Dramatizing a dialogue and compiling situations to lexical theme/20 min.

3. Control of competence components formation: compiling short essays to lexical theme/10min.

 

Methods of teaching:

Training of lexical material with the help of role plays method (Dramatizing dialogue “Tachycardia”), problem-searching method (compiling situations to lexical theme). Control of competence components formation is performed with the help of Illustrative method (Describing picture to the theme: “The structure of human heart”), and brain-storm method (compiling short essays to lexical theme)

Means of teaching, textbook:

Maslova A.M. Essential English for medical students. – Moscow, 2002, pp. 310-311, 145-149; special medical dictionary; additional materials: texts “Shortness of breath”, “Heart rhythm”, “Heart failure”, dialogue to lexical theme, pictures.

 

I. Work on additional texts to the theme: “The heart and the Vascular System”/20 min.

 

Audition, reading

1. Read and translate the following texts:

The heart and circulation

A. Shortness of breath

Shortness of breath, or breathlessness, is dyspnoea. At first is by exertion – physical activity such as climbing stairs- but in severe cases it may be present even at rest. A patient who is breathless when lying flat (orthopnoea), for example in bed, will tend to sleep raised up on two or more pillows. The abbreviation SOBOE stands for shortness of breath in exercise (or on exertion, or on effort).

Patients say:

 

Doctors can ask:

B. Heart rhythm

The normal resting heart is 65-75 beats per minute. In athletes it may be as low as 40 beats per minute. In extreme athletc activity, the heart rate can go high as 200/min. the heart rhythm may be regular ot irregular. In an irregular rhythm (arrhythmia), there may be early beats which interrupt the regular rhythm (premature beats); or the rhythm may vary with respiration; or it may be completely irregular, as in fibrillation. When patients are aware of irregularity, they describe the symptoms palpitations.

 

Case 4

A 22-year-old student was admitted to hospital with a long history ofheart problems. She had ben increasingly tired, with shortness of breath on exertion, orthopnoea, and palpitations. A mitral valve replacement had been carried out 3 years previously and this had stabilized the symptoms of heart failure but was followed by episodes (attacks) of atrial fibrillation, which had been particularly severe for the 6 months before admission.

 

C Heart failure

Heart failure occurs when the heart is unable to maintain sufficient cardiac output – the amount of blood pumped by the heart each minute – for the body’s needs. It may involve the left side of the heart, the right side, or both. In left heart failure the main symptom is breathlessness. The symptoms of right heart failure include peripheral oedema (swelling), beginning in the feet and ankles. This is known as pitting oedema if, when a finger is pushed into the swelling, it causes a small depression or pit.

 

Audition, reading, speaking