Lesson Plan for Unit Two

1. Lesson Plan for Unit Two Text A: All the Cabbie Had Was a Letter

2. Warm-up Questions • What are friends for? • What is a fair weather friend? • How often do you write letters to friends? Frequently? Sometimes? Rarely? Or never?

3. Study of Text A • Cultural Notes • Text Analysis • Language Study

4. Halloween Halloween is celebrated annually. It is on the night of 31 October, when people once believed that ghosts could be seen. Now, in Britain and America, it is a time when children have parties, dress up as witches, make lanterns out of pumpkins from which the inside has been removed, and play “trick or treat”

5. Trick or Treat Trick or treat is a traditional activity at Halloween. Children dress in costumes and visit houses. At each house they say “Trick or treat”. This means that they will play a “trick”, or joke, on the people in the house unless they are given a “treat”, e.g. sweets or money. Most people prefer to give treats rather than having tricks played on them.

6. The story begins with the cab driver reading a letter. Text Analysis (1)--- How the Story Develops The letter Tom wrote to his friend Ed. • What does the story begin with? • What helped start a conversation between the cab driver and the passenger? • What was their conversation centered on? • How did the author get to learn more about the friendship between the driver and Ed? Their conversation was centered on the lifelong friendship between the driver and Old Ed. The author got to learn more about their friendship by reading the letter himself.

7. Text Analysis (2)– Main Ideas of Each Part The text can be divided into three parts. Part One (Paras. 1 to 20) Omitted. (Cf. Page 40) Part Two (Paras. 21 to 35) Reading the letter by himself, the author learned more about the lifelong friendship between Tom and Old Ed. Part Three (Para. 36) The driver’s experience urged the author to reach for his pen.

8. Text Analysis (3)-- Style Most of the text is a re-creation of the conversation between a taxi driver and the passenger (“I”, the narrator). • Sentences: short, simple, incomplete, etc. • Language: colloquial, informal, etc. • Ways to keep the conversation going: asking questions, agreeing with someone, making guesses/predictions. Q: What do you think of the narrator’s communicative skills andnarrative techniques?

9. Short, simple, incomplete sentences • Is your cab available? • I’m in no hurry. • This isn’t family. • (Is the letter)From a child or maybe a grandchild? • (You) went to school together? • (I have) enjoyed talking to you.

10. Colloquial and informal language • sort of, kind of, you know, I think, I guess, I take it, • go ahead, hang out, it’s no fun to do sth. • not much of a hand at doing sth. • a couple of, every now and then, an awful lot

11. Matching Exercise: find out sentences with similar meaning in the text • Go on reading your letter. • I’m not used to writing letters. • We were friends since our childhood. So our friendship has a long history. • For one reason or another you lose touch even though you never forget. • It is painful to lose any friend.

12. Ways to keep a conversation going (1) Asking questions • “You said ‘was’. Does that mean--?” • “Did you two work at the same place?” • “I thought your friend’s name was Ed. Why did he sign it Tom?” Agreeing with someone • “Letters from home always mean a lot. At least they do with me because I’m on the road so much.” • “I don’t think any of us keep up our correspondence too well. I know I don’t.”

13. Ways to keep a conversation going (2) Making guesses/predictions • “From a child or a grandchild?” • “Went to school together?” • “I take it he’s someone you’ve known quite a while?” • “You must have spent a lot of time together.” • That must have made you feel good, didn’t it?”

14. Narrative techniques • Creating misunderstandings --I’m sorry, but I was reading a letter. --Go ahead and finish your letter. --I’ve read it several times already. I guess I almost know it by heart. --Thanks, but I don’t want to read your mail. That’s pretty personal. • Creating suspense with a surprising ending

15. Language Study (1) • (L.5) He sounded as if he had a cold or something. • (L.9) At least they do with me because I’m on the road so much. • (L.13) …it might just as well have been family.

16. Language Study (2) • (L.15) I’m not much of a hand at writing. • (L.17) But I take it he’s someone you’ve known quite a while? • (L.19) Went to school together? • (L.33) But I realized that Old Ed was still on his mind when he spoke again, almost more to himself than to me.

17. Language Study (3) • (L.48) It had references to things that… • (L.53) “Like it says there,”…“about all we had to spend in those days was time.” • (L.60) …there are fewer and fewer still around. • (L.65) But for the last 20 or 30 years it’s been mostly just Christmas cards.

18. Language Study (4) • (L.70) Your friendship over the years has meant an awful lot to me, more than I can say because I’m not good at saying things like that.

19. Words and Phrases to Drill (1) Nouns: correspondence destination neighborhood reference reunion touch Adjectives: available awful Adverbs: absolutely mostly practically

20. Words and Phrases to Drill (2) Verbs: choke estimate postpone skip urge Phrases: choke up come up be lost in go ahead go by keep in touch hang out keep up know by heart might /may (just) as well

21. Words and Phrases to Drill (3) Phrases: a couple of every now and then kind of sort of not much of a on one’s mind or something right away

22. Vocabulary bank (1) cabbie, driver, cab tap on the windshield settle into the back seat (be) on the road ride on in silence get close to our destination stop at the hotel take the suitcase out of the cab

23. Vocabulary bank (2) correspondence finish your letter letters from home not much of a hand at writing keep up our correspondence well lose touch keep in touch with old friends read one’s mail written in pencil begin with a greeting Christmas cards sign a letter

24. Announcement for next week’s big class: (下周大课内容预告） Text A of Unit 3, Integrated Course1 请同学们务必带上《综合教程》。 Thank you for your attention!