Viruses and Vaccines Vocabulary and Speaking Lessons

The news  around the recent coronavirus  includes a lot of vocabulary commonly used in discussions of epidemics. Viruses and vaccines is a good teaching topic for students studying in the fields of health and the medical sciences. Of course, it is such an important public health topic that it’s good for all students.

1 Expressing opinions about viruses and vaccines

This is a vocabulary and discussion exercise. It worked well in classes.

(download PDF)

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2 Inventing a Vaccine to Save the World

Katalin Kariko and the story of mRNA

This is a reading comprehension exercise about the people who invented a vaccine for the coronavirus.

Inventing a Vaccine to Save the World  (PDF)

 3 Coronavirus vaccine vocabulary and questions

This is similar to the earlier exercises (below) but focuses on the vaccines for the coronavirus.

Coronavirus vaccine  (PDF)

 4 Coronavirus: effects, testing and statistics

This exercise deals with some of the impacts and issues surrounding the coronavirus. It expands into vocabulary for dealing with a pandemic (a public health crisis) and an economic crisis.

Coronavirus: effects, testing and statistics  (PDF)

5 Parts of speech for infectious diseases/coronavirus

This is a bit more challenging and advanced. It gets deeper into the grammar and language used to talk about a pandemic.

Parts of speech for infectious diseases/coronavirus  (PDF)

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6 Coronavirus lesson

I have been teaching  the English language to medical technology students for many years so I have accumulated a lot of medical sciences related  materials. In particular, I have a good library of images relating to medical topics.  I realized that it would be quite easy to create a worksheet for the coronavirus.

Coronavirus 2020  (PDF)

  7 Coronavirus reading comprehension

This is another  exercise that focuses on the language of public health issues and the coronavirus.

Coronavirus reading comprehension  (PDF)

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