1. Background Information

Students: 46 Senior high school students, Grade 2.

Lesson duration: 40 minutes.

2. Analysis of the Students

The students are from class 1804, Grade 2. Students in this class are familiar with the structure, vocabulary and connectives of exam-oriented compositions. Students know the basic sentence patterns and conjunctions of writing and the vocabulary related to travel. Students have basic writing and reading skills. At the same time, students have the enthusiasm and initiative to participate in activities.

Students in this class will take two comprehensive tests and practice for three times. The most recent comprehensive test was on Feb. 25, 2020, in the midst of a domestic outbreak of covid-19. Due to the impact of covid-19 on students’ psychology, it is normal for students' test scores to decline. The results of our tests are still referential. According to the comprehensive report of UDig, the writing situation of the students is as follows: students can basically complete the familiar, daily and social topic-related writing, and can use basic vocabulary and grammar to express their views simply, but the organization and coherence are weak.

The relevant teaching suggestions put forward by UDig are as follows: 1. Guide students to improve their ability to identify text genres and text types; 2. Guide students to strengthen their understanding of textual logical relations; 3. Encourage students to be able to use vocabulary and conjunctions appropriate connected with postcards; 4. Encourage students to understand and comprehensively use the topic vocabulary of “Human beings and nature”.

According to the specific suggestions of UDig and students' writing weaknesses, we designed a writing class in the form of "postcard", which is closely related to real life, and provided basic conjunctions with the use of personalized words and characteristic phrases.

3. Analysis of the Teaching Material

This course is a reading-driven writing course in Unit 5 of Book 2 (designed and completed by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press in March 2019). From a macro point of view, this lesson belongs to Unit 5 of Book 2, which is in the basic stage in the teaching arrangement of the whole senior high school. The writing of this lesson belongs to the applied writing, closely following the theme of "man and nature". From a micro perspective, this lesson is about a postcard from Alice to her good friend Emma, which highlights the format characteristics of postcards. Postcards also highlight the context of course themes:

(1) Geographic profiles of major countries; 

(2) People and environment; 

(3) The relationship between social development and the environment; 

(4) Protection of the natural environment. 

Through the study of the previous class, students have a perceptual understanding and a preliminary understanding of the unit topic "On the Road". The teaching content of this class is to ask students to read and write on this basis. The teacher guides students to analyze and compare the main body of the postcard, extract personalized vocabulary, use connectives, summarize structures, and finally independently complete the writing and improvement of blogs. In class activities, students are suggested to find out how to write postcards and suggest changes through group discussions and mutual comments. At the same time, it also cultivates students' abilities of autonomous learning, cooperative learning and inquiry learning.

4. Teaching Ideology

The ultimate goal of English writing teaching is to enable students to use English at work and in life when necessary. So we should teach writing that we can actually use, especially in real life. However, there is often a huge gap between real life pragmatics and classroom language learning. Therefore, we need to bridge these gaps through classroom teaching.

The current theory views writing as an interactive process. The process approach to writing does not only pay attention to what students do while they are writing, it also attaches great importance to what they and the teacher do before they start writing and after they finish writing. The main procedures of process writing include creating a motivation to write, brainstorming, free-writing, outlining, editing, revising and conferencing.

5. Teaching Aims

After learning the lesson, students should acquire the following abilities or qualities:

 (1) Learning ability

• summarize the main structure of the text and three characteristics of the postcard by learning real postcard examples

• evaluate their own and others’ postcard writing in a timely and effective manner through cooperative learning

 (2) Thinking quality

• compare words and links in postcards with differences in general travel texts

 (3) Language ability

• write a postcard about personal travel experience and tell friends about the great rivers and mountains of China

 (4) Cultural awareness

• record personal travel life and spread Chinese culture through postcards

6. Key Teaching Points

 (1) To guide students to identify postcards;

 (2) To inspire students to use appropriate words, phrases and conjunctions to perfect the main text of the postcard;

 (3) To inspire students to create a postcard about travel by using what they have learned in this lesson.

7. Difficult Teaching Points

(As the students still have a limited vocabulary, they may have some difficulties in writing an appropriate blog. Simultaneously, students, as postcard beginners, may not hear about blogs before.)

 (1) To improve students’ ability of self-writing evaluation and error correction of postcard texts;

 (2) To guide students to master the writing techniques that highlight the directness, colloquialism and conciseness of the postcard contents;

 (3) To encourage students to display their postcards.

8. Language Focuses

Since this is a practical writing class, the focus of the class is on developing students' postcard writing abilities. There are a variety of activities that can help students train their postcard skills, such as creating writing motivation, brainstorming, outlining, editing, revising, and discussing. It is also necessary for students to master appropriate personalized vocabulary and characteristic phrases. At the same time, according to the new curriculum standards, it is also necessary to cultivate the ability of cross-cultural communication, such as displaying and watching.

9. Teaching Methods

Activity-based teaching (individual work; group work; class work).

10. Teaching Materials

Multi-media, blackboard, the textbook, and other normal teaching tools.

11. Teaching Procedures

  (1) Pre-writing (12 minutes)

Step 1 Lead-in (4 minutes)

Students will be given enough time to discuss the central topic of this class-travelling and watch a short video connected with Yunnan so that students can have the courage to open their mouths to speak English in class.

Purpose: In this step, students will be guided into the new lesson by sharing and viewing. This activity aims to arouse the students’ interests in the topic, then students will be mentally prepared for the writing. Meanwhile, this step will help students get as much travelling information as possible.

Step 2 The Layout of a Blog (4 minutes)

① After the students have known about the topic of this lesson, the teacher begins by introducing the postcard, the front and the back of the postcard, the core content of the class, and sharing a postcard adapted from the text.

Purpose: To help students know when and where to write a postcard. Students will also master the composition of the front and back sides of postcards. Meanwhile, this sub-step helps students to extract the main information from the text.

② The teacher guides the students to tell what aspects should be included in a travelling postcard and draw the outline of the passage on the blackboard. When guiding the students to analyze the text structure, the teacher integrates the ideological and original features of the postcard into the teaching.

Part 1       Where you are

Part 2       What you saw

                What you did

Part 3       Where your next destination will be

Purpose: To help students focus on the three tenses of postcard text: present, past and future. At the same time, this sub-step helps students to recognize the directness of the postcard body.

Step 3 Improvements (4 minutes)

① The students pay attention to common words and phrases of a travelling postcard. Students ought to focus on the colloquialism of the postcard.

② The students practice using appropriate conjunctions as well as a clear structure. Students shall pay attention to the conciseness of the postcard.

Purpose: To help students observe independently and identify the colloquial features of postcard words and phrases and recognize the conciseness of the conjunctions in postcards. Meanwhile, students will have the ability to extract common words and phrases and use them in real contexts.

  (2) While-writing (24 minutes)

Step 4 Project (20 minutes)

① The students will be given time to write a travel postcard by using what they have learned today.

② The students will be given an assessment table to polish the postcard by using common words, common phrases, and appropriate conjunctions.

Purpose: To strengthen students’ ability to learn to practice, transfer and innovate.

Through the guidance and text analysis, students make an appropriate introduction of a travelling postcard, which aims to practice and apply what they have learned in completing the postcard writing task.

  (3) Post writing (6 minutes)

Step 5 Presenting Ideas (4 minutes)

The students show one or two of their personal writing samples.

Purpose: Students use the classroom learning content to complete the task of postcard writing. At the same time, this step helps to develop students’ oral ability and the courage to open their mouth to speak English.

Step 6 Reflection (2 minutes)

The students summarize what they have learned in this lesson.

Purpose: To help students to review what they have learned in this lesson, and stimulate them to master language skills and build a sound knowledge base.

  (4) Assignments (2 minutes)

① Revise what we have learned today. (All students)

② Polish your personal postcard after class again. You will be asked to show your postcard to the whole class in the next class. (All students)

③Start writing a postcard the next time you travel to other provinces. (Students who are interested)

Purpose: 

• According to the discussion in class, students use UDig to polish the introduction of a person.

• To help students to develop a good learning habit and improve their abilities to reflect and revise.