By Xu Weiliang

Teaching aims:

1. Learn how to design a poster.

2. Cultivate the students’ abilities of listening, reading and speaking..

Difficult & Important points:

1. Listen and draw conclusions

2. Read for information

3. Present your point of view

Teaching methods:

Task-based teaching,

Practice

Teaching aids:

A projector.

A computer.

Procedure:

Step 1 Lead in

Environment protection is very important, so we should do our best to protect it.

Then ask students what we can do.

We can design a post to educate people.

How do we design a poster.

Step 2 Skills building 1

Listening and drawing conclusions

When you draw conclusions, you think about a situation and the information you have, and try to decide what it means. Sometimes all the information you need about a subject is not included in the source you are listening to. This is when you must draw a conclusion. For example:

If you hear’ Yet another skyscraper has been built in Shanghai.’

What can you conclude?

There are already some skyscrapers in Shanghai.

If you hear the following dialogue

Man: The train is going to be late today.

Woman: I’m not surprised.

What can you conclude?

The train is often late.

Practice

A .Listen to these short descriptions from news reports and draw a conclusion about what kind of natural disaster occurred in each situation.

B. Listen to the news report and decide if each conclusion below is logical. If it is, tick(√) the box

1. The fires have been burning for quite some time.

2. Many people have lost their homes.

3. The police suspect citizens of Los Angeles helped start the fires.

4. The reporter thinks it is very sad that old trees will be burnt.

5. The fire department has given up hope of stopping the fires.

Step 1: listening to a lecture

A. Your Science teacher has asked your group to make a poster about desertification for a nationwide contest. Before you can begin your poster, you must learn about desertification. Listen to your teacher’s lecture and collect information about your topic.

1.What is desertification?_________________________________

_______________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________

2.Where does it happen?_________________________________

_______________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________

3.How are people affected by it?___________________________

_______________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________

4.Why does it happen?___________________________________

_______________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________

5.Who should be concerned?______________________________

_______________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________

B. Check your understanding of what you have just heard. Read the following statements and match them with the conclusions that can be made from them.

1. Your teacher wants you to help educate people about desertification.

2. A desert is an area of dry land. Desertification is what we call it when land turns into desert.

3. People plant things without giving the land a chance to rest.

4. The wind carries sand from the deserts to the cities, causing air pollution.

a. The ending –ification means a process.

b. One way to stop desertification is to allow the land a chance to rest between plantings.

c. Some people become ill after breathing this air.

d. Many people around the world do not know about desertification.

Step 3 skill building 2

Reading for information

When we read for information, we look for specific information that we need. We read different sources to find different types of information. We often scan the text while looking for the specific information that we require.

Practice

A. In pairs, think of reasons why you might want to read the following.

1. a newspaper

a_________________

b_________________

2. a plane ticket

a_________________

b_________________

3. a magazine

a_________________

b_________________

4. a website

a_________________

b_________________

5. a bus timetable

a_________________

b_________________

6. an advertisement

a_________________

b_________________

B. Read the following from a newspaper and underline the information which answers the questions that follow.

Step 2: listening to a lecture

A. You found this article about desertification during your research.. Read it and underline all of solutions to desertification it mentions.

B.Your teacher has asked you to include a list of three things students can do to help stop desertification in your poster. Work in groups and write your answers in the space below.

1. _____________________________________________________

2. _____________________________________________________

3. _____________________________________________________

Step 4 Skills building 3

Presenting your point of view

When you present your point of view, you usually want people to accept your ideas. There are certain things you can do to make what you say more polite so that people will be more likely to agree with you.

You can use these words to help you introduce your point of view:

I think / believe that…

From my point of view it seems that…

It seems to me that…

Personally I agree / disagree because

Use these words to explain your point of view:

because… as a result of…

due to… on account of…

Practice

A. Match the beginning of each sentence in the left-hand column with an appropriate ending in the right-hand column. Write the correct letters in the blanks.

1. I believe that things

cost more in cities.

2. As a result of last year’s poor

test scores,

3. This winter has been very cold;

4. Personally, I agree with Wei Li

5. I disagree with that score because

6. It seems to me that due to his mistake

a.students are being given more homework.

b. because I think she has the right idea.

c. because of the higher wages people make.

d.therefore I have worn my down coat every day.

e. we will all get in trouble.

f. the result I got was much higher.

B. Discuss this list of things people can do to help the environment. Rank them in the order from most important (1) to least important (8).

Turn off the tap when you are cleaning your teeth.

Recycle paper and glass.

Use unleaded petrol in cars.

Walk or cycle everywhere.

Turn off the lights when you are not in a room.

Take a bag with you when you go shopping.

Get something repaired rather than buy a new one.

Use both sides of a sheet of paper.

Step 3: designing a poster

A. You interviewed several experts on desertification, Read their viewpoints and discuss which one you agree with and which one your group plans to focus its poster on.

B. You have decided to focus on the following areas in your poster. Discuss the questions below with your group.

1. How can desertification be prevented?

2. Can areas of desert be turned back into farmland and forests?

3. Is desertification a global problem?

4. Why is it important to fight desertification?

5. What progress has been made to fight desertification so far?

6. Can young people do anything to help fight this problem?

C. Discuss the content and layout of your poster with your group. Use the space below to help with your planning.

Heading________________________________

_______________________________________

Content______________________________________

_________________________________

Pictures / layout_________________________

_______________________________________

Step 5 Homework

Design a poster with your group.