Monday, November 3, 2014

Excellent (Free) Health Literacy Materials

For a couple of years now, I've been relying heavily on a resource I stumbled upon during one of my frequent evening Google marathons. This week I had the opportunity to share the URL with two colleagues, and their enthusiastic thanks prompted me to post the link here, as well. 

Are you aware of Queen's Library's Health Literacy Curriculum for ESOL Learners, available in two versions: for beginner and for intermediate level students? Although the site can be a bit daunting to find your way around if you forget to bookmark it, I have found the materials themselves to be so very helpful and appropriate for a settlement English classroom. 

Not only are there complete lesson plans with answer sheets and student worksheets as a separate PDF, but there are also high quality audio recordings for listening practice or assessment. For example, in the unit on filling out a health history form and discussing one's health history with a medical professional, you can play an audio of a number of different patients, each participating in a very brief exchange with a practitioner. The worksheets include a graphic organizer for checking off which disease each patient mentions, which family member has/had it, and so on. This is only one of many topics covered, some of which include audio files and all of which include the lesson plan and worksheets.

I hope you will explore Queen's Library's materials and let me know if they are helpful to you and, if so, how you use them. Happy teaching!

UPDATE: fall of 2019, the website is found to have been reorganized with our beloved resources nowhere to be found. Years ago I downloaded the PDFs and audio files, so I am going to try to make those available as a zipped folder you can download from https://www.kellymorrissey.com/health-and-medical.html.  Please let me know if it works or does not work.

3 comments:

  1. I loved this but it#s been taken down now :(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Anon,
      Yes, I realized that recently. Believe it or not, I anticipated that this would one day happen and took measures. Give me a day or two to search through old flash drives or convince iOS Catalina to recognize my old (now external) hard drive, and I may be able to provide these to folks. I'll also check with Queens. --KM

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    2. Found them! I now have a folder that is 40 MB in size that includes the PDFs and audio files, at least most of them. I also have tried to contact Queens, but so far the CONTACT forms I find are restricted to those with their own .edu email addresses. So contact me if you want a certain PDF or audio or want to figure out a way I can make all 40 MB shareable. --KM

      Delete

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