AN INTEGRATED ENGLISH COURSE

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AN INTEGRATED ENGLISH COURSE

• Gao Yufen
• English Department R-406Nancy5815_at_sina.com847244
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UNIT 12

• TEXT 1 Christmas Lost and Found

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Teaching Points

• I. Pre-reading discussion and presentation
• II. Introduction
• III. Text Analysis
• IV. Questions
• V. Structural analysis and Rhetorical features
• VI. Discussion about Text II

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I. Pre-reading discussion

• 1. What is the most important festival in China?
• 2. What does the title of this text suggests to
  you?

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Presentation
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Presentation
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II. Introduction

• About the author
• Background Information

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III. Text Explanations

• The text can be divided into three parts.
• Part I (Paragraph 1-5) talks about the joy and
  happiness brought by the coming of Christmas Boy.
  
• Part II (Paragraphs 6-8) gives an account of the
  sorrow and sadness caused by the sudden death of
  Christmas Boy.
• Part III (Paragraphs 9-24) makes up its last
  part, which describes the return of the joy and
  happiness to the family.

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Paragraphs 1-5 Analysis

• The first three paragraphs introduce the
  writer's dream of having a big family vibrating
  with energy, life and love, especially at
  Christmas. And her dream came true with the
  arrival of an adopted son, Christmas Boy, as well
  as two biological children.

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Language work

• 1 but we had not reckoned on the possibility of
  infertility. ...but we had not expected that we
  would be unable to bear a child.
• reckon on expect depend on
• We're reckoning on a large profit.
• infertility ( of a person, animal, or plant)
  inability to reproduce

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• 2. Undaunted, we applied for adoption and, within
  a year, he arrived. Not discouraged by our
  infertility, we requested to adopt a child.
  Within a year, we succeeded in adopting one.
• undaunted not discouraged by difficulty,
  danger or disappointment
• daunt cause to lose courage or the will to
  act
• He felt completely daunted by the difficulties
  that faced him.

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• 3. in rapid succession quickly and
  continuously
• His words came out in rapid succession.
• 4. ... compared with my quiet childhood, that
  made an entirely satisfactory crowd.
• satisfactory good enough to be pleasing, or for
  a purpose, rule, standard
• a satisfactory excuse for his absence
• cf. satisfaction contentment pleasure
  fulfillment of a need, desire, etc.
• He took great satisfaction from playing the piano
  well.

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• 5. rush the season make people prepare for
  Christmas hastily long before Christmas really
  comes
• 6. He pressed us into singing carols, our
  froglike voices contrasting with his musical gift
  of perfect pitch. He forced all of us to sing
  carols, even though our voices, compared with his
  perfect voice with musical gift, were too harsh
  and husky to sing.

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• 7. Each holiday he stirred us up, leading us
  through a round of merry chaos. Each holiday,
  he tried to excite us and turned the whole family
  into a cheerful disorder.
• stir up cause to move or excite
• merry chaos This is an expression of oxymoron.
  "Chaos" refers to a state of complete and
  thorough disorder or confusion, which is,
  however, modified by an adjective incompatible to
  or contradictory with its original meaning.

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• 8. Our friends were right about adopted children
  not being the same. Our friends were right in
  saying that adopted children would usually be
  different from biological children.

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• 9. Through his own unique heredity, his
  irrepressible good cheer, his bossy wit, our
  Christmas Boy made our life colorful. With his
  unique ability inherited from his own parents,
  his cheerful personality, as well as his wit of
  ordering others to cooperate with him, he changed
  our life into a colorful one.
• heredity the fact that living things have the
  ability to pass on their own qualities from
  parent to child in the cells of the body
• irrepressible too strong or forceful to be held
  back
• irrepressible high spirits an irrepressible
  talker
• bossy having or showing fondness for giving
  orders

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paragraphs 6-8 Analysis

• This part describes what kind of sorrow the
  death of Christmas boy brought to this family.

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Language work

• 1. stop by make a short visit to (someone's
  home)
• 2. where memories clung to every room. ...
  where every room would make us recall the past.
• cling to hold tightly to stick firmly to
• She clung tightly to her few remaining
  possessions.

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Paragraphs 9-24 Analysis

• This part tells us that 17 years later, the
  parents returned to the city, which brought back
  all kinds of memories of Christmas Boy. However,
  they gradually realized that they had found the
  joy of a noisy Christmas of a big family again
  and that the love harbored in everyone's heart
  will unite people, biologically connected or not,
  into a family and Christmas is just a chance for
  people to share love with each other.

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Paragraphs 14-15 Analysis

• The granddaughter " ' You sure as heck can,
  ' ... as bossy as her father had been. "
• Christmas Boy "his own unique heredity,
  his irrepressible good cheer, his bossy wit"
• Their perfect voice and joyful singing at
  the Christmas party
• The granddaughter "Our granddaughter's
  magnificent soprano voice soared, clear and true,
  in perfect pitch. " "We sang carols in loud,
  off-key voices, saved only by that amazing sopra-
  no.
• Christmas Boy "He pressed us into singing
  carols, our froglike voices contrasting with his
  musical gift of perfect pitch. "

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Language work

• 1. We slid into the city on the tail of a
  blizzard, through streets ablaze with lights.
  We drove into the city at night just after a
  heavy snowstorm, in order not to be noticed by
  any acquaintance.
• slide go slowly and unnoticed pass smoothly or
  continuously slip
• She slid out of the room when no one was looking.
  
• She slid over the question without answering it.
• on the tail of following closely behind
• blizzard a severe snowstorm with high winds
• ablaze very brightly coloured or lighted

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• 2. fix one's gaze on gaze at
• 3. We settled into a small, boxy house, so
  different from the family home where we had
  orchestrated our lives. It was quiet, like the
  house of my childhood. We settled down in a
  small house, which was so different from our
  previous home where, with our Christmas Boy, we
  had changed our quiet life into a cheerful one.
  Now the small house reminded me of the quiet
  house of my childhood, which I had disliked so
  much.

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• 4. snowcapped mountains mountains covered with
  snow
• 5. pull up come to a stop
• The car pulled up outside the station.

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IV. Questions

• 1. Why did the author dream of a big family?
• 2. How did the author make her dream come true?
• 3. How does the author describe the importance of
  Christmas Boy to her family?
• 4. What happened to Christmas Boy as well as his
  family?

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V. Structural analysis and Rhetorical features

• Oxymoron is a figure of speech in which two words
  opposite meanings are used together to describe
  the same object or phenomenon. Such as merry
  chaos Bitter-sweet memories Chilly but somehow
  comforting silence a poor millionaire, a private
  public man and so on.

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VI. Discussion about Text II

• One Small Stone, Unforgotten

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Assignment

• Reading the text again
• Do the exercises from I to IV