Materials: Guidelines

This worksheet aims (fairly simply) to introduce the correct collocations for describing pain or disorder in a variety of body parts.

Following the instructions on the worksheet; present, elicit or get students to look up the words in the first box. Once they are fully conversant with all the words (and can quickly point to their gums or elbow when asked), move on to the "pain" bit. You may want to mime a few and see what kinds of sentences you can elicit from the class.

Then draw attention to the four sentence patterns in the second grid. Instruct the class to work in groups and decide together which sentence patterns apply to all of the body parts they looked at before. When they've had sufficient time, stop them and check their answers. A possible set of answers follows but if you don't agree stick with your own ideas.

• I've got (a) sore: Finger / thumb / gums / head / eye / throat / area of skin
• I've got a __ache: Stomach / ear / head / back / tooth / hand
• I've got a pain in my: Leg / stomach / hand / back / chest
• I've got (a) bad : leg / gums / shoulder / breath / breath / digestion

In the second part, students should use these expressions to interview other class members using the question patterns listed at the bottom of the page. Insist strongly that they make further "follow-on" questions to keep the conversation going. To help them with this, you may want to write a list of useful wh-question words on the white-board / black-board where everybody can see.

You have a choice of two different methods of getting this handout to your printer. It all depends on whether your computer has "Adobe Acrobat Reader" installed. If it has, then this would be the recommended method for printing out the worksheet. Try selecting the "PDF (Adobe Acrobat)" link below. If all goes well, a new application window should appear including a print button, which when selected will print out one copy.

If, on the other hand you do not have "Adobe Acrobat" select the "HTML (web page)" link below. (Also, this method is recommended for users of Netscape Navigator, which seems to have trouble interacting with the Acrobat program like this.) If all goes well, a new browser window will open, from which you can either click the "print button" on the toolbar or open the "File" menu, select "Print" and then adjust the "Print Dialog Box" to your own preferences.

The final link below is to enable you to print this "instruction page" if you want to. Click on the link, and when the page appears on a new screen you will be able to print it using the browser's "print button" or "file menu". After printing, close the window again so that you can continue to navigate around the site.

For teacher training courses, English courses in Bristol UK and free interactive exercises, visit The Language Project Website.