Talking About Your Health and Your Family's Health (Novice-Intermediate)

Practice on Your Own

• Practice the words for health, sick, and for hurting or being in pain. Listen to audio examples and practice repeating after the speakers. Read the materials available to you.
• Name as many parts of your body as you can. If possible come up with a song for them.
• Review other words that you might need, such as pronouns (singular and plural, formal and informal).
• Imagine you have a toothache. You are on your way to class and you meet your classmate. After greetings, your classmate asks about your health/how you are feeling, and you respond that you are in pain. You explain that your tooth is hurting you.
• Imagine you are in class. After greetings, the teacher asks you about how your parents are doing. You respond that your mother is fine, but your father’s stomach is hurting him. The teacher replies with a polite expression, and you thank the teacher.
• Practice these conversations to prepare for your conversation session.

Practice in Conversation Session

• Warm‐up practice talking about health. Be prepared for a warm‐up activity in which you respond to questions from your conversation partner or fellow students about your health and your family’s health in similar ways to how you have been practicing on your own.
• Be prepared to role play different situations with your conversation partner and fellow students.
  • In the first situation, you and your partner are classmates on your way to class. After greetings, your classmate asks you about your health. Respond in a culturally appropriate way and indicate that you have a toothache. In your interaction, let your partner express their sympathy, and then you thank them. Switch roles and repeat this situation using a different part of the body.
  • In the second situation, let your partner be the teacher and you the student. It is afternoon. After culturally appropriate greetings, the teacher asks about the health of your parents. In your conversation, you respond in a way that is culturally appropriate and say that a parent's stomach is hurting them. The teacher responds using a polite expression that is used in the language you are learning.
• Repeat both role plays to help you remember how to inquire about a person’s health, to say sick and to say you are hurting or you are in pain. This will also help with remembering body parts and polite expressions.