reading two life-saving medicines
teaching aims:
1. gain the gist through first and second reading.
2. practice students’ listening ability.
3. improve students’ thinking ability through discussion.
4. understand some medical terms.
step1: lead-in
have you ever taken medicines? what medicines have you ever taken? and what do you know about them?
please talk about your own experiences with medicines.
step 2: fast reading for general ideas
go through the passage as quickly as possible and try to find answers to the three questions in part a on page 18. pay attention to the title so that you can identify the most important information as soon as possible.
step 3: detailed reading for important information
1. read the passage a second time and complete part c1 and part c2.
2. read the article again and fill in the form below so that you can understand the use of the two medicines introduced in the article.
effects of aspirinreduce fever
help stop body pains
reduce the risk of heart attacks
prevent a stroke
reduce the risk of some cancers
increase the length of people’s lives
reduce blood sugar levels
● help people with diabetes
effects of penicillinhelp in treating wounds and infections
kill bacteria to treat illness
3. pay attention to the medical terms in the reading passage. underline the words and put them in correct categories.
words coming from the same stemmedicine, medical, medicinal; pure, purify; chemical, chemist; bacterium, bacterial
words that are compound wordspainkiller; blood-thinning; heart attack; acetylsalicylic
words with irregular plural formsbacteria, bacterium
step 4: practice:
1. complete part d. you may refer to the reading passage on pages 18 and 19 for some help.
2. part e is about two entries in a children’s encyclopedia, one about aspirin and the other about penicillin. please finish it.
step 5: post-reading activities
1. you will be divided into groups of four to introduce the development of aspirin and penicillin to other group members with the help of the timeline in part c2.
2. search for more information about the scientists who have invented aspirin and penicillin. give a brief introduction of the scientists.
3. read the instructions for part f and discuss the questions listed.
step 6: key points:
vocabularywordshistorian, recipe, physician, bark, acid, chemist, trial, tablet, milligram, standardize, painkiller, author, thin, length, contemporary, scottish, note, transparent, application, name, unable, chemical, purify, quantity, mass, widespread, lung, powerful, wonder, relief, potential, fundamental
useful expressionsopen up, heart attack, in large quantities, millions of, figure out, be made from, have a influence on
sentence patterns1.…it was not until world war ii that…
2.…it was over a decade before…
step 7: homework:
part a on page 114 and part b on page 115 of the workbook.
resources
stroke
stroke is a very common disease for middle-aged and older people. a blood vessel to the brain is blocked or ruptured and so patients feel a sudden loss of brain
