When training the Ss’ listening ability, teachers should start with pre-listening, that is, lead-in.If it is necessary, teachers had better introduce some background knowledge about the listeningmaterial. Later, let the Ss listen to it. At the same time, teachers should design some simplequestions. After that, the Ss have known about the listening material, and then teachers can askthem to listen to it again to be ready for more difficult questions. If necessary, the Ss can be givenanother time to listen. While practicing, teachers had better offer students some advice on how todo it well. Especially, train the students to predict what to be talked about according to the hintsand limited information and let them form the good listening habit of listening with the purpose offinding useful information and to summarize. Certainly, suppose there are many new words andexpressions, teachers should help them to deal with them at the first place. All the listeningpractice should focus on developing the students’ listening skill. After practicing listening, the Ss are expected to learn some expressions about talking aboutscientific job as well as scientists’ achievements and recount stories. Besides those, the studentsare expected to learn the skill of describing a person. During the course, teachers should rank class activities from the easy to the difficult. First,ask them to learn the expressions. Then, ask them to imitate it to have a dialogue. Finally, thestudents are expected to create a dialogue or discuss the given topic. In order to draw students’attention, the teacher had better prepare for some interesting situations. This period centers on emphasis on speaking and listening. The teacher should try his or herbest to encourage the students to say something. Don’t always correct the mistakes that thestudents would make while speaking. Otherwise, the students would feel reluctant to speak outtheir opinions. Teaching Important PointsTrain the students’ speaking ability by describing, talking and discussing.
Help the students improve their listening ability.
Teaching DifficultiesTrain the students’ listening ability. Especially listen and understand what the speakers
mean beyond words.
Teaching Aids
a tape recorder, a projector and the blackboard
Three Dimensional Teaching AimsKnowledge aims: Let the Ss know about some scientists and their life and contributions.

Period 3　Listening and SpeakingThe General Idea of This PeriodThis is the third period of this unit. At the beginning of this period, the teacher should (can)design some exercises to review what the students learned in the last period, that is to say, go overwhat the students learned about that John Snow defeats“King Cholera”. The teacher can beginwith asking some questions or having a competition to make some sentences with“JohnSnow”according to the passage. During this period, listening and speaking will be mainly dealt with. At the beginning,teachers focus on training the Ss’ listening. This listening content is about the importance of QianXuesen for space travel in China, the contributions made by a botanist named Carl Linnaeus andthe research into the life and work of a mathematician called Leonhard Euler.


Ability Aims:
Train the students’ speaking ability by describing, talking and discussing.
Train the students’ listening ability.
Emotional Aims:
Train the students’ability to cooperate with others.
Encourage the students to learn from scientists to show interest in scientific exploration andresearch.
Teaching ProcedureStep 1 GreetingT: Hello, boys and girls.
Ss: Hello, Miss Wang.
Step 2 Revision
T: Today we will begin our lesson with a competition between groups. In the last period, welearnt about John Snow who defeats“King Cholera”. Now, please say something that you knowabout it. If you offer a complete sentence, you will be given ten marks. Your group will be giventwenty marks when your expression is especially beautiful.
S: John Snow was a well-known doctor in London, who attended Queen Victoria to ease thebirth of her babies.
S: He became inspired when he thought about helping ordinary people exposed to cholera,which was the deadly disease of his day.
S: John Snow got interested in two theories explaining how cholera killed people.
S: He believed in the second theory that is people absorbed this disease into their bodies withtheir meals. From the stomach the disease attacked the body quickly and soon the affected personwas dead. Ss: . . .
(The teacher should encourage more students to join in the competition. At the end of thecompetition, the teacher should announce the result of this competition. Praise the winner andencourage the losers. )
T: What can we learn from John Show?
S: We should base our theories on practice.
S: We are inspired to have a spirit of scientific exploration.
S: We do some research with the purpose of serving the people and society.
Ss: . . . 　
T: Yes, we can learn a lot from the scientist. In fact, there are a great number of peopleworking on science worthy of being learned both at home and abroad. Can you name somescientists and introduce their main contributions?
S: Archimedes, who discovered that objects in water are lifted up by a force that helps themfloat.S: Darwin wrote a book explaining how animals and plants developed as the environmentchanged.
S: Madam Curie discovered radium.
S: Stephen Hawking put forward a theory about black holes.
S: Zhang heng invented the earliest instrument to tell people where earthquakes happened.
Get the Ss to learn how to talk about scientific work and how to describe a person.


Step 3 Listening (on Pages 5-6)Task 1 Pre-listening
T: First let’s enjoy the picture. What can you see?
S: President Jiang Zemin and an old man.
T: President Jiang Zemin visited Qian Xuesen.
T: What have you already known about Qian Xuesen?
S: He is a Chinese scientist, whose research mainly centers on Physics.
S: He is honored as“Chinese Rocket Father”.
S: He has made great contributions to space travel in China.
T: Good. You seem to have a good knowledge of him. Qian Xuesen is a famous scientist
who has contributed much to the country’s cause of science and technology.
Task 2 First Listening
T: We are to listen to the material, which is about Qian Xuesen. Yu Ping is telling her friendSteve Smith about Qian Xuesen’s life. If you were Yu Ping, what topics would you like to coverwhen introducing him?
S: The date when he was born and he died;the place where he was born, lived, studied anddied;his family;his experience;his achievements;his contributions
T: Excellent. When we talk about and introduce a scientist, we usually describe these aspects.Now, listen carefully and tick out which topics are mentioned in the tape.
(After listening, let them check the answers. )
Task 3 Second ListeningT: This time. You’ll write down the answers to the five questions. Boys and girls, how can wewrite the answers fast and correctly?
S: We should go through the questions first and keep them in mind. When we are listening,we just need to pay much attention to the sentences related to the answers.
S: We needn’t write down each word of the answers. We just write down some key words.Later we can write down the complete answers with the help of these key words.
T: You are clever. Now please get ready. First, look through the introduction to the listening
material. Then, scan the questions. (Two minutes later, the teacher plays the tape. Then give Ss time to organize their sentences. )T: Let’s check the answers one by one.
(If the students make some common mistakes or they seem to have difficulty in finding outanswers, teachers can give them some hints and let them listen to it again. After that, check the
Ss: . . . T: You did a good job and listed many scientists as well as their contributions. Today, we aregoing to learn about more scientists.


Task 4 Post-listening
T: After listening, would you please answer some questions?
1 What did you hear on the tape?
2 What can you learn from Qian Xuesen?
(At this part the teacher may have the students present what they have heard on the tape andshow their own opinion about what they have learned from him. If possible, the teacher may havesome of the students do the presentation work in class. By doing this, the students can get fullunderstanding of what the tape is talking about. )
Step 4 Listening (Page 41)
Task 1 Pre-listening
T: Just now we learned about a Chinese scientist, Qian Xuesen, who has made greatcontributions on space travel in China. We will get to know another scientist, whose contributionis on botany. Can you guess who he is?
S: Carl Linnaeus, maybe Darwin.
T: You are right. Both scientists did study botany and devoted their time to the research. Aswe know, Carl Linnaeus developed his system about how to classify species. While Darwin wrotea book on the Original of Species, in which he explained how animals and plants developed as theenvironment changed. The following is about Carl Linnaeus. T: Now, read the instructions about the listening and choose which of the followingstatements mist closely describes what this listening passage is about. Explain why the others arewrong.
S: I think the third one is right. This is about a man who finds a flower and wants to know ifit is a new species of flower. Because he is interested in biology and especially in the study ofplants. What he wants to do is to study whether it is a new species. The other two statements cannot convey the study. Task 2 Listening
T: What you said is reasonable. Let’s listen together to find whether your answer is right.
(After listening, let them check the answers. )
T: Listen to the tape again and try to complete the following passage.
To find the name of an unknown flower, first you have to go to see a flower__________he/she will look in a special__________written by Carl Linnaeus. He livedin__________ from__________ to __________