1Unit One hanging in the Way We Live I. Class Hours: 6 II. Teaching Aims and Requirements Students will be able to: 1. grasp the main idea ( tolerance for solitude and energy made it possible for the writers family to enjoy their pleasant but sometimes harsh country life); 2. appreciate the various techniques employed by the writer (comparison and contrast, topic sentences followed by detail sentences, use of transitional devices, etc.); 3. master the key language points and grammatical structures in the text; 4. conduct a series of reading, listening, speaking and writing activities related to the theme of the unit. III. Teaching Focus 1Vocabulary 2. Grammar 3. Writing styles IV. Class Hours Allotment 1st period: Cultural notes and warm-up questions. 2nd period: Pre-reading activities (New words and Expressions). 3rd period: Intensive study of the text A (Language points). 4th period: Intensive study of the text A (Language points) and writing strategy 5th period: Exercises (Vocabulary, confusable words, structure, cloze, translation, and text B). 6th period: Listening and speaking activities. V. Class Procedures 1. Cultural notes and warm-up questions. 1) Cultural notes (1) the countryside The countryside of Britain is well known for its beauty and many contrasts: its bare mountains and moorland, its lakes, rivers and woods, and its long, often wild coastline. Many of the most beautiful areas are national parks and are protected from development. When British people think of farmland, as well as open spaces, they imagine cows or sheep in green fields enclosed by hedges or stone walls, and fields of wheat and barley. Many people associate the countryside with peace and relaxation. They spend their free time walking or cycling there, or go to the country for a picnic or a pub lunch. Only a few people who live in the country work on farms. Many commute to work in towns. Many others dream of living in the country, where they believe they would have a better and healthier lifestyle. America has many areas of wild and beautiful scenery, and there are many areas, especially in the West in states like Montana and Wyoming, where few people live. In the New England states, such as Vermont and New Hampshire, it is common to see small farms surrounded by hills and green areas. In Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and other Midwestern states, fields of corn or wheat reach to the horizon and there are many miles between towns. Only about 20% of Americans live outside cities and towns. Life may be difficult for people who live in the country. Services like hospitals and schools may be further away, and going shopping can mean driving long distances. Some people even have to drive from their homes to the main road where their mail is left in a box. In spite of the disadvantages, many people who live in the country say that they like the safe, clean, attractive environment. But their children often move to a town or city as soon as they can. As in Britain, Americans like to go out to the country at weekends. Some people go on camping or fishing trips, others go hiking in national parks.2(2) Fahrenheit scale a scale of temperature, first established by the German physicist Gabriel Fahrenheit in 1715. The unit of temperature is the degree Fahrenheit (F), and 0F was originally the coldest temperature Fahrenheit could achieve using a freezing mixture of salt and ice. On his scale, water freezes at 32F and boils at 212F (under set atmospheric conditions). No longer used in scientific work, Fahrenheit temperatures still feature in everyday language; hot days “in the eighties“, for example. To convert a Fahrenheit temperature to Celsius (centigrade), subtract32, then multiply by 5/9. (3) Celsius scale a scale of hotness, or temperature, first established by the Swedish scientist Anders Celsius (1701-1744) in 1742. On this scale, the unit of temperature is the degree Celsius (C); water freezes at 0C and boils at 100C (under agreed standard atmospheric conditions), although when Celsius originally devised the scale he made 0 the boiling-point and 100 the freezing-point. The Celsius scale was formerly commonly known as the centigrade scale because of the 100 divisions between the freezing- and boiling-points of water. To convert from degrees Celsius to degrees Fahrenheit multiply by 9/5 and add 32. (4) Ivy LeagueEight long-established colleges and universities in the United States with prestigious academic and social reputations. Members of the Ivy League are Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island; Columbia University in New York City; Cornell University in Ithaca, New York; Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire; Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts; University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey; and Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The members of the Ivy League compete in intercollegiate athletics. (5