5月31日上午，外语系大学英语读写课程组全体教师在二教2102教室开展了集体备课和教学研讨活动，活动由课程组长丁菲菲老师主持，刘美辰老师担任主讲。
这次备课主要是围绕本课程组教师编写的阅读教材《原生态英语》第十二单元“The Ungrateful President”一文的课程教学展开。刘美辰老师先就本文的重点和难点做梳理和解释，然后丁菲菲老师带领大家做进一步的思考、剖析和补充。大家集思广益、充分发挥集体智慧、以求准确把握原文原意，运用比较好的教学方法和课堂设计有效组织教学，提高课堂教学质量，助力学生语言运用能力的提升。
2019年是科大“一流本科教育质量提升年，”大学英语读写课程组组织教师集体备课，对明确教学任务和教学目标，分享教学经验，共享教学资源，加强教师间的互动和交流，推动大学英语读写课教学质量的提高起到积极的作用。
□ 中文稿件由邹红云老师提供；英文稿件由刘美辰老师提供
From the days of George Washington and that story about his cutting down a cherry tree as a boy, the doings of U.S. presidents have never ceased to appeal to the public. The situation has only intensified in recent years, and now with a president who is a former reality television star, the stories of the current occupier of the Oval Office are so overwhelming that perhaps it is time to take a rest and pay some attention to his predecessor.
This was the case during the meeting of the reading and writing team of the Department of Foreign Languages on May 31, when faculty members under the guidance of Miss Ding Feifei discussed a 2012 article by columnist Maureen Dowd of the New York Times. The article is titled “The Ungrateful President,” which is anthologized in Original English Reading, a department-complied textbook assigned to USTC undergraduates.
In “The Ungrateful President”, Dowd argues that Obama (who at the time of the article was running against Republican Mitt Romney for a second term) is different from many other presidents in that he doesn’t really show typical gratitude when people give him valuable things or do him valuable favors. The irony is that American presidents are highly dependent on huge donations to run their campaigns, and also require a large amount of good-will from a vast network of supporters. This lack of enthusiasm for overt displays of gratitude is a personality quirk that sets Obama apart from most other presidents, Dowd argues.
As one may assume, “The Ungrateful President” is a distinctly American article because of its subject matter, and also because Dowd uses humor in the form of wry comments to drive home her points. The difficulties of the article are not so much that the ideas themselves are vague or that the vocabulary is complex, but mostly because of the quirky humor that Dowd uses and the article’s numerous cultural and political allusions. Therefore, members of the teaching team decided to share insights into the article in order to be better prepared to explain its complexities and nuances to their students.
Many teachers often say that meetings such as this one have a salutary effect on them because they pick up new understanding and appreciation of the readings that allow them to do a better job of teaching their students. Humorous material often requires a lot of explanation when it is translated into another language, and the same is true if it is to be understood by those from another culture.
At the close of the meeting, Miss Di encouraged members of the reading and writing team to hold faculty meetings regularly to share insights into teaching materials, and new developments in pedagogy, and to discuss unique experiences that may lead to a better learning experience for the students of our university.