes)
(1) Get students to outline the writing.
Paragraph 1 -- Do you like learning English and explain the reasons
Paragraph 2 -- The methods of learning English
Paragraph 3 -- Expectations of learning English
(2) Provide students with some expressions and sentence patterns:
feel in love with, as well, get the meaning, at first, have a better understanding of I did not likeI was afraid to ... becauseI discovered that.., is the secret to language learning.
(3) Give students some time to write "How I learned to learn English" on paper.
(Justification: The outlining illustrates the main organizing structure and the most important points of the writing.
The expressions and sentence patterns can offer some help to students when they write.)
(4) Peer-editing
The teacher asks students to read each others' writings and check the clarity of ideas of logical development oftheir arguments. Students need to check carefully the grammar, spelling and punctuation oftheir writings.
(Justification: Peer editing can provide an opportunity for students to share their writings and help them learnfrom each other. Students can get some improvements in both organization and content.)
Step 4 Post-writing (5 minutes)
Revising:
The teacher guides students to make necessary improvements in both organization and content based on theirediting. Revising can take several rounds, so students need to be prepared to write a second and a third draft beforethey submit the final draft.
(Justification: Revising their own articles can make them realize their mistakes more clearly.)
