Unit 4 What is life-Assessment 教案-2025-2026学年高中英语译林版选修第三册

It focuses on cultivating students’ language competence to express life views in English, cultural awareness to respect diverse life outlooks, thinking quality to analyze life essence logically, and learning ability to explore life-related knowledge independently and cooperatively.

Key points: Mastering life-related vocabulary and complex sentences, understanding the theme of life in texts.

Difficult points: Using learned language to discuss life meaning logically and expressing personal views on life accurately and vividly.

Step 1: Lead-in (Lead students into the theme of life and activate prior knowledge)

The teacher starts the class by showing a short video. The video includes diverse life forms: a seed breaking through the soil, a bird flying freely in the sky, a child laughing happily, an old man reading quietly in the sun, and even tiny bacteria moving under a microscope. After playing the video, the teacher asks two open-ended questions: “What do you see in the video?” and “What does life mean to you?” Students are given a few minutes to think individually and then invited to share their answers freely. Some students may say life is growth, some may think life is love and companionship, and others may mention the tenacity of life shown by the seed. The teacher listens carefully to each student’s answer, gives positive feedback such as “Your idea is very touching” or “That’s a unique perspective”, and then naturally leads to the unit theme: “Today, we will explore the topic of life together and try to find out ‘What is life?’ through texts, discussions and other activities.”

Design Intention: The short video with diverse life forms can quickly attract students’ attention and arouse their emotional resonance, making them feel the richness and vitality of life intuitively. The open-ended questions allow students to express their initial understanding of life without pressure, which not only activates their prior knowledge and life experience but also lays a foundation for the subsequent text learning and theme discussion. Positive feedback from the teacher can enhance students’ confidence in speaking English and stimulate their enthusiasm for participating in class activities.

Step 2: Vocabulary and Phrase Learning (Lay a solid language foundation for text reading)

First, the teacher presents the key vocabulary and phrases of the unit on the screen, including core words such as “essence”, “vitality”, “survive”, “thrive”, “struggle”, “precious”, and phrases such as “in the face of”, “hold on to”, “take root”, “be full of”. For each word and phrase, the teacher explains its meaning clearly, gives typical example sentences combined with the theme of life, and guides students to read aloud repeatedly to master the correct pronunciation and intonation. For example, when explaining “struggle”, the teacher gives the example sentence: “Every living thing struggles to survive in the harsh environment, which is a true reflection of life.” When explaining “hold on to”, the example sentence is: “We should hold on to our hope and courage in the face of difficulties, because that is the meaning of life.”

After explaining the new words and phrases, the teacher organizes a small group activity: each group is given 5 minutes to make up a short paragraph using at least 3 new words and 2 new phrases, with the theme of “the beauty of life”. After the group discussion, each group sends a representative to present their paragraph to the class. The teacher comments on each paragraph, points out the advantages and areas for improvement, and helps students consolidate the use of new words and phrases. For example, if a group says: “A small grass takes root in the crack of the wall, holds on to life tightly, and thrives in the sun. It shows the great vitality of life.” The teacher will praise them for using the phrases “take root” and “hold on to” correctly and vividly, and encourage other groups to learn from them.

Design Intention: Vocabulary and phrases are the basis of language learning. By explaining the meaning and giving

example sentences closely related to the unit theme, students can not only remember the new words and phrases but also understand their practical use in the context of life. The group activity of making up paragraphs can stimulate students’ creativity and cooperation awareness, and let them apply the learned vocabulary and phrases in practice, which helps to deepen their memory and improve their language application ability. At the same time, the teacher’s comments can help students find their own problems and improve their expression accuracy.

Step 3: Text Reading (Understand the theme of life and improve reading ability)

This step is divided into three parts: fast reading, careful reading and post-reading discussion, to help students gradually understand the text content and deeply explore the theme of life.

First, fast reading. The teacher distributes the text materials (the text takes “What is Life?” as the title, introducing different views on life from the perspectives of biology, philosophy and daily life, and tells the stories of ordinary people who cherish life and strive for it). Students are asked to read the text quickly and answer two questions: 1. What perspectives does the text use to discuss the meaning of life? 2. What is the main idea of the text? After students finish reading, the teacher invites several students to answer the questions. The correct answers are: 1. Biology, philosophy and daily life. 2. The text discusses the essence and meaning of life from different perspectives, and emphasizes that life is precious and we should cherish it and strive for it. The teacher confirms the answers and briefly summarizes the text structure: the first part puts forward the question “What is life?”, the middle part discusses the meaning of life from different perspectives, and the last part calls on people to cherish life.

Design Intention: Fast reading aims to train students’ ability to capture key information quickly, help them grasp the main idea and structure of the text in a short time, and lay a foundation for careful reading. The two questions are designed to guide students to focus on the core content of the text and avoid aimless reading.

Second, careful reading. The teacher divides the text into three parts and guides students to read carefully part by part, with targeted questions to help students understand the details and deep meaning of the text.

For the first part (the question “What is life?”), the teacher asks: “Why does the author put forward the question ‘What is life?’ at the beginning of the text?” Students discuss in pairs and then share their views. The teacher summarizes: “The author puts forward this question to arouse readers’ thinking about life, attract readers’ attention, and lead to the subsequent discussion of the theme.”

For the second part (discussing the meaning of life from different perspectives), the teacher designs the following questions: 1. What is the definition of life from a biological perspective? 2. What does life mean from a philosophical perspective? 3. What examples does the text give to show the meaning of life in daily life? Students read carefully, find the relevant content in the text, and answer the questions one by one. The teacher explains the difficult sentences in this part in detail, such as “From a biological point of view, life is a process of continuous growth, reproduction and metabolism, which enables all living things to pass on their genes and continue their species.” The teacher analyzes the sentence structure, explains the key words such as “metabolism” and “genes”, and helps students understand the sentence meaning. For the examples in daily life, the teacher guides students to feel the tenacity and beauty of life from the stories, such as the story of a disabled person who insists on studying and realizing his dream, and the story of a volunteer who devotes himself to helping others.

For the third part (calling on people to cherish life), the teacher asks: “What does the author want to tell us in the last paragraph?” Students answer: “The author wants to tell us that life is precious, we should cherish every moment of life, face difficulties bravely, and strive to make our life meaningful.” The teacher further asks: “Do you agree with the author’s view? Why?” Students express their own views, and the teacher guides them to establish a correct view of life.

Design Intention: Careful reading is the key link to understand the text in depth. By dividing the text into parts and designing targeted questions, students can better grasp the details and deep meaning of the text. The explanation of difficult