Unit Four (By Yang Dongmei)
Teaching objectives:
1. Talk about Electronic Communication. 2. Practice new vocabulary.
3. Develop paragraphs of facts and opinions. 4. Write passages about comparison.
Time allotment (6 periods):
1. 1st and 2nd period: Text A study：
background information; cultural notes; text organization;
words and structures
2. 3rd and 4th period: Text A study：
Review key language points; exercises after text A; essay writing;
3. 5th and 6th period: Text B study:
cultural notes; words and structures
Answer questions after finishing reading Text A::
1. What are the characteristics of the Information Age?
2. Why is telecommunications a key factor separating the winners from the losers? 3. Discuss what impact the telecommunications revolution may have on our life?
Key structures in Text A:
1. Many experts think Vietnam is going too far by requiring that all mobile phones be expensive
digital models, when it is desperate for any phones, period. (Para.3)
The word “period” can be used at the end of a statement to show that you believe you have said all there is to say on a subject and you are not going to discuss it any more. For example: There will be no more shouting, period! 别再喊叫了，到此为止！
We are all against the proposal, period. 我们都反对这个建议，我说完了。
2. Wireless demand and usage have also exploded across the entire width and breadth of Latin
America. (Para.8)
The phrase “the width and breadth of” means “the entire extent of something”. Another phrase that is just as common is “the length and breadth of”.
The heroes traveled the length and breadth of the land, righting wrongs and helping people in need.
英雄闯遍天下，铲除不平，求助危难。
I have told you the length and breadth of what happened. 我也告诉你发生的一切。
3. That’s partly because Latin American customers talk two to four times as long on the phone as
people in North America. (Para.8)
Note the structure “two to four times as long as” in the sentence. We can use this structure to indicate the size or extent of something by comparing it to something else. For example: Water is eight hundred times as dense as air. 水的密度是空气的800倍。