Урок з англійської мови для 8 класу «Books and writers

Books and writers

Objectives:

• to encourage students to use the vocabulary on the topic in discussions;

• to practise listening, speaking, writing and reading on the topic;

- to contribute to students' love to reading books

Equipment: charts, tables, cards, a tape recorder.

Procedure

1 Introduction

2. Warming-up

T: What services does our school library have? Does the library have a good collec­tion of books? How often do you visit it? What would you like to change in our school library? What books do you prefer reading?

3. Checking up home-assignment

(Writing a review of your favourite book).

4. The main part

Listening

Literary quiz: Guess the names of the famous authors.

- When he was a boy of ten, his father was put to prison for debts. The boy couldn't go to school because he had to help his family. He began to work at a factory. Later he continued his studies. He liked to read and read very much. When he was twenty-five he began to write himself. He wrote novels about the life of poor people and children. His books are well-known in all the world.

- She was born in a poor family in 1816. There were six children in the

family - five girls and a boy. Later the girls were sent to a charity-school which she described in her best novel. After leav­ing school she became a teacher at a school for girls. She wrote many poems and novels.

-When he was twenty-one he went to London. In London he joined a group of actors. At first he only helped the actors. Then he be­gan to play himself. Soon he became the greatest dramatist of his time.

-The poet travelled a lot. In Italy he joined the revolutionary or­ganisation Carbonari that was struggling for the national inde­pendence.

-He was a man of sixty when he wrote his first novel. It was a book about a sailor who lived on a desert island for many years. This book was great!

• Everybody knows his famous book about a man who came to the country of Lilliputs. For children it is a book of wonderful adven­tures.

- In 1960 the American writer gave an interview to a Russian correspond­ent in an unusual place; it was in his fishing boat, in the ocean 25 miles from Havana. Here is only a part of the interview:

"I have fixed hours for my work. I begin to write as soon as it is light, work for a few hours and then stop for breakfast. After breakfast I continue working until about one o'clock. If there is news that I'm very much interested in, I read the newspapers at break­fast. If not, I read them in the evening. After lunch I go fishing or I read. I like to read books by my favourite authors. There are not many and I read them again and again, year after year. Shakespeare, espe­cially.

Work - that's the main thing in life. A real writer doesn't work for money. Somebody once said, "If you can not write - don't write".

I can't not write. Writing means more to me than eating and drinking". He received the Nobel prize for " The Old Man and the Sea"

Dickens - Bronte - Shakespeare - Byron - Defoe - Swift- Ernest Hemingway

Speaking

T: If you had to spend the rest of your life on a desert island with just one book for company, which book would you take?

P1:"The Dead Zone" by Stephen King:

"I am a big fan of horror stories and this is simply the one I've ever read. It's got everything - lots of action... amazing ideas... weird char­acters... great dialogue... Plus, of course, it's very, very frightening. My mum and dad don't understand why I like horror stories so much. Well, it's hard to explain, but maybe the best way is to compare it with riding on a roller-coaster. It's a great way to get all the excitement of danger without actually being in danger... you know what I mean?"

P2: "Hollywood Wives" by Jackie Collins:

"I am not much of a reader, to be honest. This book was great, though... I couldn't put it down. Basically, the story's about a group of rich, glamorous people in Hollywood... their lifestyles, relationships, and so on... which is a complete fantasy for most ordinary people, but so what? Only a minority of people want "art" - the rest of us just want to be entertained and that's why it's my favourite book".

P3: "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy:

"This nineteenth century classic is about a woman who's mar­ried to a boring politician, then leaves him when she falls in love with an army officer called Vronsky. What she wants is an exciting new life. What happens in the end, though, is that she's rejected by so­ciety and loses everything. Tragic? Yes, I suppose "Anna Karenina" is a tragic story, but it's so beautifully told and Tolstoy makes the people seem so real that it's not at all depressing... just dramatic and moving".

P4: 'The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole" by Sue Townsend:

"What a great book! The main character is a really ordinary boy called Adrian and in the book he describes his day-to-day life as if he was writing a diary. Sounds boring, but believe me, it's not. Adrian's descriptions of his family, his problems at school, his anxieties about the world and his love for the beautiful Pandora (who doesn't love him) are all funny. The writer describes how it feels to be a teenage boy. She's written other Adrian Mole books (he gets older in each one) and they're funny too, but for me the first one is definitely the best".

P5: "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams:

"This is my favourite book, it's funny and original. There are lots of scientific ideas but the characters are important, too, and what's even better, they're incredibly funny. Sometimes I even had to stop reading and close the book because I was laughing so hard. I don't re­member ever doing that with another novel. I liked it so much I just didn't want it to end!"

Writing/ Grammar practice

Put the verbs in the correct form

ADDITIONAL READING "IN THE READING-HALL"

My friend Nick and I agreed to meet at our school library. It was

4. o'clock when I entered the reading-hall. There were a lot of pupils there. They all (work). One pupil at the first table (read) an English text. From time to time he (look up) a word in the big dictionary. Several pupils (read) Polish magazines. A blond girl (copy) some information from an encyclopedia into her exercise-book. A tall boy (speak) to the librarian. I did not see Nick in the reading-hall. I (get) angry when suddenly I (see) him in the cor­ner of the room. He (read) a thick book and (make) some notes in his notebook.

Home-assignment.

T: Your home task is to make up dialogues about your favourite books and writers.