discussion

Health and medicine are major topics in our social and media discussions. How well your students understand the news articles and conversations happening around them determines the extent to which they can make informed decisions about their well-being.

Of course most beginner-intermediate ESL students have learned about the body, and how to talk about simple ailments, but Selling Wellness, from Trends, Book 2, challenges students to take their skills in reading, listening, and discussion around health and medicine to the next level. Starting off with a short paragraph on prescription drug sales in the United States, Selling Wellness engages solid intermediate-level students with reading and discussion exercises that center on health and exercise, taking medicine, pharmaceutical advertising, and the growing epidemic of pharmaceutical drug abuse and unintentional deaths by overdose.

Selling Wellness also includes a simple review of body part vocabulary, commonly-used idioms dealing with illness, and a survey exercise that can be used either in-class, or as a homework project.

The way I run this lesson…

I start off with writing the questions from the Discussion Questions section on the board. Students stand and discuss the questions in pairs, changing partners every five or ten minutes.

Next, I tell students to take out a notebook and prepare to write the questions from the Comprehension Questions section. I then dictate the questions, which the students write in their notebooks.

After this, the students turn to a new page in their notebooks. I then read the report twice, and the students take notes. Then, students pair up and work out the answers to the Comprehension Questions.

Finally, I hand out the two pages of Selling Wellness to the students, and the students work to check the answers to their questions, and practice reading the paragraph for themselves out loud.

From here I have the students drill each other using the Selling Wellness Drill section. With this, students change pairs, with one student turning his or her paper over, and the other student asking the questions. The partner listens closely to each question and gives a full answer. For example, if the question is, “Are Americans taking less medicine?”, the student should answer, “No, Americans are not taking less medicine. They are taking more medicine.” This is a great listening-and-response drill, and it further reviews the information given in the reading.

Next I have the students work out the Identification: Body Parts section, and then move on to the Discussion Exercise 1 section. For this discussion section, I give the students five or ten minutes to write out their ideas on their own, and then I put them in small groups for discussion.

Finally, depending on the amount of time left in class, I either set the students off to survey each other using the Survey Exercise section, or I assign the Survey Exercise as homework, giving them parameters on how many people they must ask, etc.

Another option for teaching this lesson would be to make it even more student-centered by having the students themselves run the class! See my blog entry titled, The Oasis of The Seas.

Please share your ideas…

Or maybe you have your own ideas on how to run this lesson. Please share! I would love to learn about any other ways you get your students talking and learning about health and fitness.

Michael Kinney
Kinney Brothers Publishing

Valentine is the 2nd reading from **Stories For Young Readers, Book 1**. Download this file and try it in class!

Introducing Valentine

I remember the first time I introduced my students to a story from Stories for Young Readers, Book 1. It was a private class of 6 fourth graders that I had been teaching once a week for about three years. I had followed the Phonics & Spelling series from ABC & Phonics, Book 1, and they were now starting Phonics & Spelling, Book 4. I decided to introduce the story, Valentine, from Stories for Young Readers, to see how they would respond.

I handed out the first page, which includes a picture of Valentine and her sister, and the passage about them. Before I said anything, I just let the students look at the page. For a few moments they talked amongst themselves about the picture, smiling and wondering what it was all about. And then naturally, knowing that the words above would tell them about the image below, they moved to the passage and started reading!

It was slow for them, yes, but they were doing it, saying with confidence the words they knew (which were most of them), and working out those that were new. I simply walked around helping as necessary.

I asked for volunteers and six hands shot into the air!

After they had worked on the passage for a while, I told them to follow the words on the page as I read it. I read it twice, the second time a little faster than the first. I then asked for volunteers to read, and six hands shot into the air! They all took turns reading the passage, and I could see that they were all so proud of themselves!

I then handed out the second page, with the questions and puzzle. Each student got a chance to read one of the questions, and everyone would work out the answer together, and then write it on the line provided. Once this was finished the students dived into the puzzle, racing to see who could finish it first, and yet helping each other as they went.

From that introduction I knew I had the perfect supportive material for what the students were learning in the Phonics & Spelling series. Every story sparked interest, and engaged the students with exercises that were useful and fun!

Mike