Unit2 Language and Culture-Reading A-Digging in 讲义-2025-2026学年高中英语沪外版必修第一册

Unit 2 Language and Culture-Reading A-Digging in 教学目标和重难点 教学目标 It focuses on language ability, cultural awareness, thinking quality and learning ability, helping students master key words, understand cultural connotations in language, develop critical thinking and form autonomous learning habits. 教学重难点 Key: Grasp the main idea and details of the text, master core vocabulary and sentence patterns. Difficulty: Understand the connection between language and culture and infer the author’s implied meaning. 教学过程 Lead-in: Activate Prior Knowledge and Arouse Interest The teacher starts the class by showing a short video clip, which includes scenes of people from different countries communicating in English but encountering misunderstandings. For example, a Chinese student says “I’m full” to refuse more food, while a foreign friend doesn’t understand the implied meaning and keeps offering. Then the teacher asks two questions: “Have you ever met such communication misunderstandings? What do you think causes these misunderstandings?” Students are invited to share their own experiences or opinions freely. After several students finish their speeches, the teacher makes a brief comment and leads to the topic of this lesson: “Today we will explore the close connection between language and culture through Reading A Digging in, and learn how to avoid such misunderstandings in cross-cultural communication.” Design Intention: The video clip is intuitive and vivid, which can quickly attract students’ attention and arouse their interest in the topic. By asking open-ended questions, students are encouraged to express their own views in English, which not only exercises their oral expression ability but also activates their prior knowledge about cross-cultural communication and language differences. Meanwhile, the natural transition helps students clarify the learning goal of this lesson and lay a foundation for the subsequent text learning. Pre-reading: Preview Vocabulary and Predict Text Content Vocabulary Preview The teacher presents the core vocabulary of this lesson on the screen, including confusing, Mexican, soil, Spanish, immediate, confusion, embarrassment, torn, pleasant, deliver, signal. For each word, the teacher provides accurate pronunciation, English definition and typical example sentences combined with the text context. For example, for the word “confusing”, the teacher says: “Confusing means difficult to understand; not clear. In the text, the author says ‘The Confusing way Mexicans tell time’ because he can’t understand the real meaning of ‘ahorita’ at first.” Then the teacher asks students to read the words aloud after him/her, and invites some students to read individually to check their pronunciation. After that, the teacher organizes a quick vocabulary matching game: students are divided into groups of 4, and each group is given a list of words and their definitions. They need to match the words with the correct definitions within 3 minutes. The group that finishes first and has the highest accuracy wins a small reward. Design Intention: Vocabulary is the foundation of text reading. By presenting vocabulary with pronunciation, definitions and context-related examples, students can better understand and remember the words. The vocabulary matching game makes the learning process more interesting, stimulates students’ learning enthusiasm, and helps them consolidate the newly learned words in a relaxed atmosphere. It also cultivates students’ cooperative learning ability through group activities. Text Prediction The teacher shows the title of the text “Digging in” and the picture related to the text (if any) on the screen. Then the teacher asks students to predict the content of the text based on the title and the picture: “What do you think the text will talk about? Who is the main character? What happened to him/her?” Students are allowed to discuss in pairs for 2 minutes, and then share their predictions with the whole class. The teacher writes down the key points of students’ predictions on the blackboard, such as “It may be about a person’s experience in a foreign country”, “It may talk about language misunderstandings”, etc. Then the teacher says: “Let’s read the text to check whether your predictions are correct.” Design Intention: Predicting the text content before reading can help students form a preliminary understanding of the text and establish a reading goal. It also trains students’ ability to infer and predict based on limited information, which is an important reading skill. The pair discussion allows students to exchange ideas and learn from each other, improving their communication and cooperation skills. While-reading: Comprehend the Text in Layers Fast Reading: Get the Main Idea Students are asked to read the text quickly and answer two questions: (1) What is the main topic of the text? (2) What is the author’s main feeling or experience described in the text? After reading, students are invited to answer the questions individually. The teacher checks the answers and summarizes the main idea of the text: The text mainly tells the author’s experience of encountering language and cultural misunderstandings when he first came to Mexico, especially the confusion caused by the word “ahorita”, and finally understands the cultural connotation behind the word and changes his attitude towards time. Design Intention: Fast reading is designed to train students’ ability to capture the main idea of the text quickly. By answering simple questions, students can focus on the key information of the text and avoid getting bogged down in details. It also helps students form a holistic understanding of the text, laying a foundation for in-depth reading. Careful Reading: Analyze Details and Emotional Changes Students are asked to read the text carefully and complete the following tasks: Task 1: Fill in the table about the author’s experience and feelings. The table includes four columns: Time, Event, Author’s Action, Author’s Feelings. For example, “When the author first set foot on Mexican soil, he asked a local ice-cream seller for an ice-cream and the seller said ‘ahorita’; the author sat near the shop and waited; he felt expectant at first, then confused and torn.” Students need to find relevant information from the text and fill in the table independently. After finishing, students check their answers in groups, and the teacher comments on the key points. Task 2: Analyze the meaning of the word “ahorita” in different contexts. The teacher asks students to find all sentences in the text that contain the word “ahorita” and discuss in groups: “What does ‘ahorita’ mean in each sentence? Why does its meaning change?” After discussion, each group sends a representative to share their views. The teacher summarizes: “Ahorita does not always mean ‘right now’; its meaning changes with context, which can be ‘tomorrow, in an hour, within five years or never’, and it can also be a polite way to refuse an offer. This reflects the cultural differences in the concept of time between Mexico and other countries.” Task 3: Analyze the author’s emotional changes and the reasons. The teacher asks students to find words or sentences in the text that reflect the author’s emotional changes, such as “took him at his word, believing that its arrival was immediate” (expectant), “Half an hour passed and still no ice-cream arrived” (confused), “I was torn” (torn), “my attitude towards time has changed dramatically” (enlightened). Then students discuss in pairs: “What causes the author’s emotional changes?” The teacher guides students to realize that the author’s emotional changes are caused by his gradual understanding of Mexican culture and the real meaning of “ahorita”. Design Intention: Careful reading is the key link of text learning. By completing the table, students can sort out the author’s experience and clarify the text structure, which helps them understand the text in detail. Analyzing the meaning of “ahorita” and the author’s emotional changes can help students deeply understand the connection between language and culture, break through the teaching difficulties, and develop their ability to analyze and infer text information. Group discussion and individual expression can fully mobilize students’ learning initiative and improve their cooperative learning ability and logical thinking ability. Intensive Reading: Appreciate Language Features and Writing Techniques The teacher selects some key sentences from the text and guides students to analyze their language features and writing techniques: Sentence 1: “When I first set foot on Mexican soil, I spoke Spanish well. So when I asked a local ice-cream seller for an ice-cream, and he said ‘ahorita,’ which directly translates to ‘right now,’ I took him at his word, believing that its arrival was immediate.” The teacher asks: “What is the function of this sentence? Why does the author mention that he spoke Spanish well?” Students discuss and conclude that this sentence sets the background of the story and lays a foundation for the subsequent misunderstanding. Mentioning that he spoke Spanish well highlights the unexpectedness of the misunderstanding, which makes the story more vivid and attractive. Sentence 2: “His face was a mix of confusion and maybe even embarrassment.” The teacher asks: “What does this sentence show? What can we infer from it?” Students answer that this sentence describes the ice-cream seller’s facial expression, which shows that he does not understand the author’s confusion, reflecting the cultural differences between the two. It also foreshadows that the meaning of “ahorita” is not “right now”. Sentence 3: “Ironically, it would seem that ‘Ahorita Time’ has actually allowed me to live far more in the ‘right now’ than I ever did before.” The teacher asks: “What is the irony here? What does this sentence show about the author’s attitude towards ‘Ahorita Time’?” Students discuss and conclude that the irony is that the author originally misunderstood “ahorita” and felt impatient, but finally found that “Ahorita Time” made him live more in the present. This sentence shows that the author has accepted and even appreciated Mexican culture, and his attitude towards time has changed dramatically. After analyzing the key sentences, the teacher asks students to read the text aloud again, paying attention to the intonation and emotion, so as to better feel the author’s emotional changes and the language charm of the text. Design Intention: Intensive reading helps students appreciate the language features and writing techniques of the text, improve their language appreciation ability and writing level. By analyzing the key sentences, students can deeply understand the author’s expression intention and the cultural connotation behind the text, further consolidate the understanding of the text, and lay a foundation for the subsequent language output. Post-reading: Consolidate and Extend Text Retelling Students are divided into groups of 3, and each group is asked to retell the text based on the table filled in during careful reading. The retelling should include the author’s experience, emotional changes and the understanding of “ahorita”. Each group has 5 minutes to prepare, and then each group sends a representative to retell the text in front of the whole class. The teacher evaluates the retelling from the aspects of fluency, accuracy and completeness, and gives positive comments and suggestions. Design Intention: Text retelling is an effective way to consolidate the text content. It can help students sort out the text structure and key information, and improve their oral expression ability and logical thinking ability. Group preparation allows students to help each other and make up for their deficiencies, which cultivates their cooperative learning ability. The teacher’s evaluation can help students find their own problems and improve their learning effect. Group Discussion The teacher puts forward the discussion topic: “What can we learn from the author’s experience? How should we communicate with people from different cultural backgrounds to avoid misunderstandings?” Students are asked to discuss in groups of 4 for 8 minutes. During the discussion, the teacher walks around the classroom, guides students to think deeply, and helps them solve problems encountered in the discussion. After the discussion, each group sends a representative to share their views. The teacher summarizes the key points: We should respect cultural differences, understand the cultural connotation behind language, be patient and polite in cross-cultural communication, and learn to think from the other’s perspective. Design Intention: Group discussion can guide students to apply the knowledge learned from the text to practical life, deepen their understanding of the theme of “language and culture”, and cultivate their critical thinking ability and cross-cultural communication awareness. It also provides students with more opportunities to express themselves in English, improving their oral expression ability and cooperative learning ability. Language Practice The teacher designs two language practice tasks for students to complete independently: Task 1: Fill in the blanks with the newly learned words. The sentences are closely related to the text context, such as “When I first came to this country, I was confused by the local people’s ______ (confusing) behavior.” “She was ______ (torn) between staying at home and going out with her friends.” Task 2: Write a short passage (about 80 words) about a cross-cultural communication experience you have had or imagined, using at least 3 newly learned words and expressing your feelings and understanding. After students finish the tasks, the teacher collects some students’ works and comments on them in class, affirming the advantages and pointing out the deficiencies. For the short passage, the teacher selects excellent works to share with the whole class, so that students can learn from each other. Design Intention: Language practice is an important link to connect input and output. By filling in the blanks, students can consolidate the newly learned words and their usage. Writing a short passage can help students apply the language knowledge and writing techniques learned from the text to practical writing, improving their writing ability and language application ability. The teacher’s comment and sharing can help students find their own problems and improve their learning effect. Summary and Homework Summary The teacher summarizes the content of this lesson with the students: “In this lesson, we have learned the text Digging in, which tells the author’s experience of encountering language and cultural misunderstandings in Mexico. We have mastered the core vocabulary and sentence patterns, understood the connection between language and culture, and learned how to communicate with people from different cultural backgrounds. We also developed our reading ability, oral expression ability and cooperative learning ability.” Design Intention: Summarizing the lesson can help students sort out the knowledge learned in this lesson, form a systematic knowledge structure, and deepen their understanding and memory of the lesson content. Homework The teacher assigns two types of homework: Homework 1: Read the text aloud for 15 minutes every day, and recite the key sentences selected in the intensive reading part. Homework 2: Find more examples of language and cultural differences between different countries, write a short report (about 100 words) to introduce them, and explain how to avoid misunderstandings in communication. Homework 3: Preview Reading B of this unit, and find out the core vocabulary and main idea of the text. Design Intention: Homework is an extension of classroom teaching. Reading aloud and reciting key sentences can help students consolidate the language knowledge and improve their language sense. Finding examples of language and cultural differences can help students expand their horizons, deepen their understanding of the theme of “language and culture”, and cultivate their autonomous learning ability. Previewing the next lesson can help students better adapt to the next class and improve their learning efficiency. 1 / 1 学科网（北京）股份有限公司 学科网（北京）股份有限公司 学科网（北京）股份有限公司 $