Teaching Plan for the Revision of the Attributive Clauses
Students’ Level: Senior Three
Teaching content: Revision of the attributive clauses
Analysis of traditional grammar teaching and the students’ situation:
Grammar is an indispensable aspect of language. It is also an important and difficult part in Chinese secondary-school students’ language learning. However, in traditional English grammar classes, teaching activities are designed to be teacher-centered and there’s little interaction between the teacher and students, which proves to be relatively dull, static and ineffective.
As for the Senior Three students, they have been taught the attributive clauses before, but some of the students in this class do not have a clear idea of the structure and few of them can use the attributive clauses in communication or in their composition. Actually, they are used to the traditional way of learning grammar by doing mechanic grammar exercises repeatedly and are rather passive in English learning. However, as Senior Three students, they are eager to make a change in the beginning of a new term, especially when a new teacher is assigned to them.
In this teaching period, task-based approach (TBA) is applied to teaching the attributive clauses, which aims to high light the pragmatic function of the attributive clauses, promote students’ language competence and cultivate their interest in grammar leaning as well.
Teaching aims:
Knowledge aims:
Let the students master the usage of the attributive clauses through the task.
Ability aims:
Enable the students to use the attributive clauses in real communication.
Improve the students’ speaking, listening and writing skills;
Emotion aims:
Cultivate the students’ interest in learning grammar and help to build up their confidence.
Teaching difficult and important points: How to choosethe proper relative pronoun and relative adverb
Teaching method:Task-based approach
Teaching aids: cards and multi-media
Teaching Procedures:
Teaching Steps / Activities / AimsStep 1. Lead-in /
- Riddles
①It is a kind of food people in China eat on Mid- autumn festival. ( moon cake )
②She is a beautiful woman who lives on the moon in Chinese legendary. (Chang’e)
(2) Present pictures on the screen to show the answers to the riddles. / 1. Create a real context for students to learn the attributive clauses.
2. Arouse students’ interest in the teaching content by giving riddles and presenting funny pictures.
- Brainstorm
(2)Write on the blackboard the possible answers: red bags, abacus, the Spring Festival, etc. / Activate students’ schematic knowledge and make preparation for the following task.
Step 2. Presentation /
- Activity 1:
(1) Get the students to try to introduce the item/ persons written on the blackboard in their own words. Help them to organize the sentences using the attributive clauses with relative pronouns.
Tips: (chopsticks)
They are a pair of sticks. The Chinese use them to eat food.
Or students might say:
Chopsticks are a pair of sticks that the Chinese use to eat food.
(2) Get the students to introduce the festivals/places written on the blackboard in their own words.Help them to organize the sentences using the attributive clauses with relative adverbs.
Tips: (the Mid-autumn Festival)
It is a festival in mid-autumn. People in China eat moon cakes with their family on that day.
Or students might say:
The Mid-autumn Festival is a festival when people in China eat moon cakes together with their family.
(3) Show pictures of the god of wealth, sachets, abacus, the Lantern Festival, the PalaceMuseum, etc. Get the students to introduce them using the attributive clauses.
Possible answers:
(sachets) They are small soft bags which contain fragrant flowers and are often placed in a drawer or a closet to perfume items.
(the Mid-autumn festival) It is a festival when people in China eat moon cakes together with their family.
(the PalaceMuseum) It is a palace where emperors in ancient China lived. / 1. Present the attributive clauses and make preparation for the following inquiry task.
2. Keep the students’ interest by role - playing.
3. Motivate the students’ desire to give introduction with the attributive clauses by showing them pictures of items that they do not know how to express directly in English.
- Activity 2:
Diagram 1:
Find out what antecedent does the relative pronoun follow, a personal antecedent or a non-personal antecedent.
先行词
关系代词 / personal / non-personal
who
whom
which
that
whose
Diagram 2:
Find out what antecedent (antecedentsindicate place/ time/ reason) does the relative adverb follow.
关系副词 / 先行词
where / place
when / time
why / reason
Diagram 3:
Find out what relative pronoun or relative adverb can serve as a subject, an object, an attribute or an adverbial in the attributive clauses.
①
② / 主语 / 宾语 / 定语 / 状语
personal / who/that / whom/that / whose
non-personal / which/that / which/that / whose / where
when
why
①表关系词在从句中的语法位置
②表先行词的类型
(2) Each group send a representative to make a conclusion and then the whole class work together to fill in the above forms to sum up the usage of the relative pronoun and relative adverb. / 1．Highlight the difficult and important points of the attributive clauses: how to choose the proper relative pronoun and relative adverb.
2．Cultivate the students’ learning strategy by doing the inquiry task.
3．Raise the students’ sense of cooperation and achievement by working in groups to find out grammatical knowledge.
Step 3. Practice /
- Activities:
Group task 1: Get the students to make riddles and guess in turns. Students should be encouraged to make the riddles as difficult and creative as they can.
Tips:It is a tool which is used to wake people up in the morning. What is it?
Group task 2:Get the students to make dialogues between a foreign visitor and the receptionists in the Chinese culture exhibition hall. Introduce anything that the foreignvisitor is interested in. Give cards with keywords and pictures that show the Chinese culture to help them do the task.
Tips: (a card with the Spring Festival written on it)
……
Visitor: What is the Spring Festival? Is it a festival that comes in spring?
Receptionist: That’s right. It is a festival when we Chinese celebrate the reunion and welcome the new year. Adults often give red bags to their children during the festival.
Visitor: Excuse me. But what are red bags?
Receptionist: They are a kind of bags in which people put lucky money.
……
Group task 3: Get the students to make up the short play: The Tadpoles Look For Their Mommy
Tips: I am not your mommy. Your mommy is the one who has two big eyes and a big mouth…….
Tips:Long long ago, a group of tadpoles lived happily in a pond where water was clear and grasses were green. But there was a time when a tadpole found that they didn’t have a mommy like others. Then they decided to look for their mommy.
……
They swam around and met a duck whose tail is short.
“Are you our mommy?”
“No. I am not your mommy. Your mommy is the one who has two big eyes and a big mouth.”
……
(2) Invite some students to present their riddles and some groups to act out their dialogues or short plays. Students listen carefully to check the attributive clauses and choose the group which has the best performance.
(3) Recheck and correct the mistakes made in the students’ presentation and summarize the usage of the attributive clauses again.
- Homework:
2. Develop the students’ listening, speaking and writing skills of different levels by setting different tasks.
3. Add to the students’ enjoyment with riddles, dialogues and short plays.
Blackboard design:
the attributive clauses人 / 物 / 在从句中充当的语法成份
关系代词 / that / √ / √ / 主/宾语
which / √ / 主/宾语
who / √ / 主语
whom / √ / 宾语
whose / √ / √ / 定语
关系副词 / when / time / 状语
where / place / 状语
why / reason / 状语
moon cake
the spring festival chopsticks
Chang’e
dragon red bas
……
Teaching reflection:
1. The students’ interest in grammar learning was aroused and kept all along the class. Most of them showed great interest in guessing the riddles and playing roles and the students who made up the short plays gain a good sense of achievement after finishing the seemingly challenging task. Therefore, when preparing a class, we teachers should take the students into consideration first. Try to design activities to stimulate their interest and be sure the activities are various so that students of different levels can be involved in. All students should benefit from the lesson.
2. By doing the inquiry task, the students were able to discover and solve problems by themselves, which made it easier for the students to grasp the grammatical knowledge. “Learning by doing” is the principle that most educators advocate. Thus, learning strategies should be cultivated gradually in class activities. After all, students are learners, not passive receivers.
3. During this teaching period, the students’ desire to use the attributive clauses was greatly promoted, especiallyat the time when they did not know how to directly introducethe items like sachets or the god of wealth. That is to say, we teachers should try to utilize authentic language and create real-world tasks to enable students to sense the necessity of using a grammar structure in communication. Not only should the linguistic form be focused on in a grammar class, but also the pragmatic meaning should be conveyed. Learning is for using. So just makea classmore communication-oriented to cultivate students’ communicative competence.
4. By listening, imitating and talking, the students were able to learn to use the attributive clauses naturally in class and their grammar knowledge would be consolidated when doing the writing task. As we know, listening, speaking, reading and writing are four basic skills of English learning. Therefore, grammar knowledge can not be taught separately. Design tasks that combine with the fours kills or two or three of them to help promote the acquisition of grammar. In the meanwhile, students’ listening, speaking, reading and writing abilities will beimproved to some extent.
5. Teaching is a two-side process, which requires teachers’ instruction and students’participation.
As teachers, we should bear in mind that the teaching plan is only a plan and in a student-centered class, the teacher is only an organizer and helper. Carry out a teaching plan according to the responses of students and give them proper instructions or help, our English class will be more effective.
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