Job Discussion Forums

[reblair79]

Another question that has came up was "What problems might your students have in understanding these lexical items: a headache, a sore throat, a cough and a temperature'.

The answer I am thinking of is along the lines of they are a group of words that could be related to others. A haedache is quite a general term we use and a temperature might not make sense to others who would call it a fever.

The next question was asking what problems they might have pronouncing them which I discussed 'ough' and 'ch' sounding different with different words.

Any pointers on how to answer this as I am not very confident with my asnwer. Especially the first one? I would like to stress, I am not trying to cheat, I am just looking for some direction. Kind regards.

[santi84]

In some languages, illnesses tend to follow simple formulas (translation: pain in the head, pain in the neck, pain in the throat), whereas English doesn't necessarily follow that same pattern. Why a sore throat, and not a throat ache? Why a sore throat and not a sore head? Creating category boxes, labeling bodies, even something simple like Simon Says can be useful, depending on your audience.

For pronunciation, most students will struggle with diphthongs. When it comes to the hard /ch/ sound (as opposed to the blend), it can help students to remind them of the Greek/Latin origins of science and medical terms (this skill can carry over to other vocabulary). You'll also want to focus on word stress.

*I haven't done the CELTA course, so I apologize if I'm off the mark, but I've taught plenty of health/medical lessons.

[reblair79]

That makes sense. That is very helpful of you thank you.

[spiral78]

santi is right on, as usual.

reblair, it might be useful to us to know in what country you are taking the CELTA - native speakers of Spanish, for example, will have more issues with the vowels/vowel pairs than many others.

On the 'headache' thing, I recall a master's student in health sciences who was defending her thesis on migraines. She consistently pronounced head-ache with a soft ch as in church. It was painful indeed....

[reblair79]

I am from Scotland and CELTA is also here Spiral. I plan to go to Vietnam to teach when I get the qualification.

I done a bit of voluntary experience last year as an assistant teaching English with the local council, and the Thai learners prounounced 'cough' as 'cock' wich was obviously something we needed to try fix! What is the name for this problem?

[scot47]

......................like my medical student who usewd the expression "the fingers on the patiemnt's feet" because of L1 interference and his failure to learn the lexical item"toes" !

[santi84]

[fluffytwo]

The problem may be one of 'language interference'. Learner English by Swan & Smith is a standard reference and pretty useful for such stuff, and each language's chapter is short enough that you could even quickly browse through the relevant pages in a bookstore. Your training centre will hopefully have a copy to refer to.

While we're on the subject of phonology and sound-spelling correspondences, you might want to bookmark the following resource for future reference:
http://www.openbookpublishers.com/reader/325#page/1/mode/2up
(< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfOc8xdfu3Q )

Although you can't say a *throatache, and a sore throat or My throat is sore may be or seem preferable to My throat is really aching, I'd be wary of insisting on anything too cast-iron collocationally or grammar wise. For example, bears can have sore heads (as indeed can humans, I'm sure).

Potentially useful terms (apologies if you know these already): compound noun (as in a headache), and attributive (as in the 'sore' in the noun phrase a sore throat) versus predicative positions for adjectives (the latter as in My throat feels really sore today). Pretty good grammar glossary here: http://folk.uio.no/hhasselg/terms.html

Lastly, the extended or figurative meanings may be more interesting and useful than the literal: This illness vocabulary is becoming a real headache, PITA etc.

"Bonus": Apparently there is a greater tendency to uncountability (i.e. using no indefinite article) with the nouns backache, earache, toothache and stomach ache in BrE, and to countability for them in AmE. Sources: the Health feature (pp696-697) in the OALDE6, and Algeo's British or American English? pp56-61.

[reblair79]

Thanks very much for the reply folks. I will bookmark those references. very informative indeed.

That's my application sent away so hopefully I will get invited for the interview and accepted on to the course.

Regards,

Ray