Unit 2  What is happiness to you?

t: first, look at the four sentences. do they have something in common?
s: yes! they all use the past tense.
t: but there are also differences among them. can you tell the differences? next, discuss with your partners. pay attention to the italic words.
several minutes later.
t: can you show your opinions now?
ss: yes.
s: in the first sentence we use the simple past tense to talk about something happened in the past.
t: very good. what about the second sentence?
s: i think it means something happened in the past and continued for some time.
t: very good! thank you! now let’s move to the last two sentences.
s: they are both used in the past perfect tense. by looking at the two sentences, i think we use the past perfect tense to talk about things that happened in the past and stopped before another past action began.
t: excellent! but i think you are partly right. do the two sentences express the same meaning?
s: the fourth sentence means the thing happened in the past and at that time another past action began.
t: that’s it! just now we talked about different forms of the past tense. and later, we will do more practice about them. now let’s move to the future tense. please look at the following sentences. can you tell the difference?
show students the following sentences:
1. she will come with us to watch the football match tomorrow.
2. i shall work hard and learn to become a gymnast.
3. today, i’m going to talk about how to find happiness.
4. dr brain will be talking about success next time.
5. before she went to the goodwill games, sang lan to ld her parents she was going to win her event.
several minutes later
t: are you ready to show me your answers?
ss: yes!
s: i will have a try. in sentences1, 2, 3  the simple future tense is used. when the subject is the first person, we usually use shall instead of will.
t: you are right. then when shall we use “be going to”?
s: i think when we want to talk about future plans and intentions, we can use “be going to”.
t: very good. you got the answer. what about sentence 4?
s: sentence 4 uses the future continuous tense. this sentence is used to talk about something that will start in the future and continue for some time.
t: excellent! the fifth sentence is used in the future in the past. when shall we use this tense?
s: when we want to talk about an event which was in the future at the time when it was discussed.
t: you got the answer. good job! next i’ll show you further explanations about future tense.
show the following to the students and ask them to take some notes.