Emergency Phone Calls (Novice-Intermediate)

Practice on Your Own

• Practice pronouncing numbers, including saying your phone number and your address. Also practice phone etiquette in the language you are learning. Listen to telephone conversations and practice repeating after the speakers so that you can articulate yourself well. Read the material available to you on the topic.
• Practice more with saying phone numbers and the addresses of your friends in the language you are learning.
• Review words for fire, accident, sick, ambulance, hospital, fire station and police station.
• Imagine you are studying abroad in a country where the language is spoken and an emergency occurs. It could be a house fire, an accident or sickness. Practice (either with a friend or on your own) the types of conversations you will have in these varying situations.
• Practice all these different scenarios before the conversation session.

Practice in Conversation Session

• Warm‐up phone number and address practice. Be prepared to say your phone number and address as you have been practicing on your own. With your conversation partner and fellow students, practice asking each other for your phone numbers and addresses.
• Practice emergency phone conversations. Having done the warm‐up, you will now have conversations based on the different scenes. You will role play each scene.
  • There is a fire in your house. Your partner will pretend to work at the fire station. You call the fire station, and your role play partner answers the phone. After a brief greeting, you tell them that there is fire at your house. Your partner asks you whether you are outside or inside the house, alone or with other people, your address, the exact location of the fire in the house and your phone number. You are told that help is coming soon. You in turn thank the person. Then switch roles and repeat the conversation.
  • You are sick. You wake up in the morning and you have difficulty breathing. Your partner will pretend to work at the hospital. You call the hospital, and your role play partner answers the phone. After a brief hello, they ask what is wrong. You say you woke up and you are having difficulty breathing. The person at the hospital asks you for your phone number and your address. You are asked if you feel pain and where. You respond that you have a headache. You are asked if you are alone or have other people in the house, and you say you are alone. The person at the hospital tells you not to worry; an ambulance is on the way to take you to the hospital quickly. Then switch roles and repeat the conversation.