WELCOME to EVERYDAY LIVING IN THE USA! Come, listen and learn with us!
Scheduling a Medical Appointment *** ESL / ESP Advanced Beginner or Low Intermediate Activity
Click on each of the words below for a link to Encarta Dictionary and the definition. To navigate back to this blog from the vocabulary site, click on the return arrow key of your server. Click on the above link to listen first to the vocabulary list below, and then to the podcast episode. Enjoy!
schedule an appointment
a checkup
medical
dental
health insurance
co-pay (copayment)
Pre-listening Activity 1. Test your vocabulary practice activity...Choose the correct definition for each word. (The answers are at the end of the activity.)
clinic
1. a medical center 2. an institution where children and teenagers are taught
dental
1. relating or belonging to the teeth 2. a building where goods are manufactured
schedule an appointment
1. a published work of literature 2. arrange to meet somebody
checkup
1. feeling or showing pleasure 2. to carry out detailed examination
medical
1. treatment given by doctors 2. used in education or by teachers
health insurance
1. financial protection for customers 2. medical expenses covered by employer
[ 1 1 2 2 1 2 ]
Now listen to the podcast by clicking on "Schedule a Medical Appointment" above.
Post-Listening Activity 2. Follow-up activity for comprehension…After you’ve listened to this episode, take a look at the following comments. You will notice that the order of the following sentences are jumbled. Please put them back in order, according to the sequence of events in the episode you heard. The answer key is at the end of this activity, but try not to look until you’ve attempted to put the sentences in the correct order!
Hint: You might want to review the meaning of your new vocabulary words.
A. The clinic appointment scheduler tells Mr. Kuma that they have a Japanese doctor on staff.
B. The clinic appointment scheduler asks Mr. Kuma to wait while she connects him to the medical department where he can schedule his appointment.
C. The clinic receptionist asks Mr. Kuma to state the purpose of his call.
D. The clinic appointment scheduler would like to know if Mr. Kuma has health insurance coverage.
E. The clinic scheduler tells Mr. Kuma when there is an opening in their calendar to schedule a checkup visit.
F. The clinic scheduler reminds Mr. Kuma to bring his UIC ID and his co-pay to his physical checkup.
[ C B E D F A ]
Post-Listening Activity 3. Group discussion questions. Spend a couple minutes brainstorming with your group and be ready to share your results.
1. There are many kinds of clinics, depending on their purpose. Name the kinds and purpose of a visit there.
Remember that some clinics are located inside hospitals. (Ex. Dental: when you have to get your teeth cleaned, or have a toothe ache.)
2. Imagine that you need to make a phone call to a hospital. What information will you prepare before you call? (Ex. your name, address, phone number, etc.)
3. Think about the hospitals in your own country. How are they different from those in the United States or other countries? Introduce the hospital system and admitting procedures in your own country to your group members, and discover the differences among other countries' systems.
Thank you for joining us and come back again soon!
Note to instructors. This episode is the first in a series for ESP medical/dental visits, which take place in both the doctor’s or dentist’s office as well as in the hospital. This first episode prepares the ESL/ESP student for questions that might be asked when scheduling their medical appointments. It will also allow the student to experience the turn taking and politeness features used in English that they can expect from the scheduler, and that they will be expected to use in return.
Instructors may find this dialogue at Literacy Net Only minor back stepping has been added, and a few details such as dates have been changed. The exercises are original and are in keeping with the typical communicative pre-listening, listening and post-listening process. The students will recognize this progression towards ACQUISITION of USEFUL VOCABULARY and FOCUS on FUNCTIONAL LANGUAGE. For example, the follow-up comprehension exercise does not simply translate the statements from the dialogue. The statements are made such that the student will have to identify the function, not merely recognize the dialogue features. All of the stated vocabulary words are repeated in the jumbled statements, so that they first view the list, hear the audible list, may look up the meaning via the link provided to Encarta Dictionary, are given a chance to repeat the words, can catch the words in the actual hearing of the episode phase, then view the words embedded in the comprehension exercise based on our understanding that repetition aids in SLA.
ORAL post-listening activity. Follow-up questions in class might include: How does this experience compare with medical appointment scheduling in your country? What other types of information might you need to give or ask? After students complete the listening portion activity individually or in pairs, they can form groups and role play a similar scene for one another. This time they can go directly to an office to make the appointment. Perhaps one of the students might role-play taking his NNS grandmother to the office to navigate the scheduling of the appointment on her behalf? They could be asked to do the same for a dental visit, brainstorming as a whole group what additional words might be used for the dental office.
WRITING follow-up. To continue the follow-up above, the newly created dialogue can be written by the pairs or individually. An alternative writing assignment might be to write a journal entry about this event such as: Today I scheduled my first doctor appointment in the USA. … I was really nervous at first, but since I knew the questions that would be asked in advance, I managed quite well. OR, I bombed. I was so embarrassed. Oh well, better luck next time I have to schedule an appointment.
For a more personal or creative assignment, students may also write a narrative about a humorous or frightening medical mishap in their past. Instructors might ask them to describe a medical visit gone sour, or a humorous visit, some incident that has some connection to a medical visit. They can combine their new vocabulary and the functional use of the questions and answers, turn-taking and politeness features, combined with a review and practice of the past tenses in this assignment. Soon they'll be ready to play act Molière's 'Le Malade imaginaire' with flair! Here's to life in the USA. Thanks for stopping by.
