МБОУ «Ордена Дружбы народов гимназия №3 им. А.М. Горького»

городского округа город Уфа

Методическая разработка урока английского языка

по теме “Mysterious places”

«Звездный английский» 8 класс

учителя высшей категории

Гафуровой Лиды Миниахметовны

2019

Аспекты урока

Тема урока: Таинственные места. Mysterious places.

Оборудование: компьютер, интерактивная доска, фотографии

Ход урока:

- Good morning dear pupils. I am glad to see you. How are you? I see you are fine, so we can start our lesson. Look at the blackboard please. You can see some pictures on it. Can you guess what we shall talk about today? (на доске фотографии 7 чудес света без названий) Yes, right you are. We are going to explore the topics of mysterious places and events, strange creatures and unexplained phenomena.

- Let’s look at the pictures on the board and name these places (ученики говорят названия этих мест) (Great Wall of China (China); Christ the Redeemer Statue (Rio de Janeiro); Petra, Jordan; Machu Picchu, Peru; Great Pyramid of Giza, Mexico; Taj Mahal, India; Colosseum, Italy).

- Now tell me where they are situated (учитель указывает поочередно на фото, дети называют местоположение) and what you know about them. What makes them mysterious?

- Why do you think mysterious places attract people’s attention?

- Good, thank you. Well, inspite of these places of wonders, there is also a great amount of mysterious things in the world. Your home task was to make projects about such things. Let’s listen to some of them. Who wants to start? (ученики показывают презентации и зачитывают доклады о таинственных местах, существах и необъяснимых явлениях)

Примеры докладов:

Crooked Forest, Poland – The Mystery of 400 Curved Trees

A prodigious scene right out from the forest of Gryfino in Poland spellbinds visitors every day! Gryfino Forest also known as the Crooked Forest, is a small clutch of more than 400 pine trees that appear to be bent over at almost 90 degrees at the trunk, before twisting back again straight and growing vertically into the sky. What makes these trees grow in such shape? The actual reason is still a mystery. However, some say it was grown like this to make furniture from naturally carved woods, whereas, another story refers to it as natural cause.

The Stone Forest, China

Another interesting mystical place which is worth a visit is The Stone Forest in China. You already have an image back in your mind by just reading the name, right? Well, if that image includes imposing stones standing vertically like a tree then you are gifted with a brilliant imagination power. Located in the Yunnan Province of China, The Stone Forest, also known as Shilin Stone Forest, is esteemed internationally for an area of 96000 acres replete with multitude imposing limestone. According to the experts, these towering rocks are the result of natural phenomena which happened some 270 million years ago.

Bigfoot / Sasquatch / Yeti

These hairy ape-men are probably the most witnessed unknown creatures in the world. Whether they are called Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti, Skunk Ape or Yowie, they have been seen in isolated woodlands and mountain areas in virtually every corner of the globe. And the descriptions - from the North American northwest to Florida to Australia - are remarkably consistent:

• Taller than an average man (seven to eight feet)
• Covered with long brown or auburn hair (or white hair in the case of the Yeti)
• A strong, repugnant odor
• Large feet, as evidenced by castings of footprints
• An aversion to man
• A piercing, eerie howl

- Thank you. Well, we see there are a lot of mysterious places all over the world. Now I suggest reading the text about some unusual places in London on page 72. First of all let’s read and translate the words given below the text:

-          Now let’s read the text filling in the gaps with the words given in ex.2 on the same page

- Thank you. Now could you answer my questions to the text?

1. Why is London believed to be one of the most haunted capitals in the world? (Because it has a long, violent and tragic history)

2. Where did the cruel cases of imprisonment, trials, executions and tortures occurred? (at the Tower of London)

3. Who are the most frequently seen ghosts there? (Henry VIII’s headless wife Anne Boleyn and the white lady whose perfume filled the air around the White Tower)

4. Do the ghostly goings-on still occur at the Tower of London? (Yes, they do)

5. When did the Theatre Royal first open? (in 1663) Is it the oldest theatre in London? (It is)

6. Do the phantoms make their presence felt during the performances? (They do)

7. What tricks do the phantoms of the two clowns play on the actors? (one of them kicks the actors, the other is always heard practicing his clog dance (чечетка))

8. Who is the most famous ghost at the theatre and what differs him from the others? (It’s the Man in Grey, he appears only at the beginning of a successful performance, he doesn’t make people freeze in terror)

- Well done. Speaking about mysterious places in the world, we may also mention the Stonehenge stone circles in England. We don’t know much about Stonehenge. Who built it? How and why did they build it? It’s a mystery. Let’s listen to the audio recording to find out the theories of its occurrence.

If you drive by car south-west out of London, along a road with the romantic name A303, you will reach Stonehenge after about an hour and a half. You will see a circle of great stones, with other stones placed carefully on top of them. There are other, smaller stones – called “bluestones”. Around Stonehenge, there are other ancient places – burial places, for instance, and ancient paths.

The archaeologists tell us that Stonehenge was not all built at one time. The oldest parts of Stonehenge are about 5,000 years old. The “bluestones” came about 1000 years later, and the great circle of stones a few hundred years after that. The great stones probably came from a place about 40km away. They each weigh about 25 tonnes. Experts say that perhaps 500 men pulled each stone, while 100 more placed logs on the ground for the stone to roll over. The “bluestones” are even more remarkable – they are much smaller, about 4 tonnes each, but they come from Preseli in south Wales, a distance of nearly 400 km. How did they get to Stonehenge? Maybe people carried them on small boats, over the sea and along rivers.

The big question is “Why?” Why did these people, four or five thousand years ago, build Stonehenge, and what did they use it for? Here are some of the theories:

Perhaps Stonehenge was a religious temple. Perhaps priests sacrificed animals or even human beings here. Maybe Stonehenge was a centre of political power, a place built by a great and powerful king.

Possibly, it was a place to celebrate the dead, a place to send them on their way to the next world.

Or it could have been a place where sick or injured people came to be cured, like Lourdes in France is today.Or Stonehenge might have been a place to watch the movement of the sun, moon and stars, and to forecast important events like eclipses.Or, conceivably, it was all of these things, or it had different purposes at different times.

Today, Stonehenge is an important tourist site, and a place for people who like to believe in magic. At the summer solstice (that is June 21st, the longest day of the year) people go to Stonehenge to watch the sun rise. This year, about 30,000 people were there. And, because this is England, it rained.

- Now answer my questions, please:

1. How much time does it take to get from London to Stonehenge by car?

2. How does Stonehenge look like?

3. What is there around Stonehenge?

4. How old are the oldest parts of Stonehenge?

5. When did the blue stones come?

6. How many tons is each great stone?

7. What do experts say about the process of delivering the stones to that place?

8. What are the theories of the occurrence of Stonehenge?

9. Why is Stonehenge an important tourist site?

10. Would you like to visit this place?

- Thank you very much. You were very attentive while listening to the recording. By the way, is there any other mysterious place in the world you would like to visit? What about making up dialogues with your partners to find out why you want to visit this or that place. Get ready in 2 minutes. (Разыгрываются 2-3 диалога у доски)

Пример диалога:

- Hello, Ann, how are you?

- Hi, Kate, I’m fine thank you, what are you doing?

- I am surfing the Internet and I have just read an article about some mysterious places of our planet.

- Oh, that’s so exciting! Is there any place you would like to visit?

- Yes, there is, I would like to visit the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt. They are one of the tallest structures made by human hands in the world.

- Yeah, they are still shrouded in mystery. What is the biggest mystery about the Egyptian pyramids by he way?

- It’s the construction techniques used to erect them. The pyramids were made of granite blocks, each block weighed about 2.5 ton. I wonder how those giant blocks were moved.

- That’s really very weird and mysterious. Wish you could go to Egypt one day!

- Thank you very much

-         Well done, dear children. Your work at the lesson was excellent. Did you like the lesson? Was it useful and interesting? Do you agree that all of you deserve good marks? So do I.

-         Write down your home task, it’s written on the blackboard – ex.1, p.76, you are to read the text and be ready to retell it.  Don’t forget to write out the unfamiliar words from the text to your vocabularies.

-         Thank you for the lesson. Good-bye!