UNIT 1
LESSON 2
NUCLEAR POWER AND RADIATION
NARRATIVE: Adult TOEFL students.
High intermediate and advanced proficiency level
Ss are from various countries.
RATIONALE: building on the previous lesson in the four sections of the exam.
GOAL: building academic vocabulary strategies, practicing listening for
organization , building awareness of independent speaking and writing scoring
criteria.
OBJECTIVES:
1. Ss. will co construct reading vocabulary skill with the teacher.
2. Ss will learn test-taking strategies for the reading skill.
3. Ss will learn how to recognize vocabulary question on the exam ( PP
presentation).
4. Ss. will practice the strategy using a content-based passages.
5. Ss will learn how to recognize listening for ‘ Understanding Organization’
question on the exam.
6. Ss. will practice listening for organization.
7. Ss. will recognize the criteria on which independent speaking skill are scored.
8. Ss will practice the independent speaking skill using the rubric
9. Ss. will recognize the criteria on which independent speaking skill are scored.
MATERIALS:
1. Power point presentation on building strategies for the
vocabulary reading skill.
2. Reading :
Nuclear Radiation Cambridge p. 495
Radiation in Japan
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-04-12/japan-atomic-crisis-reacheschernobyl-level-as-radiation-climbs.html
Radiation from Japan's quake
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12740843
3. Listening: 3 Mile Island
Longman p. 452
Japan crisis raised to Chernobyl level
http://www.npr.org/2011/04/12/135351247/japan-nuclear-crisis-raised-tochernobyl-level
Fears about Radiation bigger than actual risk.
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&
id=135266031&m=135266013
4. Flashcards with speaking questions
5. Rubrics of the speaking and writing independent skill ETSp.
242 243.
6. sample responses for the 4 scores ETS CD 30,31,32,33 and
raters comments ETS p. 233, 234, 235..
7. Sample essay of the 5 scores of the independent writing skill.
ETS p. 263- 266.
8. Sample essays for students to score. ETS. P. 287- 292
1. PROCEDURES 15 min
1. Teacher collects the needs assessment questionnaire.
2. T corrects with the students the previous H.W. and answers questions
2. Presentation
Reading 60 min
1.. T. co construct reading strategies with the students using various examples
on a power point presentation.
2. T. co constructs test-taking strategies for the reading skill with the students.
3. T. models the strategy to the students through the examples on the power
point
4. T. gives out “Nuclear radiation” passage and asks students to work individually
to guess the meaning of the underlined words.
5. T asks Ss to check their answers with a partner and discuss how they arrived
at the answer.
6. T. corrects the passage with the students.
7. T. gives out “ radiation from Japan’s quake”. T. times students as they guess
the meaning of the underlined words.
8. T. does a whole class correction.
Listening: 45 min
Understanding Organization question
1. T. expains how the question looks like on the exam.
a. How does the professor organize the information aboyt X ?
b. How is the discussion organized?
2. T. plays ‘ 3 Mile Island’ and discuss the main topic briefly with the students .
2. T. discusses what type of passage ‘ 3 Mile Island is ( academic- formal informal – conversation).
3. T. plays passage again and discusses how the information is organized.
4. T. does the same with the other tow listening passages giving more room for
students discussion and using more elicitation.
Speaking: 45 min
1. T. gives out the rubric of the independent speaking skill to the students and
discusses it carefully.
2. T. hands out the raters comment on the 4 scores and plays the sample
responses respectively.
3. T. discusses with the students each response and the raters comments for
each.
Practice
Questions :
1. what are the effects of nuclear radiation on human beings?
2. What are the effects of nuclear radiation on water resources?
3. What are the effects of nuclear radiation on plants?
4. What are some of the natural resources of energy?
T. put students in groups and give each a card with a question.
Ss take 2 minutes to discuss each question
Ss. use the rubric and try to score each other.
Ss exchange cards and proceed as above.
Writing : 60 min
1. T. gives out the rubric of the independent writing essay and discusses it
carefully.
2. T. gives out the 4 samples of the scores and discusses them with the students.
3. T. gives out 4 unscored samples of writing essays and asks students to work
in small groups to score them.
EXTENSION
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-04-12/japan-atomic-crisis-reacheschernobyl-level-as-radiation-climbs.html
April 13 (Bloomberg) -- Japan raised the severity rating of its nuclear crisis to the
highest, matching the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, after increasing radiation
prompted the government to widen the evacuation zone and aftershocks rocked
the country.
Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency yesterday raised the rating to
7. The accident at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant previously was rated a 5 on the
global scale, the same as the 1979 partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in
Pennsylvania.The stricken plant, about 220 kilometers (135 miles) north of Tokyo,
is leaking radiation in Japan’s worst civilian nuclear disaster after a magnitude-9
quake and tsunami on March 11. The station, which has withstood hundreds of
aftershocks, may spew more contamination than Chernobyl before the crisis is
contained, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said. Fukushima has so far
released about 10 percent as much radiation as Chernobyl, Japan’s nuclear
safety agency said in a statement. The leaks won’t be stopped in “a few days or
weeks,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.
U.S. stocks fell after Japan’s announcement, giving the Standard & Poor’s
500 Index the longest losing streak since November. The benchmark for
American stocks has fallen for four consecutive days, retreating 0.7 percent to
1,315.37 at 9:32 a.m. in New York.‘Will Do Our Best’ “We are trying to resolve
the situation as soon as possible and will do our best to cool down the reactors
and prevent the spread of radioactive substances,” Masataka Shimizu, president
of the utility, said in a statement after the rating was raised. He also apologized
for the accident.The company’s shares fell 10 percent to close at 450 yen Tokyo
yesterday. The stock has slumped 79 percent since the crisis began.Prime
Minister Naoto Kan said he has asked Tepco, as the utility is called, to give an
assessment of when the company expects to resolve the crisis. “An outlook will
be presented soon,” he said at news conference in Tokyo.
Edano said April 11 that residents of some towns beyond the 20-kilometer
evacuation zone around the plant will have a month to move to safer areas.“In
contrast with Chernobyl, we have been able to avoid direct health risks,” Edano
said at a public event in Tokyo. “The assessment level of 7 may be the same, but
in terms of its shape and contents, the process has been different.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12740843 Analysis
Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News
Radiation from Japan's quake-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has
reached harmful levels, the government says. The warning comes after the plant
was rocked by a third blast, which appears to have damaged one of the reactors'
containment systems for the first time. If it is breached, there are fears of more
serious radioactive leaks. Officials have extended the danger zone, warning
residents within 30km (18 miles) to evacuate or stay indoors.
It appears that for the first time, the containment system around one of the
Fukushima Daiichi reactors has been breached. Officials have referred to a
possible crack in the suppression chamber of reactor 2 - a large doughnutshaped structure below the reactor housing. That would allow steam, containing
radioactive substances, to escape continuously. This is the most likely source of
the high radioactivity readings seen near the site. Another possible source is the
fire in reactor 4 building - believed to have started when a pool storing old fuel
rods dried up.
The readings at the site rose beyond safe limits - 400 millisieverts per
hour (mSv/hr), when the average person's exposure is 3mSv in a year. A
key question is whether this is just a transient spike, which might be
expected if number 2 is the source, or whether the high levels are
sustained. In the meantime, the key task for workers at the plant remains
to get enough water into the reactors - and, now, into the spent fuel pools with the poor resources at their disposal.
The government later said that radiation levels at the plant's main gate had
fallen sharply. The crisis has been prompted by last Friday's 9.0-magnitude
quake and tsunami in north-eastern Japan. On Tuesday morning, reactor 2
became the third to explode in four days at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.A fire
also briefly broke out at reactor 4, and is believed to have caused radioactive
leaks. Reactor 4 had been shut down before the quake for maintenance, but its
spent nuclear fuel rods are still stored on the site.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said they were closely watching the
remaining two reactors at the plant, 5 and 6, as they had begun overheating
slightly. He said cooling seawater was being pumped into reactors 1 and 3 which were returning to normal - and into reactor 2, which remained unstable.
There was a hydrogen blast in reactor 3 on Monday, following another in reactor
1 on Saturday. Radiation levels in the Japanese capital - 250km (155 miles)
away - were reported to be higher than normal, but officials said there were no
health dangers.