Unit 4 Task Telling a story about Father Christmas

一、Teaching goals

1. Target language: new words and sentence structure

2. Ability goals: Practice the students’ listening, speaking, reading and writing.

二、Teaching important and difficult points

Listening and writing.

三、Teaching aids

A tape recorder and a computer.

四、Teaching procedures and ways

Lead-in

Show pictures to students to introduce the topic of this part

A legendary person is a person who is very famous and who is talked by a lot of people. Often, legendary people are real people who lived a long time ago, so the information you find about them might be true but some of it might be impossible or do not exist.

Skill building 1: finding information about a legendary person

In order to find which information is real and which is not, you can listen out for the following expressions which people often use when discussing something which might not be real:

He/She is said/supposed to…

He/She is known/described/pictured as …

People believe that …

According to the stories, he/she …

Apparently, he/she …

I have heard that he/she …

Step 1: taking notes about Father Christmas

A. Listen to a TV programmer about Father Christmas and fill in as much of the note sheet as possible.

B. Now listen to the second half of the programmer and finish the notes above.

Answers: 1) fat 2) white 3) red suit 4) black 5) North 6) toys 7) 12 8) deliver 9) presents 10) tree 11) bed 12) pies 13) green 14) 1931

Tapescript

Host: Good morning. Today, I am going to interview someone who knows a lot about Father Christmas.

Steve Smith is the owner of a toy shop. Now, Steve, I wonder if you could quickly summarize who Father Christmas is and what he does.

Steve: Well, the character Father Christmas has been around for hundreds of years, and he is known to many children around the world as the person who brings them Christmas presents. He is often described as a happy, fat man with long white hair and a long white beard and moustache, dressed in a red suit with a black belt and black boots. However, he hasn’t always dressed like that. A famous advertisement used a picture of him wearing red in nineteen thirty-one, but before that, he was usually drawn wearing green.

Host: Father Christmas comes to visit us at Christmas time, but where does he spend the rest of the years?

Steve: Well, he is said to live near the North Pole with his wife and lots of little creatures called elves. The elves are his friends. They help make toys. He also has twelve reindeer that help him deliver the presents on Christmas Eve.

Host: When I was a child, I used to write to Father Christmas, so that he would know what I wanted.

Steve: Many children do that several months before Christmas. They write to tell what presents they would like for Christmas. One of the traditions in the UK is for children to take the list of presents they want and put it in the chimney.

Host: What happens after that, on Christmas Eve?

Steve: According to stories, on Christmas Eve, Father Christmas puts all of the presents onto his sled and flies across the sky with his twelve reindeer. Once Father Christmas arrives at a house, he goes down the chimney and places presents for the children in stockings or in front of the family Christmas tree. Some people hang the stockings by their beds, but most people hang them by the fireplace. Many people say that Father Christmas likes to eat mince pies, so they always leave some out for him to eat. Many people also leave a carrot out for the reindeer.

Host: I didn’t know that! I’ll have to remember that in the future. Now we have time for one more question. Do you know where the idea for Father Christmas came from?

Steve: There is a connection between Father Christmas and ST Nicholas, who was a saint from hundreds of years ago. You can find more about ST Nicholas on the Internet.

Host: Steve, thanks for talking to us today. I suggest that anyone who wants to find out more about Father Christmas should look on the Internet. There are many sites and there is much information about

Read the article about Father Christmas on a web about ST Nicholas ON Page 59, and then answer the following questions.

1. Where did ST Nicholas come from?

--- ST Nicholas came from a village called Myra in Turkey.

2. Why is Father Christmas modeled after him?

--- Because he was very kind and generous especially to young people.

3. What is the origin of Father Christmas coming down the chimney?

--- Father Christmas threw small bags of gold down the chimney to help the three daughters in a poor family get married.

4. Where did the idea of hanging stockings near the fireplace come from?

--- One of his bags of gold fell into a stockings hanging up to dry over the fireplace.

5. What does ST Nicholas look like?

--- He is tall and thin with no beard and wears the traditional clothes of a priest.

Skill building 2: asking questions about cultural differences

Step 2: finding out about different Christmas traditions

● Is Father Christmas the same in every Western country?

● What is Father Christmas called in different country?

● Do people in Western countries all send presents to others on 24 December?

Make a dialogue about the questions using the following structure.

● Is/Are…the same everywhere?

●What is/are …called in each country?

● Which…is/are different in each country?

● How is/are…different in each country?

Skills building 3: writing a story about a legendary figure

Tips:

1. When you write a story a legendary figure, you need a way to start the story to get your readers interested.

e.g.

● I am going to tell you a story about…

● I am sure you have all heard about … Well, I am going to tell a story about him/her.

2. Then you need to give descriptions of the legendary figures:

identity

who he/she is

identity

what he/she looks like

personality

the different aspects of his or her character

occupation

what he/she does

origin

who the character is based on

other interesting facts

e.g., the different names that are used for him/her around the world

Step 3: writing a story about Father Christmas

●Opening sentence_________________

● Identity______________________

● Appearance____________________

● Personality_______________________

● Occupation____________________

● Origin_____________________

● Other interesting facts___________

Homework:

1. Write a story about Father Christmas.

2. Preview Project part.