After Reading

1. Useful Expressions

1.   耸耸肩                              shrug one’s shoulders

2.   自大                              great vanity

3.   让某人大吃一惊                give sb. a great surprise

4.   听某人亲口讲述                from sb. own lips

5.   衣着整洁素雅                    be neatly and quietly dressed

6.   合乎某人的年龄和身份      in accordance with one’s age and station

7.   玩桥牌                              play bridge

8.   和睦恩爱的一家人             a united and affectionate family

9.   年轻时                              in one’s youth

10. 点头致意                          nod a greeting

11. 对…有一种本能                have an instinct about …

12. 两颊白里透红                    pink-and-white cheeks

13. 和善地咯咯一笑                give a kindly chuckle

14. 勉强地/欣然地                   with a bad/good grace

15. 一文不名                    go broke

16. 穷困潦倒                 be down and out        

17. 自杀                         commit suicide

18. 由于                         on account of

19. 吃一惊                              be taken aback

20. 身体状况不好/好                  in bad/good condition

21. 祝某人好运               wish sb. good luck

22. 临阵脱逃                 funk it at the last moment

23. 喝酒作乐把身体搞垮       ruin one’s constitution by drink and dissipation

24. 对付不了                 more than one can manage

25. 拿我自己来说                for my own part

26. 红红的脸上布满皱纹         a red face much wrinkled

27. 拿我自己来说                  for my own part

28. 红红的脸上布满皱纹           a red face much wrinkled

2. Spot Dictation

(Directions:) Listen to the passage from the movie “You’ve Got Mail” and fill in the blanks.

   Dear Friend, I like to start my notes to you as if we are already in the middle of a conversation. I pretend that we are the oldest and dearest friends as opposed to what we actually are-people who don’t know each other’s names and met in a chat room where we both claim we’ve never been before. What will NY152 say today I wonder. I turn on my computer. I wait impatiently as it connects. I go online and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words, “You’ve got mail.” I hear nothing, not even a sound on the streets of New York, just the beat of my own heart. I have mail, from you.

3. Discussion and Debate

Discussion

1.What do you think of friendship and how do you get it?

 (=Friendship needs nourishing, try to understand each other, to find a friend indeed, first of all, should throw away their practical purposes, secondly, sincere, generous, considerate and warm-hearted, should support instead of discarding, who is lack of luck, thirdly, if, feel betrayed by one’s friend, consider, treat this friend sincerely, by behaving this way, can find true friends,…)

 2.Why do you think people need friends?

(=People need friends for different reasons, some people, for the sake of companionship, feel lonely, joke, talk about books, muse on the meaning of life, many online friends, chat room, although invisible, find their hearts are close, a top priority, the others, need friends, can aid them, earn more money, arrive at their destination, achieve success in their careers, like a big tree to fall back on, a ladder on which to climb up…)

Debate

                        Nature VS. Nurture

(Directions:) Join in a debate concerning the molding of character between two groups. Group A argues that internal causes play a major part in shaping a person’s character. Group B holds that external causes perform a key role in forming a person’s character.

(Tips: internal causes: genes, family, parenting,

      external causes: friends, customs and traditions, family atmosphere, schooling, peers, socioeconomic factors)

4. Writing Practice

Introduction

 How to describe a person

1. Who is he?

2. His physical description

3. His clothing

4. His personality

5. Conclusion

Useful expressions and patterns

1. He’s tall/medium height/fairly short and heavy/well-built/thin/plump.

2. He’s got a square/broad/narrow/round/long/wrinkled face.

3. He’s got a pointed /double chin.

4. She’s slim.

5. She’s wearing a blue dress and white sandals/a blouse and high-heel shoes/a turtle sweater and a pencil skirt/a blue summer dress/jeans and a jacket/a blue suit.

6. She’s got short curly/straight shoulder-length/wavy medium length/long wavy hair.

7. He’s got short blond straight hair and blue eyes.

8. She makes a lasting impression on everyone she meets.

9. He looks serious, but he’s very funny in class.

10. Appearance is deceptive.

11. A fair face may hide a foul heart.

12. A good face is a letter of recommendation.

Assignment

(Directions:) Write a passage about a person you are familiar with.

 (Sample:点击出现

  Sago is one of my classmates. He is a young man of medium height and build and he is a little on the chubby side. He has curly black hair that is starting to get thin, a round face with a small chin, and a fair complexion. His most outstanding feature is his eyes. They are very dark and alive, with long lashes, and they seem to be smiling at you all the time. This gives him the appearance of being very good-natured or up to some mischief. On the whole, he is a conservative dresser and he usually wears a gray or dark-blue suit. His ties, however, are loud. Sago speaks very quickly but in a soft voice. He has a keen wit and enjoys a good joke. He is a very intelligent student, but he doesn’t always pay attention in class. Sometimes he writes in class, and sometimes he clicks his ball-point pen or taps his pencil on the desk. But he soon settles down to work again. Sago gets along well with the other students and most of them like him very much.)

5. Sentence Translation

1.    The currents round the beacon were more than he could manage.

(=灯塔周围的激流他对付不了。)

2.    For my own part I find that the longer I know people the more they puzzle me.

(=拿我自己来说，我发现，认识一个人的时间越长，我就越感到困惑。)

3. He was always neatly and quietly dressed in accordance with his age and station.

(=他向来衣着整洁素雅，合乎他的年龄和身份。)

4.    His voice was gentle; you could not imagine that he could possibly raise it in anger; his smile was benign.

(=他说话的声音轻柔；你无法想像他会提高嗓门大发雷霆；他的笑容和蔼可亲。)

5.    要不是听他亲口讲述这个故事，我根本不会相信他能做出这种事来。

(=Unless I had heard the story from his own lips, I should never have believed that he was capable of such an action.)

6.    这个人吸引你，是因为你从他身上感到他对别人的真正的爱。

(=Here was a man who attracted you because you felt in him a real love for his fellows.)

7.    我的处世经验告诉我，他打桥牌输起钱来时一定是大大方方的。

(=I knew from my own experience that he could lose money at bridge with a good grace.)

8. 姑娘们当时要是瞧见他，准不会对他那么着迷了。

(=The girls wouldn't have thought so much of him if they'd seen him then.)

6. Talk about the Pictures

7. Proverbs and Quotations

1      A life without a friend is a life without a sun.

   人生没有朋友，犹如人生没有太阳。

2.   Shared joy is double joy and shared sorrow is half sorrow.

同乐则乐倍之，分忧则忧半之。

3. Beauty is but skin deep.    不可以貌取人。

4．He that will not allow his friend to share the prize must not expect him to share the danger.

                               --- Aesop, Ancient Greek fable writer

     不肯让朋友共享果实的人，不要指望朋友与他共患难。

                                    --- 古希腊寓言作家  伊索

5. It is not enough to help the feeble up, but to support him after.

                   --- William Shakespeare, British dramatist

仅仅把弱者扶起来是不够的，还要在他站起来之后支持他。

                --- 英国剧作家 W. 莎士比亚

6. Some components of a thriving friendship are honesty, naturalness, thoughtfulness, some common interests.

                      --- Ralph Waldo Emerson, American thinker

确保友谊常青的诸要素是：诚实、朴实自然、体贴和某些共同的兴趣。

                           --- 美国思想家 R. W. 爱默生