Australians eat whole world’s food (P4)
中国人民大学附属中学  宋玖青

I. Warming up  
What’s your favorite type of food to eat for dinner?

II. Pre-reading
Do you know the places the following foods came from?
What do you know about Australian food?

III. While-reading
Scanning
Read the article and answer the following questions.
1. What is a basic “meat and three veg” meal?
It is a meal with one sort of meat (chicken, beef, lamb, and so on) and three different types of vegetables (usually potatoes, peas and carrots).

2. What is the classic Australian savory dish mentioned in the article? 
Meat pie.

Close Reading
Read the article again, and try to guess the meaning of the word “eclectic” in Para. 4.
…Australia’s eclectic dining scene offers a wide range of the world’s great cuisines. (Para. 4)
Eclectic means using a wide range of things, or things with many different origins.

Decide whether the following statements are true or false.
1.All Australian people enjoy exotic food.  F
2.Chinese restaurants are easy to find around Australia.  T
3.Honey Chicken, eaten in Australia, is an authentic Chinese dish.  F
4.Pavlova and Lamington are two desserts that were imported from New Zealand.  F
Answer the questions according to the article.

1.What has contributed to the “melting pot” of Australian food?
Possible answers:
The migrants from other countries have contributed to “the melting pot”.

2.What is the author’s attitude toward the variety of food? Find evidence from the article to support your idea.
Possible answers:
The author’s attitude is supportive and optimistic. First of all, it is quite convenient for people from other countries, like China, to find a taste of home. Also, Australian people “enjoy the variety”, and they have the chance to taste “the world’s great cuisines”.

IV. Post-reading
Discussion
Discuss the following questions in groups of four. Then share your thoughts with the class.
1.Why do you think some Australian people “restrict their diet to the basic meal”?
2.With the fast pace of globalization, will we see more “hybrid” food like the “Kung Pao Chicken Pizza” on the market? What do you think of it?

V. Homework
Writing
Based on the discussions you’ve had, write an essay about the globalization of food. You should include answers to these questions:
a.What are the advantages and disadvantages of the trend?
b.What’s your opinion of it?

Team lives in ‘Mars area’(P5)
南开中学  王立梅

I. Warming up  
Which planet is this?
How much do you know about it?

Mars was among the first bodies in the Solar System to be viewed through a telescope.
NASA's Mariner and Viking probes in the 1960s and 1970s found a cold, apparently lifeless planet with huge volcanoes and canyons and evidence of past surface floods.
More recently, six-wheeled rovers have confirmed that water ice exists below the surface.

II. Pre-reading
Do you think we will live on Mars one day?
What would it feel like to live on Mars?

A team of six scientists has completed a Mars simulation inside a dome.
The isolation experiments addressed the human element of exploration.
The crew received a warm welcome as they walked out of their dome after a year in isolation.

III. While-reading
1. Where was the Mars simulation project located? What were conditions like?
It was located on the rocky slopes of the Mauna Loa volcano on the island of Hawaii. Its soil is similar to that on Mars and it has high elevation and no plants.

2. If scientists wanted to go out of the dome, what did they have to do?
They had to wear spacesuits, just as they would if they were walking on Mars.

3. Besides the tough living conditions, what other difficulties did they meet?
There was a 20-minute delay in the communications between the crew members and the outside world. There was no privacy for the crew members. And they missed Earth very much.   

4. What can we conclude from the last two paragraphs?
The group were very positive about living on Mars in the future.

IV. Post-reading
Discussion:
1. What do you think of the idea of a Mars simulation?
2. What do you think the team members did for a year in such a small dome?

If you’d like to learn more about the Mars simulation, please visit:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37211051?ocid=socialflow_facebook&

Fear swimming away (P6)

I. Warming up
Have you ever taken part in a sports competition?
How did you feel during the competition?

II. Pre-reading
Author background:
Sally Goble works for The Guardian as a quality assurance tester on the digital platform. When she is not working, she mostly swims. She swam the English Channel solo in 2006 and currently organises The Guardian’s winter swimming club.
As a swimmer, what did Sally experience in the swimming race? Read the article and find out.  

III. While-reading
Read the article and summarize the article’s main idea.  
It is mainly about how the author overcame her fear of coming last.

Read the article again and answer the following questions:
1.Why did the author quit the swimming events last year?
Because she predicted that she might come last in the events and she was afraid of finishing in last place.

2. How did the author prepare for the swimming event in January 2016? 
She trained hard but couldn’t improve her swimming speed.

3. How did the author overcome her fear of coming last?
When she concentrated on swimming, she found that she enjoyed herself and became less bothered by her ranking.

4. How did the author feel after she finished the event?
She felt relieved, proud and happy.

5. What can we learn from the author’s experience?
Possible answer: The process is more important than the result.

IV. Language focus
Match the following words with their meanings.
1.pull out
2.recede
3.cope with
4.calculate
5.hover
6.peer
7.wear on

A. move gradually away from sb or away from a previous position
B. decide not to do sth that you had intended to do or started to do
C. look closely or carefully at sth
D. guess sth or form an opinion by using all the information available
E. deal successfully with a difficult situation
F. (of time) pass, especially in a way that seems slow
G. stay in one place and move slightly in a nervous way

Key: BAEDGCF

Choose the correct expressions and finish the sentences according to the explanation. You can change the form of the words if needed.
pull out          recede           cope with          calculate     
hover             peer               wear on
1.He found he could no longer _____ his demanding job.
2.He _____ closely at the photograph.
3.As the evening ____, she became more and more nervous.
4.An injury forced Stephen Roche to _____.
5.I _____ that he would arrive at midnight.
6.Luke’s footsteps ____ into the night.
7.Judith was ____ in the doorway.
Key: cope with; peered; wore on; pull out; calculated; receded; hovering

V. Discussion
Share one of your own experiences of being able to overcome your doubts and fears.