Unit 3 Curious minds-B Keeping your curious mind (Speaking)教学设计 2025-2026学年沪教版（五四学制）英语八年级上册

Unit 3 Curious minds-B Keeping your curious mind (Speaking) This speaking section in Unit 3 "Curious Minds" of Shanghai Education Edition (Five - Four Academic System, 2024) for Grade 8 focuses on cultivating students' speaking skills related to expressing curiosity and asking questions. It provides various real - life scenarios where students can practice using relevant vocabulary and sentence patterns. The topic "Keeping your curious mind" encourages students to think actively, express their curiosity about the world around them, and communicate with their peers in English. Through role - plays, group discussions, and individual presentations, students will enhance their oral English proficiency and gain confidence in expressing their thoughts. 教学目标 A. Knowledge Objectives Students will be able to master key vocabulary and phrases related to curiosity, such as "be curious about", "wonder", "figure out", "inquisitive", etc. They will learn and use common sentence patterns for expressing curiosity, like "I'm really curious about...", "What makes you wonder...", "I've always been inquisitive about...". B. Ability Objectives Enable students to express their curiosity clearly and fluently in different situations. Develop students' skills of asking appropriate questions to explore the topics they are curious about. Improve students' listening comprehension while communicating with their classmates during speaking activities, and be able to respond effectively. C. Emotional Objectives Foster students' interest in exploring the unknown and maintain their curious minds. Encourage students to actively participate in group work, enhancing their cooperation and communication skills, and building up their confidence in speaking English. 教学重难点 A. Key Points The usage of key vocabulary and sentence patterns for expressing curiosity. Guiding students to organize their thoughts and express their curiosity in a logical and coherent way. B. Difficult Points Helping students overcome their shyness and fear of making mistakes, and actively engage in speaking activities. Training students to ask in - depth and thought - provoking questions to show their curiosity, rather than just asking simple surface - level questions. Vocabulary curious (adj.): eager to know or learn something. E.g. She is always curious about new things. curiosity (n.): a strong desire to know or learn something. E.g. His curiosity led him to explore the old house. wonder (v.): feel curious; want to know something. E.g. I wonder why the sky is blue. figure out (phrasal verb): understand or solve something. E.g. Can you figure out this math problem? inquisitive (adj.): having or showing an interest in learning things; curious. E.g. The inquisitive child asked a lot of questions. Sentence Patterns I'm curious about + noun/gerund. E.g. I'm curious about the history of this city. / I'm curious about traveling alone. What makes you wonder + clause? E.g. What makes you wonder why birds can fly? I've always been inquisitive about + noun. E.g. I've always been inquisitive about outer space. I'm dying to know + clause. E.g. I'm dying to know who won the game. 教学过程 A. Warming - up (5 minutes) Show some interesting pictures on the PPT, such as a mysterious forest, an ancient castle, or a strange - looking animal. T: "Look at these pictures, guys. What do you think of them? Do they make you feel something?" Encourage students to express their initial feelings, like "They look mysterious", "They are amazing", etc. Then ask students: "When you see these pictures, are you curious about anything? For example, what's in the forest, who lived in the castle before?" Let several students share their curious thoughts briefly. B. Presentation (10 minutes) Present the key vocabulary and phrases on the PPT one by one. Explain their meanings and usages with examples. For "be curious about", say: "Look, we just said we are curious about what's in the forest. 'Be curious about' means having a strong desire to know about something. Now you try to make a sentence using this phrase." Call on some students to make sentences. Do the same for other words and phrases, such as "wonder", "figure out", and "inquisitive". Next, introduce the common sentence patterns for expressing curiosity. Write them on the blackboard or show them on the PPT. Explain each pattern with examples. For "I'm really curious about...", say: "I can say 'I'm really curious about how the magician did that trick.' Now you create your own sentence." After students make sentences, give some positive feedback and correct any mistakes gently. C. Practice (15 minutes) Pair Work Divide students into pairs. Give each pair a set of topic cards. The topics can be "a new invention", "a famous person", "a strange phenomenon", etc. In pairs, students take turns to choose a topic card and express their curiosity about it using the vocabulary and sentence patterns they just learned. Their partners listen and then ask follow - up questions. For example, if a student chooses the topic "a new invention" and says "I'm really curious about how this new smartphone works", the partner can ask "What specific functions of this smartphone make you wonder?" Walk around the classroom, listen to their conversations, and offer help when necessary. Group Discussion Form groups of four to five students. Present a more complex topic to each group, such as "The future of transportation". In groups, students discuss their curiosities about this topic. Encourage them to use as many different expressions of curiosity as possible. They can also share any related knowledge or ideas they have. One student in each group is responsible for taking notes. After 5 - 8 minutes, ask each group to choose a representative to report their group's discussion results to the whole class. D. Production (10 minutes) Role - play Activity Set up a scenario: A group of students are visiting a science museum. There are many exhibits in the museum, and they are all very curious about different things. Divide students into groups of three or four. Each group assigns roles, such as a museum guide and several visitors. The visitors express their curiosity about the exhibits to the museum guide, asking questions like "I'm curious about how this ancient machine was used", and the museum guide tries to answer their questions as much as possible. Each group performs their role - play in front of the class. After each performance, other students can ask questions or give comments. Individual Presentation Ask each student to think about a topic that they are extremely curious about. They can prepare a short 1 - 2 - minute presentation about their curiosity, including what they are curious about, why they are curious, and what they hope to find out. Invite several students to come to the front of the class and give their presentations. After each presentation, the rest of the class can ask questions related to the presentation. E. Summary and Homework (5 minutes) Summary Summarize the key vocabulary, phrases, and sentence patterns for expressing curiosity with the students. Ask them to recall some of the interesting things they discussed during the class. T: "Today we learned a lot about expressing curiosity. Can anyone tell me one of the sentence patterns we used?" Call on students to answer. Homework Ask students to write a short passage about a topic they are curious about. They should use at least five of the vocabulary words and three sentence patterns learned in class. Encourage students to share their passages with their parents or friends in English, expressing their curiosity to them. 教学反思 In this class, the use of various activities such as pair work, group discussion, role - play, and individual presentation effectively engaged students in speaking practice. However, some students still seemed a bit shy in speaking in front of the class during the individual presentation part. In the future, more warm - up and confidence - building activities can be added at the beginning of the class to help these students overcome their shyness. During the group work, some groups did not fully utilize the vocabulary and sentence patterns. It might be necessary to provide more specific guidance and monitoring during group activities next time, such as giving a checklist of the vocabulary and patterns that they should try to use. The time allocation for each part generally worked well, but the group discussion part could be given a little more time to allow students to have more in - depth discussions. This way, they can come up with more creative and profound ideas about the topics. Overall, students showed great interest in the topic of expressing curiosity, which is a positive sign. By adjusting the teaching methods and improving the details in future classes, the teaching effect can be further enhanced to better meet the teaching objectives and help students improve their speaking skills. 2 / 37 学科网(北京)股份有限公司 学科网(北京)股份有限公司 $$