Doctor, What's Wrong With Me?

      This is a good activity to review several different thematic and grammatical concepts. I have used this in lower levels as we introduce how to describe physical ailments, but this can be used in higher levels to reintroduce or reinforce it or to work on more advanced descriptions. This is also helpful in Physical Education classes for various reasons. Firstly, it is important to know the vocabulary relating to the parts of the body. Secondly, this gives a chance to expose the students to different verbs and descriptions and also to see how certain ways of describing them can be different from culture to culture. Thirdly, it can be useful to practice storytelling, whether using different verb tenses, showing causality or affirmation or negation structures.

For: The whole classroom

Active students: small groups of 2-3 students (with the others watching or waiting for their turn)

Requires: pieces of paper (Post-It notes work best, anything can work fine), something to write with, *could also use a clock to practice telling time in context

      There are a ton of ways to structure this activity. Like the previous activity, it's helpful for the students to get up and physically act out what they are feeling, also with as much exaggeration as possible. I often like to start with a cue of "Doctor, I'm sick!". One student is designated as the doctor and one is the patient. Then I give the "sick" student a piece of paper with the specific illness or a part of the body. Then the doctor has to ask questions to "diagnose" what the illness is. For example, "fever". The "sick" student makes sick faces, motions to their head or describes that they are hot, they cough or do something of the like. Then the doctor tries to guess "You have a fever" and then move on.

      This could also be done with a specific illness and a set of symptoms, either gone over during the lesson or commonly understood. Also, the sick student could not speak but solely make motions and have the doctor guess all of the symptoms or just try to guess the illness. Another way is for there to be another student to help describe what is happening to the "patient". This could help for repeating asking questions.