Article · August 014 citations reads 12,470 author

LangLit 
An International Peer-Reviewed Open Access Journal
 
 
Vol. 1 Issue - 1
 
 
79
 
 
 
Aug, 2014 
The seven ........ vertebrae are at the top of the 
vertebral ......... . The twelve ........ vertebrae are at 
the back of the ribcage. Between them and the 
sacrum there are five ........ vertebrae. The five 
.......... vertebrae are fused together to form the 
sacrum. 
Fig. 2. Segments of the vertebral column 
Matching definitions with the names of various medical terms is quite a popular 
exercise, e.g., 
ultrasonograph, ophthalmoscope, radiometer, rectoscope
ophthalmoscope – a lighted instrument for examining the inside of the eye. 
Multiple choice exercises with given several possibilities are very common types of 
exercises, e.g., 
At the casualty department my brother had his injury ........
a) cured 
b) treated 
c) operated 
d) healed 
As a follow-up activity, the students’ task could be either to explain their choice and why the 
other choices are incorrect or to use them in sentences invented by them. 
A similar type of exercise may take the form of choosing the “odd one out” in which 
the students must eliminate the word which is in some way different from the others, e.g., 
cataract 
eyelid
nearsightedness 
strabismus 
glaucoma
Eyelid is the odd one in this group of words since it is a part of the eye, whereas the others 
are all disorders of the eye. 
The “Mind – map” technique (Harmer, 1991) helps the students to put words into 
different groups, e.g., by choosing words from a given list to complete each sentence, as 
shown below.
- anxious blurry stiff double throbbing unclear 
His sight is _____, _____, _____ (blurry, unclear, double) 
- swollen alert sprained stabbing dislocated dilated 
Her wrist is _____, _____, _____ (swollen, sprained, dislocated) 
 
Matching words with their antonyms (words having opposite meanings) is a useful 
exercise to learn or revise vocabularies on the basis of their associations, e.g., 
 
 
 
 
 
 
kill 
The opposite of improve is ........
deteriorate 
 
 
 
 
 
 
rough 
One of the words from each pair of opposites should then be chosen to complete sentences, 
e.g., 

---