人教版高中英语教案必修1第四单元

Unit 4：Earthquakes

Period 1: A sample lesson plan for reading

(A NIGHT THE EARTH DIDN’T S) LEEP

Aims： To listen and talk about natural disasters

To read about earthquakes

Step I. Warming up

1.Warming up by asking some questions：

(1) Have you ever experienced any natural disasters?

(2) Can you name all the disasters?

(volcano, fire, sandstorm, typhoon, hailstone, thunderstorm, flood, hurricane, earthquake, mudflow)

(3) Have you ever experienced an earthquake? Can you describe how terrible an earthquake is?

(The earth is shaking; All the buildings will fall down; Many people will die and homeless; Many children

will become orphans.)

2. Warming up by discussing

Now, look at the pictures of Tangshan and San Francisco in warming up and describe what you see in the

pictures. (beautiful cities; broad roads; tall building; large population.)

(4) What will happen if there has been a big earthquake in these two cities?

As we all know, earthquakes are disasters to everyone. But can we avoid or at least reduce the loss caused

by earthquakes? Can we foretell earthquakes? Now let’s come to Pre-reading and decide what may happen before an earthquake comes.

Step II. Pre-reading

1.Talking and sharing

What are the signs of an earthquake?

(e.g. Cows, pigs and dogs become too nervous too eat.

The mice will run out of the fields looking for places to hide.

The water in the wells will rise and fall.

Walls of the houses in villages will have deep cracks.

There will be bright lights in the sky….)

2. Imaging and sharing

Imagine there is an earthquake now, your home begins to shake and you must leave it right away. You have

time to take only one thing. What will you take? Why?

Step III. Reading

1. Listening and fast reading

Now, let’s come to the text “A NIGHT THE EARTH DIDN’T SLEEP” and

see what it tells us. Please listen to the text and get the general idea of the passage. You should pay attention to

the first sentences of each paragraph. In what order is the text written?

(The text is written in time order. The general idea is the mixture of the first sentences of each paragraph,

that is, the text tells us something that happened before the earthquake, during the earthquake and after the

earthquake.)

2. Reading and underlining

Next you are to read and underline all the useful expressions or collocations in the passage. Copy them in

your notebook after class as homework.

a smelly gas, come out of, in the farmyards, too nervous to eat, run out of, look for place to hide, water pipes,

think little of sth., as usual, it seemed that, at an end, one hundred kilometers away, one-third eight kilometers

long, thirty meters wide, cut across, in ruins, be injury, the number of, reach more than 400, 000, everywhere,

everything was destroyed, be gone, blow away, sth. be not safe for, tens of thousands of, give milk, half a

million, instead of, be shocked, later that afternoon, be trapped under the ruins, fall down, all…is/was not…,

hundreds of thousands of, dig out, the dead, to the north of, coal mines, built shelters, fresh water

3. Reading aloud and translating

Next, we are going to read aloud the text and translate it into Chinese.

4. Reading and transforming information

Read the text again and answer the following questions. 名师整理，助你成功

1. What natural signs of coming disaster were there?

2. Can you think of some reasons why these signs weren’t noticed?

3. Can you describe the disaster caused by the earthquake?

4. What events and situations probably made the disaster worse?

5. How were the survivors helped?

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

5. Discussing writing style

As you have understood the general idea of the text, I still put more questions to you.

1. From whose point of view are events described? How do you know? (A writer who didn’t see the quake uses the third person “they” when he writes.)

2. Why do you think the writer chose to express her feelings about the quake rather than simply report what

happened?

(Although the writer was not there he felt sad for the people of Tang Shan. He knows that giving some feelings

will make the reading more interesting.)

3. Why is the title “A NIGHT THE EARTH DIDN’T SLEEP”?

(As usual, night is the time to sleep, and night should be quiet and safe. But that night everything changed. The

writer used it as a title to show how terrible and how unusual that night is.)

6. Reading and understanding difficult sentences.

If you have some difficult sentences to understand, come to me for help.