e-Literacy
News
A Publication of Florida's Adult and
Family Literacy Resource Center
March 2009
Health Resources Continued...
Describing Symptoms to Your Doctor: ESOL Podcast Eslpod.com features several audio narrated lessons related to health and medicine, specifically designed for ESOL learners. Each podcast page includes a word for word transcript of the dialog, with bolded key vocabulary terms. Teachers may also choose to access the accompanying learning guide for tips on how to design a complete lesson plan incorporating each specific podcast. When accessing the general eslpod homepage, simply search for all available health-related podcasts by selecting Health/Medicine in the drop-down menu in the Search box.
This particular example consists of an audio lesson about communicating symptoms to a doctor, walking the student through a simple dialog and explaining key vocabulary and concepts in a clear and concise manner. Examples of key vocabulary terms featured in this lesson include: stomachache, stuffy nose, stiff, nauseous, bloated, and fatigued.
REEPworld English for Health REEPworld is a project of the Arlington Education & Employment Program (REEP) in Arlington, Virginia. Through the use of graphics and sound, the REEP Health lesson plans enhance the low beginner ESOL learner’s experience by providing clear, enticing web tools to navigate health-related topics such as, for example: body parts, emergencies, healthy lifestyle, medicines, and nutrition. In addition, each section features an option to practice key vocabulary related to each lesson topic. Easy to navigate, students do not need to have advanced computer skills to be able to utilize this resource and can complete each lesson at their own pace.
The Florida Literacy Coalition recently developed the “Staying Healthy: An English Learner’s Guide to Health Care and Healthy Living” student resource guide and accompanying teacher’s guide through the generous support of the Florida Department of Education, Division of Workforce Education. This resource is available for free electronic download, and a limited amount of hard copies may also be ordered through our website at http://www.floridalliteracy.org (free for Florida-based programs and for a nominal fee for out-of-state programs.)
As we strive to gather feedback and ideas on how to further respond to the health literacy curriculum needs of literacy programs in our state, we are learning that there is a great demand for more health literacy-related audio/video resources. While researching and evaluating ways in which the Florida Literacy Coalition could effectively address this need, we have found some interesting examples of how other current health literacy materials have been able to fill this demand by incorporating audio and video components.