Aims and requirements

●To enable the students to listen and talk about likes and dislikes (especially about music and musicians),encouraging them to try the vocabulary and everyday English in this unit

●To develop the students’ reading ability

●To help the students learn and use two grammars (adverbial clause of time and the past perfect tense) in different situations

●To help the students to write a biography of a person, using the time expressions in Grammar 1

Teaching procedures

Period 1: Introduction and Reading

Step 1: Warming up

1. Warming up by listening pieces of music and asking questions

Play several pieces of music (music from Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven will be best) to let the students listen and appreciate, then ask them:

1) Do you like music?

2) What about these pieces?

3) What is your favorite kind of music?

4) Who is your favorite musician? And who is your favorite composer?

Then make a brief introduction about these three composers, meanwhile get the students to know the differences between the words: musician; composer; singer; performer

2. Warming up by showing some pictures and discussing

Hello boys and girls, I have some pictures (any pictures which are related with music will be OK) here to show you:

1) Do you know who they are?

2) What kind of things are these pictures connected with, science, culture, politics, painting, drawing or music?

Of course they are all connected with music. Sunnan, Chinese singer; Justin Derrick has just joined multi-platinum singer Pink for upcoming 2006 European and US tour dates; and very famous opera Cat King. So, you may have guessed that today we’re going to learn something about music, and now I would like you to think：what kind of music do you like best? Why? What does a composer usually do? Please discuss this topic with your partner.

3. Warming up by telling a story

Good morning, class. Today we are going to read a passage about three great musicians who are all composers. A composer is a musician who writes pieces of music for others to sing or to play. But first I’d like to share an interesting story which is also about music with you. (When telling this story, it’s better to play a CD of traditional Chinese music such as “高山流水” and “阳春白雪” as the background music.)

In ancient China there was a famous musician, Zhong Ziqi, who played Gu qin very well, but very few people could understand his music. One day he was playing the instrument in a quiet place. He did it so attentively that he made no notice of anything around. When he played to mean high mountains, a person cried out: “ Ah, great mountains!” When he played to mean the running water, the person burst out: “Yeah, the water is running.” Zhong Ziqi was too moved to continue his playing. This very person was Yu Boya who also loved music very much. After that they became very good friends and usually discussed musical problems or played music together. It was said that Zhong Ziqi broke his Guqin after he got the news that Yu Boya died, and from then on he never played any music. It is known to us later as the Chinese saying: “高山流水有知音” and “钟子期摔琴以谢知音”.

Well, the three musicians mentioned in the passage also had friendship with each other. If we want to know what indeed it happened and how they thought of each other, we will have to learn the text. Please open your books and turn to page22.

Step 2: Pre-reading

1. Imagining and sharing

Well, almost every one of us hopes to have a “zhiyin(知音)”. Just imagine somewhere sometime you meet your favorite musician. What will happen? Please come and tell the class your imaginational story. Let’s share.

2. Introduce some new words

Show the following new words from the text and ask the students to read them all together twice, correcting their pronunciation while they read each word.

Ok, we are to have a small organization quiz. Read each word, think about its meaning and function, and then make them go to its proper group.

1) Noun Group: __________________________________________________________

2) Adjective Group: _______________________________________________________

3) Verb group: ____________________________________________________________

4) Other group: ___________________________________________________________

Keys:

1) Noun Group: director; composer; singer; musician; peasant; teenager; genius; talent; court; harpsichord; symphony

2) Adjective Group: impressed; successful; musical

3) Verb group: lose;

4) Other group: piece (of music)

Step 3: Reading

1.       Leading-in

Since you have got familiar with these words which are connected with music, I guess it will be not too difficult for you to get the main idea of this passage. Now, please read the passage quickly and choose the best title.

A. Three Great Austrian Composers

B. Three Great Composers of the Eighteenth Century

C. Three Great Child Composers

( Key: A)

2. Fast reading to get general understanding

Read the text again, and then think how many composers the text refers. (Three. ) So, how many parts do you think the text should be divided? (Three again. )

Keys:

Part1: paragraph 1and 2

Part1: paragraph 3,4and 5

Part1: paragraph 6,7and 8

3. Careful reading for some details

Read the passage again as carefully as you can and then answer the following questions.

1)        Which of the composers were born in Austria?

2)        Which of the composers were born in Germany?

3)        Which of the composers had a good singing voice?

4)        Which of the composers died before his fortieth birthday?

5)        Which of the composers became dead?

6)        Which of the composers met each other?

7)        Which of the composers had fathers who were musicians?

8)        Which of the composers had a father who wasn’t a musician?

4. Listen to the tape of the text and try to find which of the following words appear in the passage.

（Keys: court; director; genius; harpsichord; impressed; lose; musical; peasant; piece(of music) singer; successful; symphony; talent; teenager )

4.       Detailed reading for more information

Read the following sentences and decide whether they are true (T) or false (F) according to the text.

1)      It was Haydn who changed the form of symphonies into long piece for large orchestra.

2)      Haydn worked in eastern Austria for thirteen years.

3)      Mozart composed 600 pieces of music.

4)      Mozart was even a teenager when he played for the Empress of Austria.

5)      It was Haydn who taught Beethoven how to play the piano.

6)      Beethoven didn’t stop composing when he became deaf.  

 ( Keys: 1 T 2 F 3 F 4 T 5 F 6Ｔ)