教学设计(全英文授课示范)

Unit 3

Why do we believe that the earth is round?

About the Text

Introduction

At the very beginning you may find this title is rather ridiculous because everybody knows that the earth is round. No one bothers to think twice about this question. Have you ever thought that the earth is in another shape? The answer is definitely “no”. Because we were born to be told that the earth is round. But in ancient times, the common belief was that the sky is round and the earth is flat. Just imagine if you are not informed the shape of the earth by experts, it is very likely that you think the same way as the ancient people did.Perhaps, some of you may protest in class that it is really a waste of time to discuss the question whether the earth is round or not. It’s meaningless; it has already been a proven fact. But if you have previewed this text, you must know that the real interest of the author is not in the debate of whether the earth is round or not. Instead, he hopes to draw our attention to a very serious fact that nowadays people become more gullible than ever before with the purpose to make us reexamine our thinking habits. Otherwise we can never becomeanintellectual independent person.

In order to help you better understand this unit, I’d like to ask you to participate in three tasks.

The first task is that you are going to figure out the sources of our knowledge and we together analyze the advantages and disadvantages of those different sources of our knowledge.

The second task is that you are going to figure out the evidences the author provided to prove that the earth is round as well as the opposite arguments that are proposed by the oval earthman.

The third task is that we are going to discuss the conclusion that is drawn from this unit and further explore some thinking skills which are needed to help us become an intellectual independent person.

Task 1

Brainstorming

(Where does our knowledge come from?)

Students are divided into 4 groups. A representative should be elected to write down their ideas on the blackboard.

The source of our knowledge

Indirect source:

Traditional media: Books, newspapers, magazines etc.

New media: Radio, TV, internet

Teachers, experts, parents, friends, colleagues, classmates

Advantages: Easily available, more convenient

Disadvantages: Not reliable sometimes, make us overloaded with information

Direct source: Self-experience, self-observation, self-experiment

Advantages: More reliable

Disadvantages: time-consuming, energy-consuming

Q: Should we believe everything experts tell us?

As average men, we are often overloaded with both information and misinformation and cannot suitably process and assimilate what we receive. We tend to regard what we hear and read as true without factual verification or the test of reason. According to the author, though we should respect the viewpoints of true experts, we should try to test their theories before we accept them, and should compare different viewpoints to arrive at a truer perspective.

This may pose us a great dilemma. On one hand, we haven’t enough time and energy or we are not qualified to explore everything on our own to get first-hand experience, on the other hand the indirect sources of knowledge are sometimes not reliable and they are overloaded. What shall we do? I think we’ll leave this question to task 3. And in that part we’ll discuss in depth about some thinking skills to deal with this kind of dilemma.

Task 2

Find some evidences that the author figure out to prove that the earth is round. The author’s evidence s

●If you stand by the seashore on a clear day, you can see the masts and funnels of

invisible ships passing along the horizon. This phenomenon can only be explained by assuming that the earth's surface is curved. (The phenomenon of invisible ships.)

●Analogy of the sun and moon.

●The earth’s shadow: When cast on the moon during eclipses, it appears to be the

shadow of a round object.

●The Astronomer Royal, who ought to know, tells me that the earth is round. The

astronomers can foretell eclipses, and this suggests that their opinions about the solar system are pretty sound.

●Navigation. People can sail ship round the world, and reach the places they aim at,

by calculations which assume that the earth is spherical.

Q:Why does the author think the evidences are precarious?

Because those evidences are subject to objection and can be challenged easily. The opposite arguments proposed by oval earthman also seem reasonable.

Find the arguments of the opposite point.

The oval earthman’s argument s

●It does not follow that the earth is spherical. They claim that the earth is shaped