Unit 3  Inventors and inventions 

he First Period  Speaking 

Teaching goals 教学目标 

1. Target language ： 

discovery, application, evaluate, presentation, alternative, messenger, get together, make a case for, add up 

2. Ability goals  

 Enable the students to talk about information and different. 

3. Learning ability goals   

Help the students learn how to talk about inventions and discoveries. 

Teaching important & difficult points  How to talk about inventions and discoveries.  Teaching methods  Discussion. Teaching aids  

A computer and a projector.  

Teaching procedures & ways  Step I Warming up 

Talk about inventions and discoveries. 

T: The importance of inventions to social progress can never be changed. Each invention carries the world a step forward and provides stimulation for later ones. Whit inventions turning up all the time, our world is always taking on a new look. But do you know what an invention is? 

S1: The creation of something new 

S2: A creation (a new device or process) resulting from study and experimentation. 

S3: The creation of new things.  …  Ask the students to talk about the pictures with the teacher’s help, and then discuss thefirst two questions. 

T: And what is a discovery? What’s the difference between a discovery and an invention? Now look at the pictures 

on page 1. Work in pairs and talk about the three different things, telling them apart and giving reasons.  

Show the following. 

1. Which o these pictures show inventions? Does any of them show discoveries? 

2. Work out two rules that will help you decide what is a discovery and what is an invention? 

S1: I think the first two are inventions, i. e. the amphibious car and Stevenson’s “Rocket” while the last picture about the DNA is a kind of discovery. Because the first two products were quite new to people at that time and no one had ever seen or designed such kind of vehicles before though some others had made similar cars or machines which had less functions and advantages as these two. I think the picture about the DNA is a kind of scientific discovery in biology because such cells and their  structure do exist in living creatures and they have been found out by a certain scientist and are made known to the public nowadays. So I think a discovery is something existing before but unknown while an invention is something unknown and not existing before. 

S2: I think the first two pictures show us great human inventions about the transportation  because they were invented by people for certain purposes and they had special advantages and could satisfy people’s needs in some ways. On the other hand the third picture showing the formation of DNA is a kind of discovery because these special cells exist and function in the body of life all the time no matter who discovers it 

or when and where it is discovered. In my opinion a discovery is something found out or brought to view now but it was unknown before while an invention is something created or designed by people, which is completely new not only now but in the past.  T: Well, from these pictures we can see that there lies differences between a discovery and an invention. There are certain rules or questions you should pay attention to while distinguishing them. Did it exist in the past? Is it created or developed by people? An invention is something that is created by a human being, such as the lightning rod. To the contrary, a discovery merely makes known something that already  existed in nature, 3  such as the discovery on the New Continent by Columbia. OK. Let’s go on with some other questions of this part. You may talk with your partner first before we have a check five minutes later. Show the following. 

What modern inventions do you know? Describe them to your partner and how useful they are in life today. 

S1: Adidas 1 is the thinking shoes with a built-in microprocessor that decides how soft  or firm the wearer needs the support. It has been chosen by Popular Science magazine as the best recreation invention of 2004. It is very comfortable to wear it all day without worrying about your toes being hurt and you can adjust the height and stiffness  according to your demands whenever you want and wherever you go. Thus it is a very practical choice for both the young and the old when having exciting sports outdoors or resting at home during holidays. 

S2: Camera phones have opened up a new way to communicate. Because many of them look like 

regular cell phones, you can snap pictures as discreetly as any spy and, with the push of a few buttons, pop them into an e-mail or upload them to the Web in less than a minute. No wires or to the Web in less than a minute. No wires or computer hookups necessary. To be sure, most camera phones end up taking pictures of friends family, babies and pets. But they have also been used to snap pictures of VIPs at private parties, copy 

recipes from cookbooks at bookstores and even document crimes in progress. But with an estimated 80 million camera phones sold in 2003, 6 million in the U. S. alone− the cat may already be out of the camera bag. Like it or not, these camera phones have been very popular and widely used by people even today. 

S3: A kind of robot heart called AbioCor was invented in 2001. On July 2, 2001, the 59-year-old grandfather and retired librarian Robert Tools became the first human to get one. It’s been long since the operation, and Tools’ new heart is still beating. He can walk a city block without stopping and he’s even making plans for the future. Though not everybody needs a new heart, hundreds of thousands eventually may. Nor will an artificial heart rid the world of sickness or poverty or terror. But sometimes it really helps.

4 

T: Very good! I am glad to see that all of you have known so many modern inventions both at home and abroad and you have thought a lot about them. It’s certain that modern discoveries and inventions do have great effects in people’s life and can always  represent the advanced science and technology, so you should to distinguish them and make good use of them.  

Step II Talking 

T: Suppose you are working for a mobile company. It is your job to suggest new ways of developing a mobile. In pairs discuss some new applications of a mobile. Make a list of the ones you like and that seem the most useful. Choose one you both like and think will be popular with other people. Now work in groups of four to discuss the question. S1: I suggest the new applications of mobile should be: portable entertainment players, cameras, membership and loyalty cards, guidebooks, maps, tickets, watches, and devices for accessing everything from news to corporate databases. Among them, we like the applications of devices for accessing everything from news to corporate databases. We both think they are useful and will soon be popular with others in the near future because the ability will enable a whole class of workers to rely less on their memory and more on their company’s and even world’s knowledge maintenance, sales construction, transportation, taxicab drivers, and many other workers spend a great deal of time from offices. Thus, when they need information, they must either have it in their heads or stop what they are doing and make a pone call. 

S2: I think the new mobiles can be developed better with 4G to listen to the radio, watch TV, play games, do shopping, chat on the QQ, surf the internet, control the electrical equipment at home in the distance, give off harmless rays and be used as computers with special operating systems which can do business, have fun and work as intelligent P4 computers. Among them, we like the new application of surfing the internet and doing shopping and we both think they are useful and will soon be popular among youngsters because it is very convenient for people to find various useful information whenever and wherever possible. As there are different kinds of goods to choose from online and it’s very funny and exciting to make choices and buy what we need at a reasonable price4  T: Very good! I am glad to see that all of you have known so many modern inventions both at home and abroad and you have thought a lot about them. It’s certain that modern discoveries and inventions do have great effects in people’s life and can always 

represent the advanced science and technology, so you should to distinguish them and make good use of them.  

Step II Talking 

T: Suppose you are working for a mobile company. It is your job to suggest new ways of developing a mobile. In pairs discuss some new applications of a mobile. Make a list of the ones you like and that seem the most useful. Choose one you both like and think will be popular with other people. Now work in groups of four to discuss the question. 

S1: I suggest the new applications of mobile should be: portable entertainment players, cameras, membership and loyalty cards, guidebooks, maps, tickets, watches, and devices for accessing everything from news to corporate databases. Among them, we like the applications of devices for accessing everything from news to corporate databases. We both think they are useful and will soon be popular with others in the near future because the ability will enable a whole class of workers to rely less on their memory and more on their company’s and even world’s knowledge maintenance, sales construction, transportation, taxicab drivers, and many other workers spend a great deal of time from offices. Thus, when they need information, they must either have it in their heads or stop what they are doing and make a pone call. 

S2: I think the new mobiles can be developed better with 4G to listen to the radio, watch TV, play games, do shopping, chat on the QQ, surf the internet, control the electrical equipment at home in the distance, give off harmless rays and be used as computers with special operating systems which can do business, have fun and work as intelligent P4 computers. Among them, we like the new application of surfing the internet and doing shopping and we both think they are useful and will soon be popular among youngsters because it is very convenient for people to find various useful information whenever and wherever possible. As there are different kinds of goods to choose from online and it’s very funny and exciting to make choices and buy what we need at a reasonable price