Learners cope with routine tasks and exchanges. They can talk about the past and the future, compare things, and describe their background and immediate environment in short connected sentences.
Printable one-to-one lesson plan
Health & the body
Describe a symptom, body location, onset, duration, and severity; answer common health questions; report instructions; and request urgent help in clear U.S. English.
No additional related lesson is registered.
Use after the complete A2 sequence, not as a lesson quiz.
Open diagnostic →15–20 minutes optional: Tutor-read symptom, location, onset, duration, allergy, and urgent-help listening check · Five-minute next-day symptom duration, body agreement, and onset-question retrieval
Derived from this lesson’s source
Lesson-specific teaching brief
This is not a second lesson registry. The plan reads the same native content that produces the learner page.
What the learner should do
Describe a symptom, body location, onset, duration, and severity; answer common health questions; report instructions; and request urgent help in clear U.S. English.
What must become clear
Can-do: By the end, you can describe common symptoms and body locations; say when a problem started and how long it has continued; report severity; answer common health questions; distinguish general advice from reported instructions; and use direct language to request urgent help.
High-value friction points
- I have a headache.Use have plus the countable symptom noun: I have a headache.
- My feet hurt after the long walk.The irregular plural subject feet takes hurt; a singular foot takes hurts.
- I have had this cough since Monday.Present perfect have had connects the continuing symptom to now; since introduces the starting point.
Protect these lesson moments
- Three checks from earlier lessons
- Discovery check: identify the information job
- Drill 1: choose the symptom pattern
- Drill 2: make the body location precise
- Drill 3: choose the question the answer supports
Learner production
Prepare the fictional case: Choose a name, one symptom noun, one feeling adjective, one body location, a starting time, a duration, and a severity from zero to ten. Add fictional allergy and current-medicine information, including none when appropriate.
- Final production: give a 45–60 second fictional clinic intake. Report the main problem, precise location, onset, duration to now, severity, and relevant allergy or current-medicine information. Do not diagnose the cause or invent a treatment.
- Clarify and reformulate: The listener asks three intake questions and intentionally repeats one detail incorrectly. Correct the time, side, number, or medicine with clear contrastive stress.
- Report an instruction: Draw a fictional clinician or label card. Report only the instruction printed on that card, then ask a clarification question such as Did you say once or twice a day?
Carry this language into the next session
Retrieve Health & the body in one true sentence at the next lesson.
Use while teaching
Operational teaching notes
Choose a route before class, but change it when the learner’s production gives you better evidence.
Ask before explaining
- Which examples in “Three checks from earlier lessons” express the same core meaning?
- How would you explain this decision in your own words: Can-do: By the end, you can describe common symptoms and body locations; say when a problem started and how long it has continued; report severity; answer common health questions; distinguish general advice from reported instructions; and use direct language to request urgent help.
- What needs to change in this repair, and why: I have a headache.
Correct for the stage
- Controlled work: correct immediately, then require the complete repaired sentence.
- Fluency building: note repeated errors and reformulate after the learner finishes the thought.
- Communication: interrupt only when meaning breaks down or the target decision is the lesson’s main evidence.
Retrieve, do not reteach
Retrieve Health & the body in one true sentence at the next lesson.
Short, core, or extended
Choose the route
All three routes end in learner production. More time means more contrast and transfer, not a longer explanation.
Short route
Retrieve for 3 minutes. Notice and discover for 8. Use the two most diagnostic tasks from Three checks from earlier lessons and Discovery check: identify the information job for 12. Protect 9 minutes for Learner production, then reflect for 3.
Core route
Follow the six-stage sequence below. Reduce repeated controlled items when accuracy is already stable, but keep the nearest useful contrast and final production.
Stretch route
Add Tutor-read symptom, location, onset, duration, allergy, and urgent-help listening check · Five-minute next-day symptom duration, body agreement, and onset-question retrieval, then repeat the communication task with a new situation or stricter success criteria.
50–60 minutes core working plan
Session sequence
Protect the final communication and reflection time. If the learner needs more support, reduce the number of controlled items instead of removing production.
- 5 min
Retrieve
Activate what the learner already controls and check any prerequisite language.
Teacher move: Open with the first practice route: Three checks from earlier lessons · Discovery check: identify the information job · Drill 1: choose the symptom pattern.
- 6–8 min
Notice
Let the learner observe meaning and form in a small sample before naming the rule.
Teacher move: Keep the noticing conversation anchored to this decision: Can-do: By the end, you can describe common symptoms and body locations; say when a problem started and how long it has continued; report severity; answer common health questions; distinguish general advice from reported instructions; and use direct language to request urgent help.
- 8–10 min
Discover
Connect form, meaning, use, word order, and the nearest useful contrast.
Teacher move: Test the learner’s explanation against this repair: I have a headache. Use have plus the countable symptom noun: I have a headache.
- 12–15 min
Build + drill
Move from accurate choices to faster retrieval and sentence construction.
Teacher move: Prioritize these lesson tasks: Three checks from earlier lessons · Discovery check: identify the information job · Drill 1: choose the symptom pattern · Drill 2: make the body location precise. Reduce repetitions if needed, but keep the final production time.
- 12–15 min
Communicate
Use the target language for a real adult purpose the learner cannot complete by copying.
Teacher move: Learner production: Prepare the fictional case: Choose a name, one symptom noun, one feeling adjective, one body location, a starting time, a duration, and a severity from zero to ten. Add fictional allergy and current-medicine information, including none when appropriate.
- 3–5 min
Reflect
Make progress visible and choose one specific next use.
Teacher move: Retrieve Health & the body in one true sentence at the next lesson.
Tutor-only source
Listening scripts
Read these lines from the tutor plan while the learner lesson remains on screen. Each clip names the learner item it supports.
Tutor-read symptom, location, onset, duration, allergy, and urgent-help listening check
- Clip 1
Read: I have a bad cough, but I do not have a fever. Evidence target: countable symptom.
Supports: What is the caller’s main symptom?
- Clip 2
Read: I have pain in the lower left side of my back. Evidence target: precise body location.
Supports: Where is the pain?
- Clip 3
Read: It started on Monday morning, not Sunday morning. Evidence target: finished onset and contrastive stress.
Supports: When did the symptom start?
- Clip 4
Read: I’ve had it for three days. Evidence target: continuing duration and weak for .
Supports: How long has the symptom continued?
- Clip 5
Read: I’m allergic to penicillin, and I take an allergy tablet every morning. Evidence target: allergy distinguished from current medicine.
Supports: Which medicine allergy does the caller report?
- Clip 6
Read: He is having trouble breathing. Call 911 now and ask for an ambulance. Evidence target: direct U.S. urgent-help request, not diagnosis.
Supports: What urgent action does the final U.S. message request?
Keep only useful evidence
After-lesson notes
These notes are for deliberate tutor records or printing. Nothing is stored in the learner’s browser.
The learner can now…
Write one observable use of the target language.
Still needs support with…
Record one repeated error, contrast, or point of hesitation.
Next retrieval prompt
Write one short prompt the learner will answer at the next session.
Anonymous live-lesson evidence
Learner pilot worksheet
A2 · Health & the body
Pilot 1 of 30 recorded · 3 remaining
Date
Approximate starting level
Core lesson time
Starting evidence
What did the learner already control? What was the first misconception, hesitation, or contrast that mattered?
Did the principle become clear?
Can-do: By the end, you can describe common symptoms and body locations; say when a problem started and how long it has continued; report severity; answer common health questions; distinguish general advice from reported instructions; and use direct language to request urgent help.
Did the first hint help?
Record the first item that caused difficulty and whether the contextual hint led to self-correction before the full repair appeared.
Could the learner do the outcome?
Describe a symptom, body location, onset, duration, and severity; answer common health questions; report instructions; and request urgent help in clear U.S. English.
Listen for: The learner uses the target language independently for a real purpose.
What remained available?
If possible, check before rereading in the next session. Record what returned independently and what still required a cue.
Keep, revise, or investigate?
Note any explanation the tutor still had to supply, the smallest useful revision, and whether another pilot should test the same issue.