英语组Michelle老师“He Lost His Arm But Is Still Climbing”公开课总结及反思

Teacher:Min Sheng Grade:Class A2, Grade 8

Dateof thelesson: March 27, Fri Number of Students:32

1) Topic: Reading – He Lost His Arm But Is Still Climbing

2) Objectives:

a. Students will read a passage about Aron Ralston and mountain climbing, and they will be able to learn some new phrases from it.

b. Students are able to practice their language use epscially English speaking by discussions and group work on the topic and tasks given.

c. Students are able to have their own understanding on being “between a rock and a hard place” finally and train their spirit of “never giving up”.

3) Procedures

a. Warm-up:[2min.]

- Greeting & Lead-in questions: free talk on the questions below. Focus on the key wordaccidentand the expression ofhave a …that we learned yesterday about health problems

• Have you ever had any accidents when you do some sports?

• Any health problems caused?

b. Activities:[37min.]

-Pre-reading[5min.]: Part 2a on p6

- Take soccer, moutain climbing and swimming as examples to go on our previous discussion, and invite some st. to match the sport with possible accidents or problmes that can happen.

- Background introduction onrock climbing. Assign st. to read the brief introduction together and meanwhile show them some photos about it.

-Reading[20min.]: Part 2b, 2c and 2d on p6-7

-Assign st. to read the passage for the 1^sttime, and underline the words they don't know or fill these words into the table at the bottom of p6. Also they can try to finish Part 2c on p7 –True, FalseorDon’t Know.

- Read the passage for a 2^ndtime. This time we will read it together, group by group and paragragh by paragraph. After read para.1 by group 1, the following questions will be asked (Part 2d on p7). And the key language points here arebe interested in moutain climbing,be used to taking risks.

• Who is Aron Ralston?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aron_Ralston

• What about his personality?

• When and where did his accident happen?

- After read para. 2 by group 2, we will watch the movie trailor of127 Hourshttp://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDg1ODc1OTc2.html, which is based the true story of Aron Ralston. Then a key question will be asked(Part 2d on p7).And the key language points here arewas caught, free his arm, ran out, cut off, bandaged himself, so that, ect.

• Why couldn't Arom move? And how did Aron save himself?

- After read para. 3 by group 3, two question will be asked(Part 2d on p7).And the key language points here arebetween a rock and a hard place, importantce, be in control of, so…that…

• What did Aron do after the accident?

• What does it mean?

• Did Aron keep on climbing mountains after this experience?

- Optional: we will listen to the recording of passage at last so that the st. can get an overall understanding of it as a whole.

- Post-reading[2min.]: Free talk on some follow-up questions

• Are you a risk-taking person?Do you have the same spirit as Aron?

• Have you ever been in a situation of “between a rock and hard place”? Then what decisions did you make? Regret or not?

- Assessment & Presentation[10min.]: Group work “a short interview with Aron”

-Ask st. if they were going to interviwe Aron Ralston, what questions they would ask. Then develop group work on “a short interview with Aron”, and provide details to each group member as director (edit questions), host (ask questions), fan (ask creative or interesting questions), and Aron Ralston (answer questions) repectively.

- Invite some groups to present their short interviews and give constructive comments and feedback.

c.Wind-up & Homework[1min.]

-Sum up what we’ve done in today’s lesson: read a passage about Aron Ralston and mountain climbing, learned some new phrases from it, finished a set of reading comprehension exercises, and did some discussions and group work on the topic and tasks given, etc.

- Ask st. if any other questions we need to solve.

- Homework:Watch127 Hours.Write a movie review on it, and include your own understanding of being “between a rock and a hard place”. (100 words)

d. Teaching Reflection

In this class, our linguistic target is to get a thorough understanding of the text given, including comprehension and key language points in it; our spiritual target is to train the learners’ appreciation of “never giving up” when “between a rock and a hard place”.

I followed the typical steps of a reading class -- warm-up/pre-reading, reading comprehension, and post-reading/assessment or presentation. The lead-in questions and discussions focused on two aspects: students’ own experiences on sports and the accidents or health problmes accordingly, and a brief introduction to an extreme sport students may not be that familiar with – rock climbing. Then students would finish their first time reading with possible unknown words underlined and certainTrue or Falseexercises finished. Detailed reading was followed and divided into three groups / paragrapghs. A great many comprehension questions were analyzed during this stage, so were the key language notes in this text. The whole class ended up with group work about “asking questions to Aron Ralston”, through which specific roles and requiremnets were assigned to each group member.

What I like the most about this class includes the clear steps in each reading stage respectively and a comphrensive understanding students can achieve as a whole. Learners are so much interested in the hero and topic here and they seemed to enjoy a lot “reading” the text through various questions and tasks. However, the class was still a bit running out of time evetually because we didn't have much space for students to present their “interview with Aron”. Thus I’ve learned that a compratively complete reading class largely depends on reasonable time management and correct choices on more meaningful language tasks like assessment and presentation rather than the text itself.