Unit 4 American Dream

1. Unit 4American Dream

2. Before Reading • Warm-up question? • What is the American dream in your opinion? • In what ways can a person be considered as being successful? • What is the key to success?

3. Listening for back ground information • American Dream • Immigrants

4. Tony Trivisonno’s American Dream • The American Dream means different things to different people. • But for many, particular immigrants, it means the opportunity to make a better life for themselves. • For them the dream is that talent and hard work can take you from log cabin to White House. • Tony Trivisonno did not rise quite so high, yet he managed to make his own dream come true.

5. Questions • What is Tony’s American Dream? • How did Tony make his American dream come true? • What can we learn from Tony’s experience?

6. Global Reading • The structure of the text • The text is organized in order of time • Find the time and events

7. Time Events How Tony fulfilled his American dream The time they first met Worked as a help Summer passed into fall Got a job cleaning snow Months passed, one day Learned to become a skilled worker A year or two passed Bought a house with the author’s help After about two years Bought a farm and sent for his family During the war died

8. Part Division • Part One: Paras (1-29) • How Tony achieved his dream. • Part Two: Paras (30-33) • The author’s reflections on the story. (Tony’s career set the author thinking about why and to what extent he had been successful.)

9. Questions for Understanding • What is the key to Tony’s success? • Tony worked hard to create his American dream. • Tony get the help from Mr. Crawford. • He was determined, self-controlled, optimistic, self-respected, honest, responsible.

10. Detailed Reading • For Part One • Description of a person’s appearance • line 3 • line 59-60 • line 71 • From these descriptions what can we infer?

11. The characteristic of Tony’s speech. • a. There are many mistakes • b. He never use interrogative sentence even when he ask for a job or one’s help. E.g. “I mow your lawn.” • What does the author want to tell us?

12. Is Tony a good worker? How can we know it? • a. line 25-26 • b. line 32-33 • c. line 39-40 • d. line 80-82

13. How many times is the sentence “I mow your lawn” repeated? Why is it repeated? • This sentence is repeated four times throughout the text. • It shows Tony’s persistence and determination in finding a job and his optimistic view that people would help a man who needed a job.

14. To mow To weed To sweep To clean up To take care of To lift To fix The garden The yard The lawn Any little tasks Heavy objects The walks Things Pairing: What does a gardener do?

15. Language points in Part One • 1. “I couldn’t afford a gardener.” (para.3) • Can/be able to afford sth (to do sth) • E.g. I couldn’t afford a car (to buy a car) • 2. turn away (para.4): refuse to help or allow sb to enter a place • E.g. He turned all the applicants away.

16. Turn down Turn in Turn into Turn off Turn out Turn over 拒绝,调低 交还,上交 使变成 关闭,停止 生产,制造;证明,结果 仔细考虑 Relevant Phrases

17. 3. compliment sb on sth (para.8): to praise sb for sth. • compliments 祝愿；致意 • Extend my compliments to your parents. • 代我向你父母问好

18. Work out (para.10): • Have you worked out the answer/the sum yet? (to find by reasoning or calculating, to solve) • I wonder how their ideas worked out in practice? (to have a result) • A carefully worked-out plan (to decide or develop)

19. “What do you do with such determination? (para.12) (Paraphrase and Translate) • Do with : deal with • It is hard to refuse a person who is determined and hopeful to get a job. • 对这种执着与企盼,你又能怎样呢? • Relevant phrase: do without

20. Capacity (para.15) • 辨析Capacity,ability,capability,proficiency • Capacity用于物时，指容纳接受的能力，如容积，容量，生产能力；用于人时指潜在的能力，多用于才智，道德，尤指接受能力，领悟性，敏感力． • Ability既指天赋的能力，也指培养造就而获得的本领；只要用于人，指人表现出来的实际能力，尤指人的思维能力．

21. Capability较多用于人，指胜任某项工作的能力，本领。Capability较多用于人，指胜任某项工作的能力，本领。 • Proficiency正式用语，带有技术性，指对业务的精通熟练。

22. Capacity,ability,capability,proficiency • Fill in the blanks with the words given above. • 1. Her mental _______ is very great. • 2. The film is beyond the ______ of the children. • 3. _________ in several foreign languages is needed for work as a traveler’s guide. • 4. He has the ________ of solving the practical problems. ability capacity proficiency capability

23. Skilled & Skillful (para.16) • 这两个词表示“有技术，熟练的”时候可以互换． • Skilled通常是指受过正规训练，有多年实践经验，而掌握某项专门技术。 • Skillful指人聪明，做事很灵巧，尤指手的灵巧。 • He is a skilled/skillful surgeon. • Rose’s father is a skilled mechanic, so he has become skillful at repairing bicycles too.

24. My wife and I were delighted with what we felt was a satisfying end of the story. (para.16) (paraphrase and translate) • My wife and I were delighted with what Tony had achieved and thought the whole thing had thus been settled. • 我和太太都挺高兴,觉得他的事总算有了个领人满意的结局.

25. For sale (para.18): available to be bought • E.g. Not for sale. 非卖品 • On sale : be sold at reduced price.减价,贱卖 • A sale on credit 赊购

26. Loan: to lend • Relevant Phrases: • A mortgage loan抵押贷款 • A loan on security担保贷款 • A loan for consumption消费贷款 • A long-term loan长期贷款 • A gift (interest-free) loan无息贷款 • A domestic (foreign) loan内债／外债

27. 辨析：Character, characteristic, feature, personality (para.19) • Character指成年人已经充分发展的生活方式，而且往往与品格有关。 • Characteristic指某物的任何方面，不涉及全局的重要性，但常指有代表性的一个侧面，常用语科技领域． • Feature通常指外貌的特征，或特别的，附加的有吸引力的东西。　 • Personality偏重指一个人表现出来的无法明确阐述的整个情绪方面的特点，不与形容词连用时表示情感上的吸引力．

28. Character, characteristic, feature, personality • Fill in the blanks with the words given above. • 1. An aquiline nose was her best _________. • 2. He can read a guy’s _______ at the first glance. • 3. He has the character but no ________. • 4. A psychological report lists every possible ____________ of the person being studied. feature character personality characteristic

29. Send for:ask for the arrival of • E.g. I was seriously ill and my father had to send for a doctor. • Hunt: search thoroughly (for) • e.g. The police are hunting for the escaped criminal in the mountain.

30. “He grew in statue in my mind. “(Para. 30) (Paraphrase) • He grew taller and greater in my mind. His social status improved enough in my mind.

31. Describe the change of Tony’s social status in Mr. Crawford’s mind • He was “about five-foot-seven or eight, and thin”. And his English was broken. • He remained standing when he talked to Mr. Crawford. • He seemed to “stand a little straighter” and he had “a look of confidence”. • He and Mr. Crawford sat down and talked. • After he passed away, Mr. Crawford thought “he stood as the greatest American industrialists. ”

32. “Tony did not begin on the bottom rung of the ladder. He began in the basement.” (Para. 32) • What does ladder refer to? What does basement refer to? • Ladder refers to the way to success. Basement refers to Tony’s standing point. • What can we infer from the sentence? • He was worse than ordinary people and he had nothing to help him seek his American dream. He built up from nothing.

33. “the balance sheets were exactly the same. The only difference was where you put the decimal point.” (Para. 32) • What does the sentence mean? • What Tony and the great industrialists achieved was exactly the same. The difference was that they had different financial success.

34. Translation After graduating from college, Tony decided to start his own business. At the beginning, many a bank turned down his request for a loan. But he was not a bit discouraged, and continued to call on one banker after another seeking help. Impressed by his determination and optimism, one banker finally agreed to loan him the money. Now he has become a wealthy businessman. Talking about his amazing achievement, Tony puts great emphasis on the importance of creating, rather than waiting for opportunities.

35. “the balance sheets were exactly the same. The only difference was where you put the decimal point.” (Para. 32) • What does the sentence mean? • What Tony and the great industrialists achieved was exactly the same. The difference was that they had different financial success.

36. THANK YOU