Textbook analysis (omitted) 1. Learning Objectives (1) Reading skills and strategies a. predict about the gist of the letter (the purpose of the letter); b. skim the letter for the gist (what the writer is writing for) and the main ideas of the paragraphs; c. scan for the specific information (Ben’s problem and how he got the specially trained dog “Lucky” and how the dog helps him out); d. explore the implied meaning of the letter: it is worth while helping the disabled people and if someone gets help from other people, expressing sincere thanks to helpers is important. e. master how to infer the meaning of words in reading according to the parts of speech, e.g., group, disabled, difference, imagine, difficulty, normal, training, kindness. (2) Words and expressions a. understand the meaning of words or phrases，e.g. set up, disabled, blind, deaf, imagine, difficulty, carry, excited, training, understand, kindness, change through discussing and reading. (3) Significance of learning a. be aware that we must be thankful when helped and join in volunteer work to help others. b. Learn how to infer the meaning of words according to its part of speech.

3. Difficult objectives: d. explore the implied meaning of the letter: it is worthwhile helping disabled people and if someone gets help from other people, expressing sincere thanks to helpers is important. e. master how to infer the meaning of words in reading according to the parts of speech, e.g., group, disabled, difference, imagine, difficulty, normal, training, kindness.

Students analysis: 1. The basics of the class: there are 68 students in the class and they are arranged in three big groups in the classroom. It seems that most students don’t like having English classes. 2. The class routine: It seems that the students don’t read the text adequately. The teacher presents so many new words in the text that it may overwhelm the students. Instead of getting the students to figure out the implied meaning of the passage, the teacher herself tells the student about it directly. 3. The classroom interaction: It seems the teacher doesn’t make use of the information gap to help students understand the text. She just helps the students understand the text by asking questions and explaining new words. She asks questions to the whole class, and just a few students answer. When no response from the students, the teacher answers the questions by herself. 4. The main problem of the class: Ss are not good at reading. T doesn’t give enough opportunities for Ss to read the text by themselves. It seems that most Ss are absent-minded in class. And T doesn’t seem to try hard enough to design the reading tasks helping Ss understand the details and the implied meaning of the text.