一、学情分析
《普通高中英语课程标准(2017年版)》(以下简称为“新课标”)指出英语学科核心素养是学科育人价值的集中体现,是学生通过学科学习而逐步形成的正确价值观念、必备品格和关键能力。英语学科核心素养主要包括语言能力、文化意识、思维品质和学习能力(中华人民共和国教育部,2018)。作为高三年级,本班学生的词汇量达到了一定水平,具备一定的阅读理解能力和自主学习能力,提高英语阅读理解能力的主观意愿较强。但是优诊学诊断结果显示,本班学生“理解主要观点”和“理解主旨大意”这两项微技能的水平有待提高。本课旨在通过阅读活动提高学生的英语核心素养,提升学生“理解主要观点”和“理解主旨大意”的微技能水平。
二、教学材料
基于以上学情,本课例阅读材料The myth of 10,000 hours选自《21世纪报》。材料为议论文,通过描述两个不同的实验,介绍了不同学者的观点,从而论证了practice的重要性。本篇材料有利于发展学生理解主要观点的能力。
The myth of 10,000 hours
You know the old phrase, “Practice makes perfect.” That may not always be true. According to a recent study published in Royal Society Open Science, there are other factors for reaching elite (最优秀的) levels of ability.
The researchers set out to replicate (复制) the process of a now-famous 1993 study of top-level violinists and pianists. On average, the earlier study found that top-ranked musicians had clocked over 10,000 hours of practice by the age of 20. It put their success down to the hours spent practicing, downplaying the importance of natural talent, learning skills and other factors.
Author Malcolm Gladwell later relied on this study for his 2008 book, Outliers. He called 10,000 hours “the magic number of greatness”.
Questioning this conclusion, Brooke Macnamara and Megha Maitra, from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, US, sought (寻找) volunteers to put the 10,000-hour rule to the test.
The pair organized violinists into three groups, based on whether their tutors rated them as the best players, good players, or average players. They were then told to record how long they practiced every week.
They found that the “average” players had around 6,000 hours of practice. However, there was little separating the good from the best musicians. Both groups had approximately 11,000 hours of practice by the age of 20. In all, the number of hours spent practicing accounted for about a quarter of the skill difference across the three groups.
“Once you get to the highly skilled groups, practice stops accounting for the difference,” Macnamara told the Guardian. “Smaller factors then determine who goes on to that super-elite level.”
“The factors depend on the skill being learned: in chess it could be intelligence or working memory, in sport it may be how efficiently (有效率地) a person uses oxygen,” she said. She also pointed out the factor of motivation (动机) and the interactions of different factors.
Ralf Krampe, a co-author of the 1993 study, disagrees, saying the quality of practice and teaching does matter. “... I still consider deliberate (刻意的) practice to be by far the most important factor,” he told the Guardian.
It should be said that neither side discounts the value of making an effort. Even if you aren’t destined (命中注定的) to be the world’s greatest violinist, practice will make you a little bit better than you were yesterday.
三、教学目标
基于以上学情分析,本课例教学目标如下:
1.通过进行采用reading circle的小组分角色分工阅读活动,使学生掌握本文重难点词汇与句型,理解文中主要观点,从而达到提高学生语言能力和学习能力的教学目标。
2.通过优诊学测试发现,本班学生在理解主要观点和理解主旨大意方面有所欠缺,所以本课通过对文章主题Does practice make perfect?的分析与讨论,提高学生理解主要观点和理解主旨大意的微技能水平。
3.通过对作者写作目的的讨论使学生形成努力、勤奋的正确价值观念。
4.通过reading circle阅读活动培养学生相互协作的能力。
5.通过让学生讨论“practice是否为决定成功的最重要因素?”来培养学生思辨、批判和创新的思维品质。
四、教学活动
表一 Teaching Process
五、教学效果评价
要判断学生的学习动机如何,不能只看学生是否对学习感兴趣、是否有学习的欲望,更要看学生参与学习活动的情况、其兴趣与精力的投入是否能够持久(王笃勤,2012)。本课例通过采用阅读圈的分工阅读活动,极大提高了学生的阅读动机,使不同英语水平的学生都能积极参与到阅读活动中来。在Summarize和Word Master部分,学生利用Graphic Organizers(见表二)自主学习单词,利用Mind Map(见图一)对文章大意进行总结概括,从而提高了语言能力和学习能力。通过任务型阅读法让学生对文中提到的不同观点进行探讨(见表三),从而提高了学生理解主要观点以及理解文章主旨大意的微技能水平。另外,本堂课在班里掀起了英语课外阅读的风潮,使每个孩子都爱上了阅读,受益于阅读。
表二 Graphic Organizers
图一 Mind Map
表三
六、教学反思
本课例是对语篇The myth of 10,000 hours的第二课时阅读,旨在通过reading circle的阅读模式,激发学生的阅读兴趣,培养学生的阅读能力,特别是依据优诊学平台测试结果,针对性提高学生理解主要观点和理解主旨大意的能力。本课例可以在以下方面进行改进:
1.在词汇学习方面,不应仅仅停留在词汇意思的学习上,还要挖掘词汇在语篇中的语用功能,比如may not always be true中的may和always暗示了什么?在文中具有什么样的功能?
2.阅读课中除了关注文本内容和文章主旨,我们还应该关注文章的语篇特点(例如本文为一篇议论文,教学中要让学生关注到议论文的三个要素:论点、论据和论证。),从语篇特点方面对文章进行挖掘。
3.新课标要求我们要注重培养学生的核心素养:语言能力、学习能力、思维品质和文化意识。在这节课中,我认为还可以增加对学生思维品质的培养。这是一篇议论文,我们就可以根据议论文的特点,对学生的逻辑思维能力进行培养,如要求学生观察思考作者是如何一步步合理论证自己的观点。另外我们还可以培养学生进行审辩式思维的品质和能力,如通过要求学生判断文中提到观点的合理与否来进一步启发学生进行思考。
七、学生评价
学生整体对本堂课热情较高。学生对reading circle分工阅读的模式很感兴趣。学生反映在通过课下自主阅读以及课上分享讨论后,掌握了文章中出现的生词,理解了文章中出现的句式结构较为复杂的句子,讨论并理解了文中出现的主要观点。学生还表示十分期待这样的阅读课。