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必修一 Unit 4 Earthquakes
Reading
教学重点
1. Get the students to know basic knowledge about natural disasters.
2. Get the students to learn about Tangshan Earthquake.
3. Get the students to learn different reading skills.
教学难点
Develop the students’ reading ability.
教学方法
1. Task-based teaching and learning
2. Cooperative learning
3. Discussion
教具准备
The multimedia and other normal teaching tools
三维目标
Knowledge aims:
1. Get the students to learn the following useful new words and expressions in this passage: shake well (n. ) rise crack smelly pond pipe burst canal steam dirt ruin injure destroy brick dam useless steel shock quake rescue electricity disaster army organize bury coal mine shelter fresh right away at an end lie in ruins be trapped under sth. a (great)number of
2. Get the students to know basic knowledge about natural disasters.
Ability aims:
1. Develop the students reading ability and let them learn different reading skills.
2. Train the students’ ability to collect useful information from the Internet by themselves.
Emotional aim:
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1. Get the students know damages earthquakes bring about and the ways to reduce losses of earthquakes.
2. Get the students to know how to protect oneself and help others in earthquakes.
3. Get the students to be aware of terrible disasters, meanwhile get them to face it, treat it in a proper way, and never get discouraged.
教学过程
设计方案（一）
→Step 1 Lead-in
Show the students some pictures about natural disasters and ask them:
1. Have you ever experienced any natural disaster? Look at the pictures. Can you name all the disasters?
(volcano, fire, typhoon, flood, sandstorm, hailstone, thunderstorm, hurricane, earthquake)
2. Have you ever experienced an earthquake? Can you describe how terrible an earthquake is?
地震的破坏
(The earth is shaking; all the buildings will fall down; the roads will be destroyed; many people will be killed or injured; a lot of children will become orphans. . . )
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→Step 2 Warming up
Turn to Page 25. Ask the students to read and look at the photos of Tangshan and San Francisco to describe what they see in the two photos to a partner.
(beautiful cities; broad roads; tall building; large population. . . )
Imagine there has been a big earthquake in these two cities, what might happen to all the things in the photos?
(If a big earthquake happened, the whole cities might be in ruins. Large quantities of tall buildings might collapse. The broad and busy roads might be destroyed. Many people might be killed or injured. . . )
→Step 3 Pre-reading
1. Imaging and sharing
Imagine there is an earthquake now. Your home begins to shake and you must leave it right away. You have time to take only one thing. What will you take? Is it money, water, fruits, mobile phones, a torch light, or anything else? Why?
2. Talking and sharing
What do you think may happen before an earthquake? Talk about the pictures on Page 25.
(Cows, pigs and dogs become too nervous to eat. Mice run out of the fields looking for places to hide. Fish jump out of ponds. The water in the well will rise and fall. The well walls will have deep cracks in them. There will be bright light in the sky. . . )
→Step 4 Reading
Tell the students:Today, we are going to read a news report about the strongest earthquake in China’s history, which happened in Tangshan, Hebei, in 1976.
1. Fast reading
Ask the students to read the passage quickly and pay attention to the first sentence of each paragraph.
1)Answer the questions.
Question 1:In what order was the passage written?
Question 2:What is the general idea of the passage?
(The text is written in time order. The general idea is the mixture of the first sentences of each
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paragraph, that is, the text tells us something that happened before the earthquake, during the earthquake and after the earthquake. )
2)Fill in the table.
Type of writing
Topic sentence of Paragraph 1
Topic sentence of Paragraph 2
Topic sentence of Paragraph 3
Topic sentence of Paragraph 4
General idea of the passage
Suggested answers:
Type of writing
This is a news report.
Topic sentence of Paragraph 1
Strange things were happening in the countryside in northeast Hebei.
Topic sentence of Paragraph 2
Everything began to shake and it seemed that the world was at an end.
Topic sentence of Paragraph 3
Everywhere they looked nearly everything was destroyed.
Topic sentence of Paragraph 4
All hope was not lost.
General idea of the passage
The passage tells us something that happened before the earthquake, during the earthquake and after the earthquake.
3)True or False?
Ask the students to decide whether the following statements are true or false. If it is false, try to correct it.
(1)People in Tangshan were warned of the earthquake and didn’t go to bed that night.
(2)People in Beijing also felt the earthquake.
(3)More than 400 000 people were killed in the quake.
(4)Many rescue workers and doctors were trapped under the ruins during the aftershock.
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(5)People tried to get fresh water from under the ground in Tangshan.
Suggested answers:
(1)F People in Tangshan thought little of the signs of the earthquake and went to bed as usual that night.
(2)T
(3)F More than 400 000 people were killed or injured in the quake.
(4)T
(5)F Fresh water was taken to the city Tangshan by train, truck and plane.
2. Reading carefully
Ask the students to read the passage carefully to locate particular information.
1)Do the exercises in the part Comprehending on Page 27.
2)Fill in the following form.
Time
What happened
Result
Before the earthquake:
three days before the earthquake
at about 3 am on July 28
Wells:
Animals:
Lights and sound:
Water pipes:
People of the city thought______________ and______________
While the earthquake:
At 3:42 am
Later that afternoon
Houses, roads and canals:
Hard hills of rock:
The large city:
The people:
Some rescue workers and doctors:
More buildings:
Water, food and electricity:
______________ was destroyed.______________ hospitals, 75% of______________ and 90% of______________ were gone. More than______________ were killed or injured.
After the earthquake
All hope:
The army:
Workers:
Fresh water:
The city______________.
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3)Choose the best answer:
(1)What is the mood of this passage?
A. Sad. B. Serious. C. Serious and a bit sad. D. Calm.
(2)What can be inferred from the passage?
A. If mice run out of the fields looking for places to hide, there must be an earthquake.
B. If some natural signs had not been ignored, all the people in Tangshan city might have had a chance to survive.
C. There wouldn’t have been such a great earthquake, if people had paid enough attention to some natural signs.
D. If some natural signs had not been ignored, more people might have had a chance to survive.
(3)Which of the following statements can not be part of the main reasons for the heavy loss of life in Tangshan earthquake?
A. The earthquake happened in the deep night and people were sleeping in bed at the very movement.
B. There weren’t enough rescue workers.
C. The buildings were poorly constructed and most of them were destroyed in the earthquake.
D. People were not careful enough to notice some natural signs before the earthquake.
(4)How do you understand the real meaning of the idiom “It is always calm before a storm”?
A. It is unusually quiet before a thunderstorm or hurricane hit.
B. One should not trust situations that seem peaceful since bad things may happen.
C. The weather is fine before a storm comes.
D. You should stay calm before a storm.
Suggested answers:
(1)C (2)D (3)B (4)B
3. Language problems
While checking the answers with the whole class, deal with any language problems that the students can’t understand.
4. Reading aloud
Play the tape of the passage for the students to listen and follow. Then play the tape of Paragraph
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1 of the passage once more; this time the students listen and repeat.
→Step 4 Game
Work in pairs. Suppose you are a newspaper reporter, and the other is a witness of the 1976 Tangshan Earthquake. Now the newspaper reporter is interviewing the witness.
→Step 5 Extension
Show the questions on the screen and have a discussion.
1. From whose point of view are events described? How do you know?
2. What is the mood of this passage? How is it created?
3. Why do you think the writer chooses to express his feelings about the quake rather than simply report what had happened?
4. Why does the writer use A NIGHT THE EARTH DIDN’T SLEEP as the title?
5. What does the sentence “Slowly, the city began to breathe again” mean?
Suggested answers:
1. A writer’s who didn’t see the earthquake. He uses the third-person to describe the quake. His description is very objective. For example, in the second sentence of the third paragraph “Everywhere they looked nearly everything was destroyed. ”, the writer uses “they” instead of “we”.
2. The mood is serious and a bit sad. It is created by giving details of how many people and animals were killed or injured and how many buildings were destroyed.
3. Although the writer was not there, he felt sad for the people of Tangshan. He knows that giving some personal feelings will make the reading more interesting.
4. I think the reason is that, as usual, night is the time to sleep, and night should be safe and quiet. But that night everything changed. The writer uses A NIGHT THE EARTH DIDN’T SLEEP as a title to show how terrible and how unusual that night was.
5. Here we can see that the writer compared the city to a person who suffered a lot in the disaster. He felt her pain, and he worried about her. So when he said that people came to help her, we can feel his feelings to her. The city will not die, she has hope and she can recover from the pain.
→Step 6 Consolidation
Ask the students to read the passage again and try to retell it.
One possible version:
Strange things happened in Tangshan. For three days the water in the village wells rose and fell.
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The well walls had deep cracks and a smelly gas came out the cracks. The chickens, pigs and mice were too nervous. Fish jumped out of bowls and ponds. At 3:00 am on July, 1976, people saw bright lights in the sky and heard the sound of planes even when no planes were in the sky. The water pipes in some buildings cracked and burst.
At 3:42 am everything began to shake. It seemed that the world was at the end! One-third of the nation felt it. A huge crack cut across the city. In fifteen terrible seconds a large city lay in ruins. Two-thirds of the people died or were injured. Nearly everything was destroyed in the city. 75% of its factories and 90% of its homes were gone. Then later that afternoon, another big earthquake shook Tangshan. People began to wonder how long the disaster would last.
All hope was not lost. The army sent 150 000 soldiers to help them. Workers built shelters for survivors. Slowly, the city began to breathe again.
→Step 7 Homework
1. Learn the new words and expressions in this part by heart.
2. Read the text again and again and write a summary of the text.
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