Unit 3 A taste of English humour
Teaching goals
1. Target language
verbal, nonverbal, mime, farce, pancakes, mountainous, whisper
b. I think how short life is and how long the universe has lasted. P22
2. Ability goals
Enable the students to talk about some types of English humour and Chinese humour.
3. Learning ability goals
a. Help the students learn how to talk about some types of English and Chinese humour, and then find their differences.
b. Let the students listen, read, and then imitate the jokes, so that they can realize that humour is to let people to be optimistic about everything around.
Teaching important points
Help the students learn how to understand and enjoy English humors.
Teaching difficult points
Help the students know the differences between English and Chinese in humours.
Teaching methods
Using pictures, discussion, reading and imitation.
Teaching aids
A recorder and a projector.
Part One: Teaching Design reading
(NONVERBAL HUMOUR)
Aims
To help students develop their reading ability.
To help students learn about English humour.
Procedures
I. Warming up
Warming up by defining “Humour”
What is “Humour”? Does any one of you know anything about humour? Look at the sreen and read the definition of Humour from the Internet.
Whose job ...?
This is the story about four people named Everybody,Somebody, Anybody and Nobody.There was an important job to be done,and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.Somebody got angry about thatbecause it was Everybody´s job.Everybody thought Anybody could do it,but Nobody realised that Everybody wouldn´t do it.It ended up that Everybody blamed SomebodyWhen Nobody did what Anybody could have done
II. Pre-reading
Telling the truth —Why do you like to laugh at?
I like to laugh at cartoons,for they’re lovely and fun.
I like to laugh at fairy tales. They are amusing and interesting.
Many years ago there lived an Emperor who was so exceedingly fond of fine new clothes that he spent vast sums of money on dress. To him clothes meant more than anything else in the world. He took no interest in his army, nor did he care to go to the theatre, or to drive about in his state coach, unless it was to display his new clothes. He had different robes for every single hour of the day.
III. Reading
1. Reading aloud to the recording
Now please listen and read aloud to the recording of the text NONVERBAL HUMOUR. Pay attention to the pronunciation of each word and the pauses between the thought groups. I will play the tape twice and you shall read aloud twice, too.
2. Reading and underlining
Next you are to read and underline all the useful expressions or collocations in the passage. Copy them to your notebook after class as homework. 3. Reading to identify the topic sentence of each paragrap
Skim the text and identify the topic sentence of each paragraph. You may find it either at the beginning, the middle or the end of the paragraph. 4. Reading and transferring information
Read the text again to complete the table.
NONVERBAL HUMOUR
What is nonverbal humour?
Who is Charlie Chaplin?
How does he make a sad situation entertaining?
What is the story of The Gold Rush?
Facts about Oscar
A brief life history of Charlie Chaplin
5. Reading and understanding difficult sentences
As you have read the text times, you can surely tell which sentences are difficult to understand. Now put your questions concerning the difficult points to me the teacher.
IV. Closing down
Closing down by doing exercises
To end the lesson you are to do the comprehending exercises No. 1and 2 on pages 18 and 19. Closing down by watching a silent movie by Charlie Chaplin
Do you like watching movies? Do you like humourous movies? Now let’s watch a silent humourous movie by Charlie Chaplin. It’s Charlie Chaplin's first film: Making a Living
Closing down by reading about Charlie Chaplin
To end the period we shall read an article about Charlie Chaplin. Now look at the screen and read it aloud with me.
The second period Learning about Language
(The –ing form as the Predicative, Attributive & Object)
Aims
To help students learn about The –ing form as the Predicative, Attributive & Object)
To help students discover and learn to use some useful words and expressions. To help students discover and learn to use some useful structures.
Procedures
I. Warming up
Warming up by discovering useful words and expressions
Turn to page 19 and do exercises No. 1, 2 , 3, 4 and 5. Check your answers against your classmates’. II. Learning about The –ing form as the Attributive What is attributive? It is something placed before the nouns to be modified: “red” is an attributive adjective in “a red apple”. “walking ” is also an attributive adjective in “a walking stick”.
III. Ready used materials for The –ing form as the Predicative, Attributive & Object
Which verbs can be followed by the -ing form?
IV. Closing down
Closing down by discovering
To end the period you are going to skim the text and the previous texts to find out all the examples containing –ing forms used as the predicative, attributive and object.
Closing down by exercises
In the last few minutes you are to do exercises 1, 2, 3 and 4 on page 21. Check your answers against those of your groupmates’
The third period Using Language
(Jokes about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson)
Aims
To help students read the paragraph of Jokes about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson
To help students to use the language by reading, listening, speaking and writing.
Procedures
I. Warming up
Warming up by reading school jokes
There are lots of jokes in English about school life. Read these two to see whether you will laugh or not.
Why must we learn this? 为什么要学这个呀?
One day our professor was discussing a particularly complicated concept. A pre-med student rudely interrupted to ask, "Why do we have to learn this pointless information""To save lives." the professor responded quickly and continued the lecture. A few minutes later, the same student spoke up again. "So how does physics save lives?" he persisted."It keeps the ignoramuses like you out of medical school," replied the professor.
II. Guided reading
1. Reading and translating
Read the paragraph on page 22 and translate it into Chinese sentence by sentence.
2. Reading and underlining
Next you are to read the paragph and underline all the useful expressions or collocations in it. Copy them to your notebook after class as homework.
Collocations from the paragraph on page 22
Go camp, in a mountainous area, lie in the open air, under the stars, look up at the stars, think of…, try a third time, in one’s beds
3. Doing the exercise
Now you are going to do the exercise No. 1 on page 22.
III.Guided Speaking
Think of funny stories in English and telll them to your group mates.
IV.Guided Writing—Learn to write jokes
There are two main parts to the structure of a joke. The first prepares you for the laugh by telling a story which creates a sense of expectation. The second part of the joke, the punch line, provokes laughter by telling an unexpected and different story, yet one which is still compatible with the first, as in this example: "My wife just ran off with my best friend. Boy, do I miss him." and "I had a mud pack facial done, and for three days my face looked much better. Then the mud fell off." Notice the assumption that is made in both these examples. In the first, you assume the person telling the story is angry with his wife, so the punch line surprises you because he's feeling something different and unexpected. Again, in the second example, you'd most likely assume the mud had been removed, leaving the face looking better, so the punch line takes you by surprise.
So, to write jokes you need to practice reading statements and writing down the asumptions you make about them. You must be able to interpret the statement (first story line) in at least two different ways in order to provide the second, different story i.e. the punch line. And what to write about? Anything that interests you. Anything you have strong opinions about.
Now write down your own jokes, in English.
IV. Closing down by acting
To end this period, we are going to act the film by Charlie Chaplin The Great Dictator.
Part Tw Teaching Resources
1.A text structure analysis of NONVERBAL HUMOUR
I. Type of writing and summary of the idea
Type of writing
This is a piece of describtive writing.
Main idea of the passage
Charlie Chaplin astonishes us with the deep feelings he can inspire in us for a character he is playing.
Topic sentence of 1st paragraph
Some humour can be cruel.
Topic sentence of 2nd paragraph
Charlie Chaplin is such an actor as to astonish us with the deep feelings.
Topic sentence of 3rd paragraph
How did Charlie Chaplin make a sad situation entertaining?
Topic sentence of 4th paragraph
The film of The Gold Rush is set in California.
Topic sentence of 5th paragraph
Charlie Chaplin produced, directed, and wrote the movies he starred in.
II. A tree diagram of the text Charlie Chaplin — The Gold Rush
Charlie Chaplin making a sad situation entertaining?
(para 3)
The film of The Gold Rush set in California where gold was discovered
(para 4)
Humours being cruel
(para 1)
Charlie Chaplin astonishing us with the deep feelings
(para 2)
Charlie Chaplin producing, directing, and writing the movies he starred in
(para 5)
III. A retold passage of the text
Give A possible version:
The fourth period Listening
Step 1 Listening on P23
Listen to the tape and answer the following questions
1. Which is best title for this story?
2. Why was Mary Smith frustrated?
3. What turned the jam into wine?
4. Did you find this story funny? Why?
5. What do you think of John’s behavior?
Step 2 Listening text
Hand out the listening material and listen to the tape ,then complete the passage
Step 3 Listening on P55
1. Listen to the tape and tick the words you hear.
2. Listen to the tape again and answer the following questions.
1). Where did Peter get the potatoes?
2). Why didn’t Peter want to get up when the thief was in his house?
3. Why couldn’t the thief take away the potatoes?
4. How did Peter stop the man stealing the potatoes?
Step 4 Listening text
Listen to the tape and complete the listening text
Then ask some students to read the passage with the right answers , and tell the main idea
Step 5 Listening task on P58
1.Listen to the tape and Choose the best picture that best describes what happened.
2. Choose the best answer to each question
3. Listen to the tape again and answer the question.
How do you think the teacher felt when he was offered the dog?
Step 6 Discussion
Discuss how you would solve these problems and help the teacher.
Step 7 Homework
Please collect as many funny stories as you can. They will be useful in the next period. And try to find some interesting words in these stories.
The fifth period Speaking and Writing
Step 1 Warming up
Look at the following pictures about humour
Then ask : How many kinds of humour do you know?
Step 2 Enjoy a comedy
Listen to the tape and finish the following form
Born
Died
Job
Acting type
Masterpieces
Step 3
Other examples of English homour
1. mime and farce Mr. Bean
2. funny stories
Mark Twain : Life on the Mississippi Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Examples of Chinese humour
funny plays
Step 4
1. Read some of these customer and waiter jokes and match the joke with the explanation on P22.
2.Show more jokes
Step 5 Homework
Preview the Reading material and finish the Comprehending ahead.