Patterns 1. What do you think would happen if tomorrow there was suddenly no rice to eat?

2. Born into a poor farmer's family in 1931, Dr Yuan graduated from Southwest Agriculture College in 1953.

3. These increased harvests mean that 22% of the world's people are fed from just 7% of the farmland in China.

4. Using his hybrid rice farmers are producing harvests twice as large as before.

5. And he would rather keep time for his hobbies.

6. He used to walk to his rice fields twice a day, but now he prefers to rice his motorcycle.

7. Dr Yuan awoke from his dream with the hope of producing a kind of rice that could feed more people. Aids

Multimedia facilities, tape-recorder, photos, diagrams

Procedures

1. Warming up

Warming up by questioning

Hello, everyone. We shall read about man who works the land today. Have you ever grown any plants? What kind of plant would you like to grow? How will you grow it?

For reference: I worked with my father in the rice field last year. We grow hybrid rice and use animal wastes to make the soil rich. Has anyone of you ever been to the countryside? What did you do there?

For reference: I went to Chuankou the day before yesterday. It is a small mountain village 75 li north of Beijing. I went there to visit my uncle's family. I like that small beautiful village very much. Who are from a farmer's family? What do you know about farming?

For reference: Dou Jun and I are from a farmer's family. We grow wheat and raise pigs on our farms. And both of our families are going to expand the area of fields this year. Warming up by seeing and listening

Planting rice

Boys and girls, I shall show you some photos of farming first. Look at this one. What are these people doing in the fields? Yes, it is spring and they are planting rice. Lots of people in the world live on rice. I think you like eating rice, too.