Unit 8 Natural Disasters
Comic strip and Welcome to the unit
I. Teaching aims and learning objectives
By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:
1. name some common natural disasters fluently;
2. talk about some common natural disasters and their results or effects.
II. Teaching contents
1. New words and phrases: disaster, mop, up, earthquake, thousands of, accident, coach, crash, flood, wash away, village, lightning, storm, thunder, catch fire.
2. New structures: I was sleeping when it started to rain.
III. Focus of the lesson and predicted area of difficulty
Talk about natural disasters and the bad effects in simple English.
IV. Teaching procedures
Comic strip
Step 1 Lead-in
Free talk about the weather
T: A nice day, isn’t it?
S: Yes, it’s sunny and it’s neither cold nor hot.
T: But it says the rain is around the corner.
S: Oh, really? I hope it won’t rain hard.
T: I hope not. Or I will feel sad because I am going to the Slender West Lake. Look, here comes
Hobo. He looks sad, what’s happening?
【设计意图】通过Free talk谈论天气，复习第七单元所学有关天气的词汇，激发学生的学习兴趣，使学生能很快的进入角色，引出话题为后面的学习做铺垫。
Step 2 Presentation
1. Play the tape for the first time
T: Something bad may happen to Hobo. What is it? Yes, Hobo’s house is wet.
2. Learn the new word and the difficult sentence by showing students some pictures.
mop the floor, mop up the water
I was sleeping when it started to rain.
3. Play the tape a second time and ask the following questions
T: What was Hobo doing when it started to rain?
What did Hobo see when he woke up?
Why doesn’t he want to go back home alone?
Do you think Eddie will mop up the water for Hobo?
T: As I know though Eddie is a little lazy, he is not so cold-hearted.
So I think Eddie will help Hobo. And I think we should help each other. Right?
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【设计意图】在语境中学习单词与难句，为学生理解对话扫清障碍。最后一问要引导学生学习互相帮助。
Step 3 Practice
1. Play the tape a third time and students repeat and then do pair work.
2. Fill in the blanks according the comic strip.
This m_____, Hobo came to Eddie’s house for h___, because his was all w___. He was
s______ at that time and didn’t h____ the rain. When he woke up, there was water e____.
He wanted Eddie to go home w___ him and help him to m____ all the water up. Eddie doesn’t
feel very h_____. Will he help Hobo?
【设计意图】通过故事的填写，检测学生对漫画内容的掌握情况。
Welcome to the unit
Step 1 Lead-in
Revise the comic strip.
T: What was the weather like when Hobo was sleeping? Yes, it was raining hard.
Step 2 Presentation
1. Enjoy a short movie and learn some new words
T: If it rains harder and harder, it may turn into a storm. And a storm sometimes arrives with thunder and lightning. Imagine this: If it rains without stopping for some days, there will be too much rain. What may happen then? Yes, a flood arrives. What do floods bring us? Disasters.
T: Look at the two pictures. They are the same village. But they look quite different. One is taken before a flood. The other is taken after the flood. You can see the difference clearly. The flood washes away almost everything in the village. It washes away the village. Thousands of people lose their homes.
T: Can we stop these? Of course not. Nobody can stop them. They are not caused by people, but by nature. So we call them natural disasters. Do you know some other natural disasters?
Show students some other natural disasters, like fire and landslide.
2. Finish Part A on P93
(1) Decide on the natural disasters.
T: Compare the two pieces of news. Both catch fire. But what’s the difference? Let’s have a look. The right one is a natural disaster while the left one is an accident. Accidents are caused by people. If we are careful enough, most accidents won’t happen.
T: Our friend Sandy is reading the newspaper. There is some bad news. Can you pick out natural disasters?
T: Can you rewrite these news into newspaper headlines?
(2) Check the answers together and read them out.
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T: When we write newspaper headlines, we should pay attention to the following.
No.1 We often use the simple present tense
No.2 We often use capital letter for the first word
No.3 Words like “a”, “an”, “the” and the verb “be” are often left out
No.4 We seldom use full stop
3. Play Part B on page 93
(1) Listen to the tape.
T: Sandy and Millie are chatting online. Please listen to their conversation and find out what they are talking about, a natural disaster or an accident.
T: Why do you think it was a natural disaster?
(2) Play the tape again and ask students to make questions and answers by themselves.
Model questions:
What happened to Vivien’s school last week?
What caused the fire in her school?
Was anyone hurt? Why or why not?
4. Show students some useful expressions and let them make similar dialogues.
S1: Did you hear about …?
S2: No. What happened?
S1: There was …
S2: Oh, really?
S1: Yes, …
【设计意图】对比同一地区水灾前后的照片，创设学习生词的语境，同时使学生深刻体会灾害的后果。通过让学生了解火灾的起因，使学生区分自然灾害与意外事故。通过尝试改写，使学生进一步了解新闻标题的书写特点。鼓励学自己设问并回答，使学生初步了解如何简单谈论自然灾害及其后果。
Step 3 Practice
1. Watch and think
T: Now let’s watch a news report about fire.
T: Is it an accident or a natural disaster? How did the fire start?
2. Listen and discuss
T: Now you are going to listen to a passage. Think about these, please. What can fire do? Is fire useful or useless to us? How can we make use of fire? What should we do if there is a fire?
3. Watch and discuss
T: Do you want to know what happened to the mole at last? Let’s watch the end of the story.
T: When natural disasters happen, what should we do? The most important thing is to keep clam, I think. And we should be brave, be brave enough to help ourselves. At the same time we must help each other.
【设计意图】通过听力材料，对学生进行有关灾难主题的教育，以提高学生的安全意识。
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通过观看动画，让学生讨论灾难发生时如何保护自己，提高学生的自我安全保
护意识。
V. Homework
1. Learn the new words and phrases by heart.
2. Read and recite Part B.
3. Make similar dialogues using Part B as a model and write them down.
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