How do you tell the doctor where it hurts? You need to learn some vocabulary related to your body and keeping it healthy.

Beginning Learners:

Start with parts of the body and then some common diseases or ailments people suffer. Use Look and Listen and Do to learn the names of different parts of the body. Learn the names for some common sicknesses, such as fever, chills, nausea, etc. with different pictures. Learn some useful phases such as “my head hurts”

Possible Vocabulary:

Suggested Activities:

Activity 1: Use Listen and Do to learn names of different parts of the body. Your LH can point to his eyes, ears, nose and mouth and say the word for each part, then say one of the words and you point to your own nose etc. You can build up to more complicated sentences, such as “point to your left foot with your right hand” and so forth.

Activity 2: Next learn some illnesses or injuries that commonly happen to that part of the body. For example: His head hurts. He has a headache. His back hurts. He has a backache. Note: not all languages will have a word for headache or backache. They might just say “His head hurts.” You could act out the ailment and get the LH to name it.

Intermediate Learners:

Ask the LH to talk about the common illnesses or diseases people have and what they do to remedy them. Record and ask about any words you don’t know. Role play a visit to the doctor. Make a game where you have to draw a card that says “Doctor, I have a headache.” You have to say “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning” or whatever the doctor would say.

How do people get from here to there? You need to start by learning the names for the different kinds of public and private transportation, and then move on to the scripts for how to arrange transportation and get what you need to keep your private vehicles moving.

Beginning Learners:

Start by using Look and Listen and Do to learn the words for different types of public and private transportation: and related vocabulary:

Possible vocabulary:

Suggested Learning activities:

Activity 1 &2: Use Look and Listen and Do to learn the names of places and vehicles, then combine them with people and places. For example, the LH could say, “Andres and his grandson are going to the park in a bus” You point to pictures of Andres, his grandson, the bus and the park.

Activity 3: Useful phrases. Learn how to ask a taxi-driver to take you to different places. Sometimes you have to negotiate a price ahead of time. Learn to ask: “How much to take 2 people to the Wararot market?” or to wherever you want to go.

Intermediate Learners:

Learn or review the basic dialogue expected in relation to arranging for different kinds of transportation: with a taxi driver or bus driver; when getting gasoline at a gas station, when buying a plane ticket or boarding a plane. Then use the Dialogue Variations technique to practice differing scripts.

People have things they need to move from here to there. Sometimes they carry them in their hands or on their heads or backs. Sometimes they need animals or vehicles to help. Learn to talk about transporting things.

Beginning Learners:

Learn different words for ways to carry things. Languages differ in the number of different words they use for the way you carry things.

Learn words for other ways to transport things:

Suggested Learning Activities:

 Activity 1: Use Look and Listen and Do to follow your LH’s directions about carrying different things in different ways. Use pictures or toy cars and trucks and trains to follow directions about shipping things in different ways.

Activity 2: Get your LH to tell a simple story about someone who transported different things in different ways. You act out the story as he tells it.

Intermediate Learners:

Activity 1: Ask your LH to describe some of the kinds of things you would typically carry in different ways. Record, and discuss anything you don’t understand. Listen to the recordings afterwards.

Activity 2: Learn a typical dialogue for mailing a parcel at the PO, or for arranging for someone to transport something for you.

Buying and selling things is the way people in most cultures get what they need to live. Learning how to talk about this could turn into several lessons or units. For each thing you buy there are a different set of vocabulary and questions.

Beginning Learners:

You might start by learning how to buy things at the market.

Suggested Activities:

At the Market:

Activity 1: Review money and numbers, using Look and Listen and Do. You could use real money or pretend money. Practice writing down large numbers as your LH says them, so you get used to processing numbers quickly.

Activity 2: Review things you buy in the market. Use real items or pictures, and combine them with weights and measures and quantities, such as 1 kilo of rice, 2 bunches of bananas, a dozen (or kilo) of eggs, etc.

Activity 3: Learn Useful Phrases to use at the market, such as “How much does 1K.of X cost?” or “I’ll have _______________ please.”

In a Grocery store or shop

Activity 4: Learn vocabulary for things sold there: Milk, canned goods, juices, coffee, tea, sweets, or whatever.

In a Clothing Store:

Activity 5: Learn words for sizes, colors, sale, cotton, silk, names of specific things you want to buy. See also LL9 on clothing.

Intermediate Learners:

Activity 1: Get someone to talk about if and when items are on sale or cheaper. When are some fruits in season, for example. Or are there special occasions when things are more plentiful or when you can buy special items. Record these descriptions and add them to your Listening Library.

Activity 2: Role Play buying things in different kinds of shops.

Everyone needs to eat! But when and where and what? All these things differ with different cultures. Learn how to talk about meals and how to prepare them.

Beginning Learners:

Learn vocabulary associated with cooking and eating foods at home

Possible Vocabulary:

• Breakfast
• Breakfast foods
• Lunch
• Dinner
• Snacks
• Names of various dishes commonly eaten at each meal
• Names of kitchen appliances: fire, stove, oven, refrigerator, sink, counter, etc.
• Names of cooking implements: pots, pans, spoon, spatula, ladle
• Different ways to prepare things: wash, slice, chop, stir
• Different ways to cook things: boil, bake, fry, steam etc.
• Verbs: cook, serve

Suggested Activities:

Activity 1: Use Look and Listen and Do techniques to learn all these words. Your LH can say things like “Slice the onion.” You act out slicing with a real onion or a picture of one. Your LH could give you instructions one by one on how to make a simple dish.

Activity 2: After you’ve done Activity 1 and are quite familiar with the vocabulary, ask your LH to tell how you to make that dish in a simple paragraph. You might not be able to understand it all until you are a bit more advanced, but since you will have learned a lot of the words, it helps you to understand the connectors, such as “and then,” “next,” etc.)

Intermediate Learners:

Activity 1: This is the stage at which you can really use the Series technique to learn how to make various common dishes served in people’s homes. Take pictures of each step, as you make the dish with a friend. Then get a LH to describe each picture. Record and listen. Ask the LH to describe the whole process in single recording.

Activity 2: Make a PowerPoint® slideshow from the pictures of the different steps in your Series. Link the associated recordings with each slide. Now watch the whole slideshow and listen.

Most people enjoy eating out at least occasionally. In fact, in some countries a lot of people don’t even own a stove at home and always eat out! Learn how to talk about food and order it.

Beginning Learners:

What kinds of restaurants are there? What kinds of food are served?

Possible Vocabulary:

Learn the names of different sorts of restaurants

Learn the names for various restaurant dishes. Start with the most common ones.

Suggested Activities:

Activity 1: Order different things when you go out and take a picture when the food comes! Or look on the internet for pictures of typical dishes. Use Look and Listen and Do to learn to recognize, then say the names of these dishes.

Activity 2: Use Useful Phrases to learn to order a dish: “I’ll have the spaghetti carbonara please.” “I’d like, or I’ll have….” “Could I have the bill please?”

Activity 3: Try to talk about foods you like and dislike: “I like spaghetti carbonara. I don’t like ravioli.” Or whatever you actually like.

Intermediate Learners:

Activity 1: Use Dialogue Variations to learn the Scripts for different restaurants or different times of day and role play them with a LH.

Activity 2: Also Role Play the script for inviting people to eat at your home or what to do when you are invited to dinner at someone else’s home.

People plant gardens to grow food for their families and flowers for the beauty. Learn how to talk about both kinds of gardens and gardening

Beginning Learners:

Use Look and Listen and Do to learn appropriate vocabulary.

Possible vocabulary:

Suggested activities:

Activity 1: Use Look and Listen and Do to learn basic vocabulary.

Activity 2: Act out the different steps in gardening when your LH describes them. Now reverse the process – your LH acts the steps out and you try to say what he or she is doing.

Activity 3: Learn to say what flowers and plants you like best.

Intermediate Learners:

Activity 1: Ask your LH to describe what people grow in gardens, what they are used for. Record short descriptions.

Activity 2: Practice talking about what you like to grow in your garden and what sorts of plants grow at different times of the year.

What sorts of manual labor do people do? Farming, building, cleaning houses? What other kinds of jobs do people have? Learn to talk about work.

Beginning Learners:

What tools do people use? Also learn the name for that job; for example: builder, farmer, teacher, maid.

Possible vocabulary:

Suggested Activities:

Activity 1: Use Look and Listen and Do to learn the names for tools and what people do with them.

Activity 2: The LH could point to a hammer and ask: who uses a hammer? You have to say “a carpenter”

Intermediate Learners:

Activity 1: Record a couple of short texts, where your LH describes different sorts of manual laborers, what they do and the tools they typically use, how they dress, etc. You can try to talk about some of the workers you know.

Activity 2: Look in some children’s school books to see what they have to say about different professions and jobs.

As you do your cultural exploration learn to talk about the activities you see. Take pictures, if appropriate.

Beginning Learners:

It is hard to suggest specific vocabulary for this lesson, because the vocabulary will depend on what is going on in your neighborhood – where you live, whether it is in a city or in the country. Remember that beginning learners are mostly learning vocabulary and how to use it in simple sentences. You need nouns, verbs, descriptive words. These are the building blocks for being able to understand people and talk to them about the activities you see.

Suggested Activities:

Use Look and Listen and Do to learn the names for the activities being done, plus the name of the person or worker doing them, if relevant. For example: building a house. A person who builds a house is a builder. Or you can just learn to say what you saw: “A woman was weaving,” “A man was fixing a bicycle” and so forth. First learn to recognize the pictures of the activities, and then add speaking when you are ready.

Intermediate Learners

Activity 1: Shared Experience. Ask your LH to walk around the neighborhood with you and to tell you what he or she sees people doing. When you get home, ask him/her to tell you again and record what your LH remembers about the activities you saw. Ask about any words you don’t’ know, then listen to the recordings on your own.

Activity 2: The next day try to recount to your LH what you saw together in the neighborhood. Don’t try to memorize exactly what the LH said, but just use some of the vocabulary you have learned to talk about things in your own way.

People are social beings. They like to get together and do things. Learn to participate in as many social activities as possible and to talk about them.

Beginning Learners:

Learn the names for different community social events that take place regularly, such as a dance, community picnic, open-air market (if one day a week, it is an event, as well as a place), weddings, funeral, women’s group, fair, art or craft fair, rodeo. Learn the names for things people are doing at these events.

Suggested Activities:

Activity 1: Use pictures or drawings and the Listen and Do technique to learn more words

Activity 2: Learn Useful Phrases and Conversational Exchanges to use at the different Social Events.

Intermediate Learners:

Activity 1: Ask a LH to describe a community event, and record the account of what you did together. This is a Shared Experience, if you attended it together. That makes it easier for you to understand. If you don’t have an opportunity to attend with your LH, you can still ask him or her to describe what typically happens at such an event. Ask questions about any words you don’t know. Your goal at Intermediate Stage is to be able to understand connected speech – that is not just sentences, but paragraphs – about something that happened or which often happens. You will have lots of questions about why things happen, but you may not be able to understand the answers at this stage – but it is the next stage in your language learning journey.

Advanced Learners:

At this stage you can ask people to answer the questions you have about these events – how they feel about them, what they do for the community or for families. You can do Ethnographic Interviews about these topics. Or just get people to talk about them and ask a few questions about things you are most interested in. At this stage you can ask some of the questions in the cultural guide directly, but most often you need to read between the lines.