Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Formative Unit
April 2013
Introduction
Analysis
Appendix A:
Text used for
Socratic
Seminar
An Interrupted Lesson
Last year, I took a course Ecological
environment of China at the Chinese University of
Hong Kong. I expected that all my classmates would
be local students. After I entered the lecture theatre,
I saw a few exchange students chatting with each
other in the first rows of the seats until Professor Lo
began to talk.
I remember the topic of the lecture was the
impact of the Three Gorges Dam. I really felt that the
topic was boring because it was rather factual and
theoretical to me. The impact of the project was
obvious and not difficult to understand. Thus, I
thought I would fall asleep throughout the lessons.
However, my expectation seemed to be wrong due to
the exchange students.
The lesson started smoothly and all students
were silent. No one made a sound. After Professor Ho
lectured for half an hour, an exchange student called
Natalie suddenly raised her hand. As Professor Lo
was concentrating on his lesson, he was not aware of
her, or maybe he did not expect any questions from
students. However, local students sitting behind
those exchange students saw her clearly. Their first
reaction was to open their eyes widely. We felt a bit
surprised because there were rarely any students
asking questions during lessons. After a while,
Professor Lo saw Natalie and she spoke. She said, Id
like to ask where exactly the Three Gorges Dam is?
And how seriously does it affect the soil? Professor Lo
smiled and nodded his head, and then he answered
Natalies queries. After she got her answers, she
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