Unit 2 Movie, Mirror of Life-Section 4 Expanding Our Horizons 教案-2025-2026学年高中英语冀教版选择性必修第一册

Language competence: Master key words and sentences to express movie-related views.

Cultural awareness: Understand cultural connotations in movies and respect cultural diversity.

Thinking quality: Develop critical thinking by analyzing movie themes.

Learning ability: Improve autonomous and cooperative learning skills in movie-related activities.

Key points: Master core vocabulary and sentence patterns about movie appreciation; understand the connection between movies and real life.

Difficult points: Analyze movie metaphors and cultural implications; express personal views on movies in fluent English.

Step 1: Lead-in (Warm-up and Activation)

The teacher starts the class by showing short clips (3-5 minutes in total) of classic movies with different cultural backgrounds, such as The Shawshank Redemption (American), Ne Zha: Birth of the Demon Child (Chinese), and Parasite (Korean). After playing the clips, the teacher asks two guiding questions: “What do these movies have in common? How do they reflect the real life in their own countries?” Then, the teacher invites students to share their opinions freely, encouraging them to use simple English to express their feelings about the clips. During the sharing, the teacher records key words and expressions mentioned by students on the blackboard, such as “reflection”, “social reality”, “cultural difference”, “human nature” and so on. Finally, the teacher summarizes the students’ answers and leads to the topic of this lesson: “Today, we will explore Section 4 Expanding Our Horizons, which will help us understand how movies, as a mirror of life, show different cultures and life realities, and improve our ability to appreciate movies in English.”

Design Intention: The use of classic movie clips can quickly attract students’ attention and arouse their interest in the lesson, as most senior high school students are fond of watching movies. By asking open-ended questions, students’ prior knowledge and experience about movies are activated, which lays a foundation for the subsequent learning. Recording key words helps students build a vocabulary framework related to the lesson topic in advance, reducing the difficulty of understanding the text later. Meanwhile, the lead-in links movies with real life and cultural differences, which is closely combined with the core literacy of cultural awareness and lays a foreshadowing for the in-depth exploration of the text.

Step 2: Pre-reading (Vocabulary and Background Preview)

First, the teacher presents the core vocabulary and phrases of this section on the multimedia, including “metaphor”, “implication”, “depict”, “reflect”, “cultural connotation”, “social phenomenon”, “artistic expression” and so on. For each word and phrase, the teacher provides simple English definitions and example sentences related to movie appreciation, such as “Metaphor is a figure of speech that describes something by comparing it to something else, e.g., In The Shawshank Redemption, birds are a metaphor for freedom.” Then, the teacher organizes students to do a quick matching exercise: match the words with their definitions, and invite several students to check the answers in class to ensure that students master the basic meaning and usage of the words.

Next, the teacher briefly introduces the background of the text: the text mainly introduces how movies from different countries reflect their unique cultures and social realities, and guides readers to appreciate movies from a deeper perspective, rather than just focusing on the plot. The teacher also mentions that the text involves movies from different cultural backgrounds, which helps students expand their horizons and understand cultural diversity. At the same time, the teacher asks students to predict the main content of the text based on the title “Expanding Our Horizons” and the vocabulary they have just

learned, and write down their predictions on the exercise book. Finally, the teacher invites 2-3 students to share their predictions and encourages them to verify whether their predictions are correct during the reading process.

Design Intention: Vocabulary is the foundation of English learning. Previewing core vocabulary before reading can help students avoid being blocked by new words when reading the text, improving reading efficiency. Providing example sentences related to movie appreciation makes the vocabulary learning more contextual and helps students connect vocabulary with the lesson topic. The background introduction helps students understand the theme and purpose of the text in advance, establishing a clear learning goal. Predicting the text content can stimulate students’ reading motivation and cultivate their ability to infer and predict, which is an important part of learning ability. This link also lays a foundation for the subsequent reading and analysis of the text, and infiltrates the cultivation of cultural awareness.

Step 3: While-reading (Text Analysis and Comprehension)

This step is divided into two parts: fast reading and careful reading, to help students understand the text from the overall to the details.

First, fast reading: The teacher asks students to read the text quickly and complete two tasks: 1. Find out the topic sentence of each paragraph; 2. Summarize the main idea of the text. After students finish reading, the teacher organizes students to exchange their answers in pairs. Then, the teacher invites several groups to share their results and makes comments and corrections. The main idea of the text is summarized as: Movies are a mirror of life, which reflect different cultures, social phenomena and human nature from different countries; by appreciating these movies, we can expand our horizons and deepen our understanding of the world. The topic sentences of each paragraph are sorted out to help students grasp the structure of the text (introduction - analysis - conclusion).

Design Intention: Fast reading aims to cultivate students’ ability to obtain key information quickly, which is an important reading skill. Finding topic sentences and summarizing the main idea helps students grasp the overall structure and core content of the text, cultivating their ability to generalize and sort out information, which is an important part of thinking quality and learning ability. The pair exchange link can promote students’ cooperative learning and let them learn from each other, improving their communication ability.

Second, careful reading: The teacher guides students to read the text carefully paragraph by paragraph, and designs targeted questions to help students understand the details and deep meaning of the text.

For Paragraph 1 (Introduction): The teacher asks: “What is the function of movies according to the text? How does the author compare movies to life?” Students read the paragraph carefully and find that movies not only bring entertainment but also reflect real life, and the author compares movies to a “mirror” of life. The teacher then asks: “Why does the author use the metaphor of ‘mirror’? What is the meaning behind it?” Guide students to think deeply: the mirror can reflect the real appearance of things, and movies can truly show the real life, social phenomena and human nature, which lays the foundation for the theme of the text.

For Paragraphs 2-4 (Analysis): These paragraphs take movies from different countries as examples to illustrate how movies reflect cultural and social differences. The teacher designs questions for each paragraph: 1. What movie is mentioned in Paragraph 2? What social reality does it reflect? 2. How does the movie in Paragraph 3 show cultural characteristics? 3. What is the common point of the movies mentioned in Paragraph 4? Students read carefully, find relevant information in the text, and answer the questions. During the process, the teacher guides students to pay attention to the key sentences and phrases, such as “depict the struggle of ordinary people in the process of social change”, “show the unique cultural values of the country”, “reflect the common pursuit of human beings for goodness and justice”. At the same time, the teacher invites students to analyze the example sentences in the text, such as the analysis of the movie Parasite, guiding students to understand how the movie reflects the class gap in society, and helping students perceive the connection between movies and social reality.