Unit 4  Earthquakes

1. train the students’ listening ability.
2.  learn a passage about the san francisco earthquake
teaching difficulties:
learn to compare two similar passages.
teaching procedures:
step 1 revision
t: in the second period of this unit, you learnt some detailed information about the tangshan eearthquake. can you use several sentences to summarize the passage?
s: let me have a try. the terrible earthquake struck the city of tangshan while people were sleeping. more than 400 000 people were killed or injured in the quake. after the quake, people found nearly everything was destroyed. but people in tangshan didn’t lose heart. they rebuilt the city with the help of soldiers.
t: quite good.
step 2 reading and comparing
t: in the first period, we also talked about the earthquakes that happened in san francisco. today, we will learn a passage titled “the story of an eyewitness”, which is about the san francisco earthquake in 1906. it was written by jake london, who was a famous american writer.
t: first read the passage carefully. while reading, please think about the following questions:
(1) how did the author feel about the earthquake?
(2) how did the author feel about the people of san francisco?
(ss read the passage, then the teacher asks someone to give their answers and checks the answers)
(answers will vary.)
t: quite good. you can keep your own answers as long as you think they are reasonable and you can find proofs from the passage.
 read the first paragraph in this passage .then go back and read again the first paragraph of the passage on page 26. compare the ways both writers give you details about the earthquakes. try to finish the 4 exercises on page 66. you may discuss in group of three.
(ss read the two passage and finish the exercises.)
(then the teacher checks the answers.)
t: next i will play the tape of this passage for you to listen. please pay special attention to the intonation.
(after listening.)
t: now i will give you several minutes to read the third paragraph with feelings.
step 3 listening
t: just now we learned a passage written by an eyewitness about the terrible san francisco earthquake in 1906. now we will listen to a story told by a man who was a survivor of the earthquake. listen to the tape the first time, and try to tell whether the statements in part 1 are true or false.
(teacher plays the tape for the students to listen and finish the task.)
(after listening, the teacher checks the answers with the class.)
t: now let’s listen to the tape again and try to answer the questions in part 2.