3． A sample lesson plan for Using Language
(Jokes about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson)
Aims
To help students read the paragraph of Jokes about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson
To help students to use the language by reading, listening, speaking and writing.
Procedures

I. Warming up
Warming up by reading school jokes
There are lots of jokes in English about school life. Read these two to see whether you will laugh or not.
Why must we learn this? 为什么要学这个呀？
One day our professor was discussing a particularly complicated concept. A pre-med student rudely interrupted to ask, "Why do we have to learn this pointless information"

"To save lives." the professor responded quickly and continued the lecture.
A few minutes later, the same student spoke up again. "So how does physics save lives?" he persisted.

"It keeps the ignoramuses like you out of medical school," replied the professor.
I will do anything to pass 说啥也要考个及格
A student comes to a young professor's office hours. She glances down the hall, closes his door, kneels pleadingly.

"I would do anything to pass this exam." She leans closer to him, flips back her hair, gazes meaningfully into his eyes. "I mean..." she whispers, "...I would do...anything."
He returns her gaze. "Anything?"
"Anything."
His voice softens. "Anything??"
"Absolutely anything."
His voice turns to a whisper. "Would you...study?"

II. Guided reading
1． Reading and translating
Read the paragraph on page 22 and translate it into Chinese sentence by sentence.
2.  Reading and underlining
Next you are to read the paragph and underline all the useful expressions or collocations in it. Copy them to your notebook after class as homework.
Collocations from the paragraph on page 22
Go camp, in a mountainous area, lie in the open air, under the stars, look up at the stars, think of…, try a third time, in one’s beds
3.  Doing the exercise
Now you are going to do the exercise No. 1 on page 22.
III.Guided Speaking
Think of funny stories in English and telll them to your group mates.
________________________________________
The Student and the Pharmacist 学生和药剂师
A somewhat advanced society has figured how to package basic knowledge in pill form. A student, needing some learning, goes to the pharmacy and asks what kind of knowledge pills are available.
The pharmacist says, "Here's a pill for English literature." The student takes the pill and swallows it and has new knowledge about English literature!
"What else do you have?" asks the student. "Well, I have pills for art history, biology, and world history," replies the pharmacist.
The student asks for these, and swallows them and has new knowledge about those subjects. Then the student asks, "Do you have a pill for math?"
The pharmacist says, "Wait just a moment," and goes back into the storeroom and brings back a whopper of a pill and plunks it on the counter.
"I have to take that huge pill for math?" inquires the student. The pharmacist replied, "Well, you know... math always was a little hard to swallow."

Out of the mouths of babes 出自孩子之口
My two and a half year old grandson lives with his mother. Her roommate also has a two and a half year old child, a daughter. A few days ago they were playing together and my grandson noting that his playmate's stomach was exposed ,took his forefinger and poked her belly button. She thought that this was great and they both had a laugh about it.
Sometime later his playmate raised her arms inviting my grandson to poke her belly button again. As he moved his forefinger toward her for a repeat performance, she suddenly lowered her arms, backed away and said, "No! I have a headache."

IV.Guided Writing—Learn to write jokes
There are two main parts to the structure of a joke. The first prepares you for the laugh by telling a story which creates a sense of expectation. The second part of the joke, the punch line, provokes laughter by telling an unexpected and different story, yet one which is still compatible with the first, as in this example: "My wife just ran off with my best friend. Boy, do I miss him." and "I had a mud pack facial done, and for three days my face looked much better. Then the mud fell off." Notice the assumption that is made in both these examples. In the first, you assume the person telling the story is angry with his wife, so the punch line surprises you because he's feeling something different and unexpected. Again, in the second example, you'd most likely assume the mud had been removed, leaving the face looking better, so the punch line takes you by surprise.
So, to write jokes you need to practice reading statements and writing down the asumptions you make about them. You must be able to interpret the statement (first story line) in at least two different ways in order to provide the second, different story i.e. the punch line. And what to write about? Anything that interests you. Anything you have strong opinions about.
Now write down your own jokes, in English.

IV. Closing down by acting
To end this period, we are going to act the film by Charlie Chaplin The Great Dictator.
The Great Dictator 大独裁者
Schulz: Speak - it is our only hope.
The Jewish Barber (Charlie Chaplin's character): Hope... I'm sorry but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business - I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that.
We all want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone.
The way of life can be free and beautiful.
But we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men's souls - has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.
We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery we need humanity; More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness.
Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say "Do not despair".
The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long as men die [now] liberty will never perish...
Soldiers - don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you - who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder.
Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate - only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers - don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty.
In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written " the kingdom of God is within man " - not one man, nor a group of men - but in all men - in you, the people.
You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let's use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.
Soldiers - in the name of democracy, let us all unite!
Look up! Look up! The clouds are lifting - the sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world. A kind new world where men will rise above their hate and brutality.
The soul of man has been given wings - and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow - into the light of hope - into the future, that glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up. Look up."