Teaching Design
Teaching contents Unit 4 Writing —English Grade Nine
Time 20 minutes
Teacher
Students Grade Nine
Analysis of the teaching material
After learning the reading section in this unit, students have known that people like to write to Aunt Linda to ask for advice when they face problems or difficult situations in daily life. In the writing section, students can learn how to write an email to Aunt Linda to ask for advice. First, according to the analysis of the sample email, students can learn the structure of the email and the useful expressions often used in this kind of writing. Then, students can practice writing an email with the given optional situations or a problem of their own. At last, the teacher guides the students to be able to give comments on their writing.
Analysis of the students
Comparatively speaking, the students in this class are more active than passive, but the students’ language abilities vary. 3/5of the students are willing to express themselves confidently, while 1/5of the students are always waiting for others’ reaction, and the rest are always silent. So the students are divided into groups of four with different levels in order to help students get the main idea and locate the key information quickly as well as properly understand some difficult expressions according to the context. In that case, all the students may have a chance to take part in the class activities.
Teaching Objectives
Knowledge objective Enable students to master some useful expressions and sentence patterns used to ask for advice. Enable students to master some useful expressions and sentence patterns about emotions. Ability objective Improve students’ ability to write an email or a letter for advice formally and politely. Improve students’ ability to express themselves clearly by using simple and logical language. Emotional objective Inspire students to have a positive attitude in solving problems and giving advice. Cultivate students’ spirit of helping others.
Teaching key points and difficult points
Key points: Students know some useful expressions and sentence patterns used to ask for advice. Students know how to write an email to ask for advice in a formal and friendly way. Difficult points: Students know how to write an email to ask for advice in a formal and friendly way.
Teaching methods
Elicitation Task-based Teaching Cooperative learning
Teaching procedures
Teaching steps Teacher’s activities Students’ activities Aims
Step 1 Warming-up Lead students to recall their memories with a picture of Aunt Linda. Ask several questions related to Aunt Linda and review the name “Agony Aunt” which have been learned before. Review Aunt Linda and talk freely about the questions raised by the teacher. To make the class warm up and lead in the topic “asking for advice”.
Step 2 Read and match Ask students to go through the sample email on page 59 quickly and match each part with the labels on the left. Read the email and match each part with the letters of the correct labels on the left. 1. To help students have a general idea of the email. 2. To enhance students’ ability to analyze the structure of the email.
Step 3 Body part reading Ask students to read and find out what tenses are often used in the body part. Ask students to read the body part again and discuss to find out the characteristic of the language in this part. Be active to find out the tenses often used in the body part. Be brave to share what they have found about the characteristic of the language with the other group members. To enhance students’ reading ability through focusing on tenses. To improve students’ cooperative ability through sharing notes.
Step 4 Expressions learning Ask students to summarize the useful expressions used to show bad emotions. Ask students to work in pairs to think about more useful expressions used to show bad emotions. Review the useful expressions used to show bad emotions in this unit. Work in pairs to brainstorm more useful expressions used to show bad emotions. To help students to master as many useful expressions as possible so that they can write an email more confidently.
Step 5 Structure retelling Ask students to work in a group of four to recall the structure of the email with the help of the mind map. Ask students to retell the structure of the email so that they can begin to write an email confidently. Encourage each other to retell the structure of the email and make good preparations before writing. To help students sort out what has been learned and get them prepared for the writing task confidently.
Step 6 Writing practice Ask each group to work together to write an email to Aunt Linda to ask for advice on one of the given problems or a problem of their own. Pay attention to the structure and language in the email. Ask each group to work together to evaluate an email written by Jack’s group from the neighbor class. Cooperate and practice writing an email so that students of different English levels in a group are expected to achieve more or less. Cooperate and learn to evaluate the quality of an email according to what they have learned in this lesson. 1.To improve students’ cooperative ability through group writing practice. 2. To enhance students’ ability to evaluate an email according to what they have learned in this lesson.
Homework
1. Memorize all the expressions we have learned in this lesson. 2. Write an email to Gavin to ask for advice on a problem of your own.
Blackboard Design
Unit 4 Problems and Advice — Writing Expressions used to show bad emotions: Questions used for advice : I'm (really) worried about ... 1. How can I help her I'm ashamed of ... 2. What should I do in this situation 3. I'm (terribly)embarrassed when ... 3. What do you suggest 4. I'm (terribly)embarrassed about sth. 4. What should I do 5. I'm annoyed with sb. about sth. More expressions: More expressions: 1. It's shameful (for sb.) to do ... 1. How can I give her a hand 2. It's embarrassing to do ... 2.What would you do in my situation 3. It’s frustrating to do ... 3. Can you give me some advice 4. It's annoying to do ... 4. Should I do ...
Reflections
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