Learning about Language优秀教案

Unit4 A Night the Earth didn’t Sleep教学设计

杜丹

教学目标：

1. 知识类目标

本节课重点理解文中“bowl, crack, think little of, in ruins, hills of rock, rivers of dirt, tens of thousands of cows would never give milk again.”等的含义。

2. 技能类目标

a.训练阅读技能, 主要包括快速阅读能力和批判性思维能力

b.归纳总结能力

3. 情感态度类目标

a.让学生了解地震的相关知识，包括震前的征兆和震后可能的结果，明白知识储备的重要性以及细节不可忽视的道理。

b.“一方有难，八方援助”的为人态度和思想境界。

c. 明白如何尽量避免未来的地震灾难。

教学重难点：

1.阅读技能的训练，尤其是根据文本信息进行归纳提炼的能力以及批判性思维的训练。

如，对于“为什么感觉像世界末日”和“为什么幸存者难以相信这是自然灾害”的理解以及两次震后的心理状态的探索，这些都需要学生对文本好好解读和进行深度思考。

教学过程：

Step 1: Lead-in 导入

用一组有着美丽风光的城市画面提问学生图为哪座城市？目的是激发学生的联想，反衬地震后城市的满目苍夷，key point：一场可怕的灾难毁灭了一切美好，它，就是地震。

This is a city, is it beautiful? Do you know which city it is? Unfortunately, something terrible happened to this beautiful city around 40 years ago. Do you know what it was?An earthquake.

Let’s come to the title of today’s lesson: A night the earth didn’t sleep. When did the earth not sleep? When it was active. Can you predict what the text will tell us about with the help of the title and the picture in the text? Yeah, an earthquake. But what will the text tell us about THE earthquake?Can you predict?

Step 2: Skimming&scanning 训练快速阅读能力和综合归纳能力

skimming for main ideas 要求学生分段，同时use one word to summarize the main idea of each part，快速略读的同时，学会归纳总结。

Part 1: Para.1 signs Part 2: Para.2&3 damage Part 3 : Para.4. rescue

*这一过程需要引导学生进行归纳总结。（课堂上意外发现学生有这样的总结：strange—terrible—hopeful，学生从情感层面提炼了三个形容词，有思考，予鼓励。还有学生提到震前before，震中during，震后after，提到按时间顺序。予与鼓励。）

Step 3: Detailed reading 细读训练和文本理解



When and where were the strange things happening? What were they? 

Why did the text say the world seemed to be at an end? 

How was the city destroyed after the quake? 

When did the second quake hit the city?What was the result of that? 

How was Tangshan helped?

*这一过程设计了五个问题，基本上是根据每段话的内容设置了主要的问题，每个问题在分析后又抛出了拓展问题。设计第一个问题是为了对时间地点有个基本的背景了解，时间：for three days。地点：Northeast Hebei. *文章关于地点，实际讲了两块内容，即in the countryside 和

in the city.

1. When and where were the strange things happening? What were they? In the countryside 

wells

rose and fell 

well walls

deep cracks…smelly gas



chickens&pigs

too nervous to eat 

mice

ran out of …hide



fish

jumped out of … bowls and ponds



bright lights

appeared in the sky 

the sound of planes

be heard…no planes…

In the city 

water pipes

cracked and burst

回答what were they?的过程中，顺便理解bowls的含义，这是一个容易被忽略但却又是大多不懂的问题。这里bowl, is not the tool you use to have meals, but a container, which you fill with water to keep fish。问题回答完后，回到关键词

“strange”

上，所有这些信息都可以指向关键词strange。随后抛出问题“Did people think much of these events?”，然后用

“How do you know?”

引导学生寻找文中依据，此处不难，目的是培养学生阅读思维习惯，即结论一定要以文本为依托，换言之，我们得出的结论，不可凭空臆测或主观想象，一定得回归文本，从作者的文字信息中寻找结论的支撑点。互动的过程中，同时学习词组“think little of”。接着, 抛出拓展问题

“Can you think of some reasons why these signs were not noticed?”

以及

“If all these were happening in the place where you lived, would you know there would be an earthquake?” (课上发现学生回答的很好。学生基本都会知道原因之一是人们对这方面的知识欠缺、不懂所致，还有的想到农民干农活很忙，没注意到这些…等; 第二个拓展问题有学生回答说我不会知道地震要来，因为我住在城市，所以没有那么多的signs让我看到等。通过学生的回答，能感觉到学生对文本的理解和思想火花的擦出。) 根据学生的回答，顺势引出结论Small events can foretell big events. 以及不要忽略细节的道理，因为details usually mean a difference between failure or success, tears or laugh and death or life.

2.Why did the text say the world seemed to be at an end?

关键词“at an end”, 要求学生从文章中找到关键词支撑“at an end”。

one of the greatest earthquakes

one-third of the nation felt it 

a huge crack 8 km long&30m wide 

steam burst



hard hills of rock …rivers of dirt



15 seconds …lay in ruins

people’s suffering was extreme



two-thirds…died/injured



thousands… killed/many children…without parents



The number…reached more thsn 400,000

两个关键词，即

“great”

和

“extreme”

能支撑“at an end”，一个是讲地震之猛，一个是讲人们之苦，得出结论：世界末日。这个过程需要引导学生找出关键词，同时又要求学生回归文本找信息来支撑“great”和“extreme”。与学生互动的过程中，顺便通过图片进行词汇“crack”和“lay in ruins”的直观理解，以及hard hills of rock 变成

rivers of dirt, 矗立变横躺的惨状。

3.How was the city destroyed after the quake?

这个问题不难回答，设计的目的是为了基于文本，熟悉地震造成的破坏。



All hospitals 

75% factories & buildings 

90% homes 

bricks…autumn leaves



two dams…most bridges…



railway tracks…useless…



tens of thousands of cows…



half a million pigs & millions of chickens 

wells were filled with sand not water any more

与学生互动的过程中，理解句子“Tens of thousands of cows would never give milk again.”问题回答完后，随后抛出拓展问题“Why couldn’t the survivors believe it was natural?”设计目的是对文本进行深度思考，关键词在于“natural”，这个过程需要引导学生思考，可以根据地震造成的破坏情况进行分析挖掘。No homes to live in; no places to work; no transportation means; no food to eat; no water to drink. If it did not look natural, what did it look more like? More like it was destroyed by very bad people on purpose, not caused by nature, but by human beings who wanted to make them lose everything. 紧接着抛出问题“What does the writer want to convey by saying so?”The severity of the earthquake。训练学生评判性思维，思考文字信息背后的写作用意。

4. When did the second quake hit the city?What was the result of that? later that afternoon

almost as strong as

rescue workers and doctors were trapped…

more buildings fell down

water,food,electricity were hard to get

设计这个问题，目的一是让学生能对两次地震有个清楚的轮廓，二是为后面的拓展问题“How did people feel now?”做好铺垫，这个问题设计用来探索人们的内心状态，进一步训练学生的评判性思维。After the first one, they felt very shocked, and couldn’t believe what they had just experienced. Now very scared. 对于scared，学生会有难度，这里需要引导学生分析思考，文段中有这样一句话

“People began to wonder how long the disaster would last.”那么，人们一般会在什么情况下希望早点结束呢？一般人们会在感到乏味无聊时，希望早点结束，还有一种情况就是当人们感到恐惧害怕时，也希望早点结束。这里显然是后者。当然学生肯定会想到hopeless,desperate等之类的词，予与鼓励。

5. How was Tangshan helped? 

Soldiers were sent there to help the rescue workers 

People were helped. 

Trapped ones were dug out. 

The dead were buried. 

Miners were rescued. 

Shelters were built. 

Fresh water was taken there.

通过这一组被动句式，能深刻地感受到Tangshan 被帮助了！所以All hope was not lost. The city began to breathe again.传递情感价值观“一方有难，八方援助。”

Step 4: Discussion 思维拓展训练和延伸



What situations probably made the disaster worse? 

Could anything more have been done to help the survivors? Why or why not? 

Why could this earthquake cause so many injuries? 1.Poor construction of the houses 2.People had not been prepared for what to do if and when such an earthquake occurred. 3.The earthquake struck at night when most people were in bed. 4.It was an extremely powerful earthquake.

学生热烈讨论，思想火花碰撞。糟糕的路况，如断裂的路段等可能让供给运输无法及时到达，人们需要物质帮助，心灵创伤更需及时抚慰和疏导等等。第三个问题的思考，警醒世人为避免未来灾害可以努力的方向。

Step 5: Homework 

Do you like the title of the text?If not, suggest another one for it. 

Find out all the rhetorical devices(修辞手法) in the text. 

Find out the topic sentence in each paragraph and with the help of them, write a summary

of the text.

作业的设计考虑到一节课解读文本的时间有限，所以将一二两个内容留作作业去思考，第三个关于找主题句，也是因为时间关系，留作作业思考，同时也可作为写summary的依据，所以合并成一个作业。至于写summary，是为了让学生进一步熟悉文本内容以及训练学生归纳概括的能力和锻炼summary的写作思路。