Module 6　Unexplained Mysteries of the Natural World

　　Brief Statements Based on This Module

　　The Analysis of Teaching Contents in This Module

　　The topic of this module is "Unexplained Mysteries of the Natural World".Related information is introduced through reading and listening.The reading part gives a brief introduction of The Monster of Lake Tianchi while the listening part shows how dinosaurs disappeared.The vocabulary,sentence patterns,grammar,the main content of the context as well as the students' activities such as listening,speaking,reading and writing and so on all develop around this topic.The teacher can design and organize such activities as organizing students to search for more information about mysteries of natural world.

　　Introduction

　　This part is made up of two activities,the first of which introduce pictures of four different mysterious monsters as well as the relative descriptions about them.And Activity 2 presents some vocabulary based on the descriptions above,which not only is of great help to the students but also lays foundation for the central theme of this module.

　　Reading and Vocabulary

　　This passage gives a brief introduction of The Monster of Lake Tianchi.Through the study of this part,the students are demanded:(1) to guess where the passage comes from (tour guide,dictionary,newspaper as well as scientific magazines) by reading the beginning paragraph;(2) to master the main information of this passage;(3) to correctly understand the new words according to the context.And four exercises concerning the content and vocabulary of the passage are designed.By doing these exercises the students can have a good understanding of the content of this passage and learn some words related to the content of this passage.

　　Speaking

　　In this part the students work in pairs to perform a role-play game in the form of carrying out an interview,in which they can get a chance to practice asking and answering.One plays the role of an interviewer and asks his partner for some information concerning the monster appeared in Lake Tianchi,the other gives relative replies.So this part consolidates the reading comprehension as well as the vocabulary.

　　Function

　　The function of this module is about "possibility and improbability".Students are demanded to master how to express possibility and improbability when they are not sure about something.This part contains four activities.In Activity 1 the students need to look at three sentences from the reading passage and try their best to learn the words as well as phrases that can be used to describe possible or impossible situations in the sentences.Meanwhile this activity also lays a good foundation for Activity 2.Activity 2 practices expressing the uncertain situations through the use of words and phrases just learned in Activity 1.In the third activity there are six sentences concerning the monster in Lake Tianchi.The students need to choose what they agree with.The last activity is based on the first three activities.The students are required to identity the creatures using may or might.Deeply speaking,these activities both develop and improve students' language skills and increases and broaden their natural world knowledge.

　　Listening and Vocabulary

This part brings in both the content closely concerning the theme or topic of this module in