Teaching Aims:

1. Learn and master some adjectives and expressions

2. Train the students’ listening ability

3. Improve the students’ speaking ability by talking and discussing in pairs or groups

4. Make the students know the fact that they will succeed as long as they work hard

Teaching Important Points:

1. Train the students’ listening ability

2. Master some words describing people and use them correctly

Teaching Difficult Points:

1. How to improve the students’ listening ability

2. How to carry out the task of speaking

Teaching Procedures:

Step1 Greetings & Lead-in

T: Good afternoon, everyone. In March, there is an important international festival. Do you know what festival it is? Yes, it’s Women’s Day. Can you tell me some famous women?

S: …

T: Well done! Now I’ll give you some pictures of great women, please tell me their names. (picture1: Hilary; picture2: Wu Yi; picture3: Diana; picture4: Deng Yaping, Fu Mingxia; picture5: Yang Lan, Wu Xiaoli)Today we’re going to talk about some famous women in the world.

Step2 Warming up

T: Open your books and turn to page29, please look at the pictures. Do you know them? (Song Qingling, Madame Curie, Pearl S. Buck, Mother Teresa) Now, please work in small groups to discuss the following questions--What are these women known for? What do you know about them? Three minutes to discuss. OK, please begin.

(Three minutes later, teacher asks some students to talk about each picture)

T: Well, let’s look at the screen. Discuss the following questions in small groups. (Questions: 1. Do you know a woman who really inspires you? Describe her and explain why you admire her. 2. It has often been said that life is difficult as it is. For women it sometimes seems twice as difficult. Is it more difficult for women to become famous or get jobs in high positions? What do you think?)

(After a while, teacher asks some students to report their answers.)

T: Quite right. As you know, it is more difficult for women to become famous, but there’re still many successful women in the world. So we’ll succeed if we work hard. Is that true?

S: Yes.

Step3 Listening

T: There’re many different women around us, such as mothers, sisters, classmates and so on, right? Now, we’ll listen to a dialogue to talk about four girls, they have different qualities. Please read the requirement in Part1.OK, listen to the tape for the first time, don’t fill in the blanks, and only write down some key words on a piece of paper.

T: Listen to it once again; fill in the blanks as possible as you can. (Then check the answers of Part1)

T: Listen to it for the third time, finish Part2.

Step4 Speaking

T: From the listening text, we know many words to describe person, do you remember?

(Teacher shows the words in listening text on the screen)

T: All the words are positive words; do you know some negative words? Look at the screen, I’ll show you some words. (Positive words: strong, smart, honest, friendly, warm, kind, cheerful, popular, generous, hard-working; Negative words: weak, stupid, lazy, dishonest, mean, tense, cold, unkind, unfriendly, miserable, dull) Can you use the words to describe a friend of you?

S: …

T: There’re some useful expressions. (She seems to me to be the kind of women who…; The impression she makes on me is…; I think she is the kind of person who…; She could be…; She might…; People like her…; She looks as if…; You can see that…; She doesn’t seem...) I’d like you to use the patterns and the words to make some sentences.

S: …

T: Good job! On your books, there’re three pictures. First tell me what are they doing? Could you describe them with the useful expressions?

S: …

Step5 Summary & Homework

T: Today we’ve done some speaking and listening, and we have learnt about something about some famous women in the world. From the text, we also learn some useful words and expressions, please read them together with me. Class, now you’ll listen to a beautiful piece of music named “Candle in the wind”; the song is written to honor Princess Diana. At the same time, you could also appreciate some pictures of great women, please practice all the sentence patterns to describe the women. OK?

S: …

T: From that, we know that if we want to succeed, we must work hard, just as Madame Curie says, “Life is not easy for any of us. We must work, and above all we must believe in ourselves. We must believe that each of us is able to do something well and that, when we discover what this something is, we must work hard at it until we succeed.” Besides, you should preview the reading text. Well, so much for today. Goodbye and thank for your listening!

By Xu Han

March 25, 2004