Step 1. Revision:

Purpose: To check whether Ss master what they’ve learnt in the last period or not.

Ask Ss to answer the following questions.

(1) What will the Yeti do when it gets angry?

(2) What does the Bigfoot look like?

(3) Where does the Grey man live?

(4) What’s the Loch Ness Monster like?

Suggested Answers:

(1) It will attack anyone who goes close to it.

(2) It looks like a very large monkey – tall and hairy with big arms and legs.

(3) The Grey man lives on mountains in Scotland.

(4) It has a small head and a long tail and some people believe it is a dinosaur.

Step 2. Leading-in

Purpose: To let Ss have a discussion about the Monster of Lake Tianchi.

1. Group work

Show four pictures and ask Ss to say something about the Lake Tianchi and the monster.

2. Group work

Let Ss reported their discussions to the class and collect them. Then give a simple introduction to lead in the reading.

For your reference:

Lake Tianchi is located in the north-eastern Jilin province near the border of North Korea, in China. The lake is 1,243 feet deep and has had some volcanic activity in the last 300 years. Tianchi is honoured as the deepest mountain lake and the largest crater lake in China.

There have been more than 30 reported sightings by tourists from home and abroad over the past 20 years. They said that they saw the great monster in the lake. There are quite a few pictures and videos of this creature, but none is clear enough to give a good appearance of it. Some persons made the picture with computer images of it based on interviews. Someone drew a picture to show its shape, but it remains unconfirmed.

Step 3. Reading

Purpose: To improve Ss’ reading skills.

1. Skimming

Ask Ss to read the beginning of the passage and finish Activity 1 on page 52.

Suggested Answers:

A newspaper.

2. Scanning

(1) Ask Ss to read the first paragraph quickly and answer the two questions.

① According to the text, what did the monster look like?

② How many people saw it?

Suggested Answers:

① Black in color; jumped like a seal; its head looked like a horse.

② About 200

(2) Ask Ss to read the second paragraph and answer the questions:

① Who else saw the animal?

② What were they doing?

③ What did it look like?

Suggested Answers:

① A group of soldiers

② They were walking along the side of the lake.

③ It was greenish-black and had a round head with 10cm horns.

(3) Ask Ss to read the third and fourth paragraph and answer the questions.

① What did Li Xiaohe see?

② Why could they see the animal clearly?

③ How long was the history of reports of monsters in Lake Tianchi?

④ What do many people think?

⑤ What do the scientists think?

Suggested Answers:

① A round black creature moving quickly through the water. After 300 or 400 meters it dived into the water.

② The weather was fine and the lake was calm.

③ Since the beginning of the last century.

④ The monster may be a distant cousin of the Loch Ness monster in Scotland and there might be similar creatures in other lakes around the world.

⑤ The low-temperature lake is unlikely to be able to support such large living creatures.

(4) Ask Ss to read the last paragraph and give the following information about Lake Tianchi: