Unit 3 The Land Down Under (SBIII)

Pre-reading Reading & Post-reading

Teaching Aims:

1.Train the students reading ability especially the skills of summarizing and scanning.

2.Study and have a good grasp of some keywords and phrases.

3.Learn to analyze some difficult long sentences.

Pre-reading:

We have learned several articles about introducing a country before, so before reading please try to finish the exercise on SB P21. Try to tick the questions that you think will be answered in the passage.

Reading:

Step I. Reading the article quickly and then check the answer that you ticked before reading.

keys: 2,3,4,7,9

Step II: Reading the article carefully to grasp some important facts and try to answer some questions.

Read Part One THE PORTRAIT OF A NATION and answer question 1-3.

1. What oceans are around Australia?

2. What’s the capital city of Australia? Is it also Australia’s most famous city?

3. How many stars are there in the Australian flag?

keys:1.Australia is surrounded by many oceans: the Indian Ocean, the Southern Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. 2. Canberra is the capital city of Australia, but it is not the most famous city. Sydney is Australia’s most famous city. 3. There are six stars.

Read Part Two THE FIRST AUSTRALIANS and answer question4-5.

4.Who are the first Australians?

5.Do they have their own culture?

keys: 4. The first Australians were the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders

澳大利亞最早的居民是土著居民和托雷斯海峽的島上居民。

5.Yes, and their culture was highly developed.

Read Part Three A NATION OF PRISONERS? and answer question6-10.

6.When European explorers began arriving on the continent?

7.Who claimed the east coast of the continent for the British Crown?

8.Why so many prisoners and criminals were sent to Australia?

9.What day is Australia Day? What happened on that day?

10.Why many Aborigines and islanders were moved?

keys:

6.In the seventeenth century. 7. Captain James Cook. 8. Because of the American War of Independence, it was impossible for England to send prisoners to North America. 9.January 26. The British Governor landed on the continent on that day. 10.The newcomers came and introduced new plants and animals that were harmful to the Australian ecosystems. As a consequence, the original Australians suffered.

Read the last two parts and do the following T or F exercises:

11.In the early twentieth century, Australia was a “new world” society without a ruling class.

12.Aborigines and other non-Europeans enjoyed the same rights.

13. The First World War had a great influence on Australia.

14. In the early 1960s, the government passed laws to strengthen the rights of Aborigines and Islanders to improve their living condition.

15. French is the official language of Australia.

16. Australian English is different I spelling from British and American English.

17. “Down under” means “in Australia”.

18. Some of the Aboriginal language have been lost.

keys:T:11,13,17,18

F: 12,14,15,16

Step III. Books closed and listen to the tape. Try to imitate the pronunciation.

Discuss in groups and answer the questions on SB P23.

Step IV. Explain some words in the text and then finish the exercise on SB P 24.

newcomer: people who come to a place later the originals 后來者，新來者

differ: be different 不同于

diverse: be various 不同的，多種多樣的

govern: be in the charge of 統治，控制

immigration: people who go to the another country 移民

resemble: looks like 看來象

transform: change 改變，變動

strengthen: make …strong 強化，加強

The Aborigines have been living in Australia for thousands of years. Their present lifestyle and culture(1)_____little from those of their ancestors. However, after the early European explorers set foot on this vast land in the seventeenth century, the Aborigines, who (2)______the Native Americans during the same period of time, were forced to leave their own land. The white (3)______ took their land and killed many of them. Many more Aborigines had to move to inland areas. The continent was (4)________ by the white settlers. Towns and farms were built rapidly. After World War II, a mass (5)_______ from nearly 200 countries (6)______ Australia in to a modern nation.

In a struggle that lasted for many years, the Aborigines claimed equal rights for all Australians, But it was not until the 1960s that the Australian government came to realize the importance of passing laws to (7)________ the rights of the “first Australians”. Only in this way could the people in Australia build a society of (8)________ cultures.

Keys: differ, resembled, newcomers, governed, immigrations, transformed, strengthen , diverse

Homework:

Read the text .