Period 4
Step 1. Pre-listening
Discuss the following questions with your partner.
Q1. Have you ever heard the great four inventions of ancient China? Q2. What are they?
Q3. Can you speak out some names of great inventors in the world? Suggested answers:
Q2; compass paper making powder printing Step 2 While-listening
1. 3200BC 2. 1092 AD 3. 105 AD 4. 868 AD 5. 1498 AD Step 3 Post-listening
Fill in the blanks with proper words according to what you hear.
China has given the world many important______. To give an example, it is the country in which ______was first invented. Silk was made there as long ago as 3200 BC. Chinese farmers grew mulberry ______because they knew that a certain kind of caterpillar ate them. The Chinese did not tell other countries how silk was made and other countries paid a lot for this soft, strong______.
Su Song was an eleventh century ______about whom very little is known. However, we do know that in 1092 AD he invented the first real________. For the first time ever, it became possible to tell the time. In the 1950s a ______was built and this copy can be seen today in Beijing.
They say that a man called Cai Lun made ______from the bark of a tree in about 105 AD._______, he is a man of whom China can be proud. Paper was a very important invention because it was ______and people could afford to buy it. Before that time, writers had used _______materials such as silk. The invention was immediately_______. However, paper did not spread to other countries for another 500 years.
_______was invented in China as early as 868 AD. The book in which printing first ______was called The Diamond Sutra. With printing, it became possible to _______many copies at the same time. In 1041 AD, a chemist called Bi Sheng invented a type of print that could move. It was not until 1454 that the first book was printed in________.
The first time that we hear of a real _______is in a Chinese book of 1498 AD. This toothbrush could clean teeth quickly and well. The toothbrush only reached Europe in the _______century, when it quickly became very popular.
Suggested answers:
1. inventions 2. silk 3. leaves 4. material 5. monk 6. clock 7. copy 8. paper 9. If so 10. cheap 11. expensive 12. successful 13. Printing 14. appeared 15. produce 16. Europe 17. toothbrush 18. seventeenth Step 4. Speaking
1. Read the following passage about great inventions and then discuss the following questions with your
partners.
Great Inventions伟大发明