譚蓉蓉

Instructional material

Lesson Seven， College English （Book 1）， Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press， 1998.

Target students

Freshmen of English major

Objectives

The present indefinite tense will be practiced through the pattern drills and text A. Pronunciation of -s or -es in third person singular verbs of the present indefinite tense is also to be taught and practiced. Accuracy in both pronunciation and grammar is emphasized and errors are to be avoided at all costs. Automatic control of basic structures and sentence patterns is fundamental to reading and writing skills， and this will be mainly achieved through the speech work. A very brief introduction of punctuation including the full stop and the comma is intended to develop the beginners reading and writing skills.

Method

The oral approach and situational language teaching will be adopted， the theory of language underlying which is structuralism. Material is taught orally first. English is the language of the classroom. New language point is introduced and practiced situationally and through the pattern drills， and it is strengthened through the practice of texts， grammar and exercises. Vocabulary selection procedures are followed to ensure that an essential general service vocabulary is covered. Reading and writing are introduced once a sufficient lexical and grammatical basis is established.

Content

Five pattern drills， text A titled A Part-time Waitress and its vocabulary list and notes， oral and written work， phonetics， grammar， punctuation， exercises and text B titled Fast-food Restaurants in the United States.

Time allotment for the lesson

This lesson is to be finished within four periods and each period is 50 minutes.

First period

Pattern drills， phonetics， grammar and the related exercises are practiced in this period. Activities for pattern drills are to be finished within 30 minutes. Activities for phonetics and grammar and activities for exercises could be mixed while teaching and are to be finished within 20 minutes.

Activities for pattern drills

1.Listening practice. The teacher obtains the students attention and reads aloud the example of every pattern drill， saying it slowly and clearly.

2.Imitation. It includes choral and individual imitation. The whole class will together read the drills in the choral imitation. The teacher should pick out some students who read poorly usually and ask them to do the individual imitation and check their pronunciation or get some students who read well to set the model for the other students.

3.Substitution drilling. The teacher uses cue words which are already given by the textbook to get individual students to mix the examples of the new pattern.

All above three activities are suitable to Drill A， B， C and E.

4.Question-answer drilling. The teacher gets one student to ask a question and another to answer until most students in the class have practiced asking and answering the new question form. In this activity self-correction and correction between each other should be encouraged.

This activity is suitable to Drill D.

Activities for phonetics and grammar

1.Pronunciation. Help students set up the correct pronunciation of -s or -es in third person singular verbs of the present indefinite.

2.Grammar. Explain the present indefinite tense， not omitting those professional terms purposely. The emphasis could be put upon the sentence examples. Ask the students to compose new sentences， using the present indefinite tense.

Activities for exercise

1.Phonetics. The exercise of phonetics is just reading exercise， so let students read them one by one in term of line or row.

2.Grammar. Make students do the grammar exercise also one by one and let other students correct him or her when he or she is wrong. The translation exercise could be done in the form of brainstorming.

Second period

In this period text A， vocabulary and vocabulary exercises are done. Vocabulary should be finished within 15 minutes； text 20 minutes and exercise 15 minutes.

Activities

1.Vocabulary. Before getting down to the text， the vocabulary listed after the text should be read and taught. During this activity the teacher could expand the words and expressions properly and should tell the students how to use those words， especially the verbs.

Example： when the phrase barber shop is taught， a list of words in this aspect could be given， such as hairstylist， hairdresser and beauty salon.

When manger is taught， director， stock， share holder etc. could be given.

When clear is taught， the usage of clear ones throat， clear off the debts and clear up could be recommended.

The way of association could also be used. When the phrase to be short of is taught， other phrases which have the similar meaning such as to be lacking in and to be in need of could be mentioned.

2.Text. After reading the text， give a detailed explanation of it. Put the emphasis upon the language points and the usage of language. Meanwhile， ask the students to notice the note after the text and give explanation when it is necessary.

When the explanation is over， four questions are to be answered.

1）Define “a waiter or a waitress”.

2）What enables you to be a waiter in Australia？

3）Describe Julies work as a part-time waitress.

4）How are the customers？

3.Exercise. Let the students do the exercises of vocabulary one by one orally and make others correct them if wrong.

Third period

In this period the oral and written work after text A and punctuation should be finished. The time for oral work is 40 minutes and for punctuation is 10 minutes.

Activities

1.Oral work. It contains three kinds of work， i.e. individual answering-question work， pair work and group activity.

In the individual work the teacher asks questions related to the text and asks one student each time to answer the question. The answer should be complete and clear. And also the activity of talking about the pictures could be used. The teacher could put forward some questions according to the pictures and let individual student answer them.

In the pair work two partners ask questions each other and answer them. The task could be telling each other what you usually do in the morning， after lunch， in the evening or on Sundays.

In the group activity there is a role-playing work. Several students are in one group and every time the play is over， the parts should be changed. The students also could create the mini-drama themselves and this activity could stimulate the interest of learning English among the students and foster their spirit of team work.

2.Written work. Describe a work of one of the following： your teacher， a cook in your canteen， a library assistant， a barber， a bank teller or a postman. The composition should be no more than 200 words. This work could be assigned as homework.

3.Punctuation. A very brief introduction of the full-stop and the comma and the sample sentences of how to use them correctly are included， and the emphasis should be put upon the latter one.

Fourth period

The comments on the homework， i.e. the composition， text B and the questions related to it and the some questions with depth for further discussion are the main task of this period. The time for homework is 10 minutes； for text B is 15 minutes and for discussion is 25 minutes.

Activities

1.Homework. Choose some successful compositions and some failures to comment and ask the students why they are good or bad.

2.Text B. The way of teaching text B should be extensive rather than the intensive one of text A. Let the students have a quick reading of the text and answer the questions after the text.

3.Discussion. The questions could be put forward for discussion： Why are the fast-food called junk food in the developed countries？ What kind of influence can the fast-food have upon the people， bad or good？ Why are the foreign fast-foods so popular in China since they are not so inexpensive according to the Chinese consuming level？