Página 11 - Teacher’s book - ENGLISH FOR HEALTH-CARE PROVIDERS

Teacher’s book
4.VOCABULARY
Vocabulary building is a vital part of language learning. Consequently, this book contains a
vocabulary section in each chapter, in which words considered to be relevant for the top-
ics discussed in the unit are included. These sections intend to familiarise students with
terms used in English for health-care providers. Some of the words in the sections will have
already been found in the previous grammar and reading sections while some others may
be useful for subsequent listening, speaking and writing exercises.
Words within the charts are not unrelated, as they are listed under sub-headings in order to
help students develop a kind of semantic map in which words are related to one another.
In addition, items are often listed together taking into account collocations, i.e. sequences
of words or terms that co-occur more often than would be expected by chance. Semantic
connections are also sometimes provided (e.g.).
The vocabulary lists in each unit may look excessively comprehensive to some teachers
or incomplete to others. Whatever the teacher’s view, the idea the authors have in mind
is that these lists are not in the units to be fully memorised by students, but rather, they
should be considered as a repository of relevant health-care-related vocabulary that may
come in handy for reading, writing, listening and speaking tasks. It is up to each teacher (or
student) to decide which words should be remembered or are more important than oth-
ers. Learners need to have both active and passive vocabulary knowledge, that is, English
words learners will be expected to use when expressing themselves in original sentences,
and those they will merely have to recognise when heard from others or read.
When it comes to teaching in the vocabulary sections of units, the authors’ recommenda-
tion is that vocabulary lists not be treated for simple repetition and memorisation, as words
may then be forgotten quickly by students. Instead, new words have to be introduced in
such a way as to capture the students’ attention and place the words in their memories.
Teachers can use different strategies to for this. For example, before presenting the vo-
cabulary in the unit, teachers may brainstorm –and display items on a board/screen– vo-
cabulary around an existing word in the students’ vocabulary or a word related to the issue
at hand. In addition, teachers could use Wikipedia or Google to display definitions and pic-
tures of objects, places, etc., represented by vocabulary items. Finally, they could point out
similarities and differences between words in the students’ source and target languages,
particularly in the case of technical terms, which may have similar structural properties in
both languages due to a common etymological origin.
Regarding students’ understanding of the vocabulary, this book uses basic common meth-
ods to check it. These include:
1. Picture-word matching exercises
These exercises use the visual method of linking images to a word, offering also the ad-
vantage of visual recall.