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Teaching English by the BBC: Doctors &; Patients
Details
Activity Description
This site has ideas for activities—there is no computer component for students. Students role-play interactions between a patient and a doctor.
Preparation
- Review symptoms and giving advice.
- Print activity sheets and treatment cards (found below under "More Ways") if you decide to use them.
How-To
- Divide your class in half, half are doctors, half are patients.
- Put the patients in an area of the class which becomes the waiting room. The patients should either come up with their own symptoms, or you can give them a few ideas.
- Every patient should visit every doctor and get advice from that doctor. Be careful to set a time limit for each consultation with the doctors.
- Once the patients have visited each doctor— they may want to make notes of the advice given— they return to the waiting area and decide which doctor's advice they are going to follow and why.
- Meanwhile, the doctors all get together and compare the advice they gave.
Teacher Tips
- This activity can be used for both vocabulary and structures—you can use it for reported speech 'he said ... he told me…', you can use it for practicing modals like 'should' or 'must', or for practicing verb patterns such as 'he said I should ....' or 'he told me to ...' etc.
More Ways
- If students need a jump start on this activity, go to Bogglesworld [www] to get a Doctor's Activity Sheet [.doc] and Treatment Cards [.doc] as well as Patient Activity Sheet [.doc] and Ailment Cards [.doc].
Program Areas
- ESL: English as a Second Language
Levels
- Beginning High
- Intermediate Low
- Intermediate High
- Advanced
Tags
listening, speaking, BBC, doctor, doctor's appointment, doctor's office, health, medical advice, modals, patient, reported speech, role play, sick, symptoms, Teaching English by the BBC, advice