Classroom Activities Florence Nightingale

Amazing Medical People (Level 2)
English Readers
Classroom Activities
, the activity type is reusable
Before reading
1 Guess Print out and display the Picture of Florence Nightingale.
Ask the students Who might this be? Invite guesses, then ask
further questions:
• How old is she in the picture?
• Do you think she is alive or dead?
• Did she have a job?
• Was she married?
• Was she a good person?
Once students have made guesses, explain that this is
Florence Nightingale. Ask students whether they know
anything about her. Discuss their ideas, then give a brief
outline of Nightingale’s reputation, if no one has produced
anything concrete.
2 Writing Ask students to imagine they are journalists. In the light of
the information from activity 1, what questions would they
like to ask Florence Nightingale about her life and work?
Then ask them to write six questions using the following
question words:
What ... ?
When ... ?
Where ... ?
What ... ?
While reading
3 Comprehension
Ask students to work in pairs. Tell them that when
Nightingale died, she was famous as a nurse and as a
teacher of nursing. Ask students to read and listen to the
story together, paying attention to the difficulties which
Nightingale faced in achieving her goals. Ask students to
make a list of all the problems she faced as they read.
When they have finished, ask students to work with another
pair to compare their lists.
4 Writing
Ask students to re-read in detail from the beginning of the
story to the end of the first paragraph on page 23, and to
read the timeline. Then ask students to imagine that they are
Nightingale, ill in bed with Crimea Fever, after her return
to Britain. Ask them to write a short letter to a close friend
describing what has led to her illness. Ask them to share
their letters by reading them aloud to each other in pairs.
5 Language
Ask students to choose ten underlined words from the story
which they think will be useful to learn.
TIP
Where you see this symbol
with any story in this book.
Florence Nightingale
It might be worthwhile discussing with students what
makes a word ‘useful’ – potential for reuse in lots of
circumstances should be the main criterion. So the
names of now-rare diseases, like typhus, will probably
not in most cases be seen as useful.
After reading
6 Language Ask students to look at their list of underlined words from
activity 5, and check their meanings in the glossary.
Ask different students around the class to explain why one of
their chosen words is a useful one.
Then ask students to write the words into new sentences to
check they have understood the meaning correctly. Encourage
them to use www.collinsdictionary.com/cobuild, or a
classroom dictionary, to check definitions where necessary.The
website also offers sample sentences.
7 Speaking Ask students to work in pairs. Now that they are very familiar
with the story, tell them to go back to the questions they
wrote in activity 2. Student A is Nightingale and Student B is a
journalist. Student B asks Student A about her life and Student
A answers. Encourage them to adapt their questions if they
like, depending on what their partner says.
The students can then swap roles.
8 Video
Ask students to watch the video of Nightingale. Before they
do, tell them that the words are the same as in the book, so
they should concentrate on the pictures.
After watching the video, divide the class into groups to discuss
what they saw. Did it make them more interested in learning
about Nightingale and her work? Or was it all too long ago to
be relevant to their lives? What images that the video does not
include would they have liked to see?
9 Research Ask students to use the websites listed in the ‘Further
Research’ document to answer this question:
Why do we remember Florence Nightingale?
© HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2014. This page is photocopiable.
1
Amazing Medical People (Level 2)
English Readers
Answer Key (Classroom Activities)
1 Guess
Answers will vary. Students might guess that:
• The clothes and hairstyle indicate that
the person lived a long time ago, and is
therefore probably dead
• The demure features suggest a good person
and a middle-aged one
2 Writing
Answers will vary.
3 Comprehension
Answers will vary. Some possible answers are:
• family opposition to nursing as a role for
their child
• distaste for the idea of women from rich
families working
• people objecting to her persistent
unwillingness to be married
• her own poor health
Florence Nightingale
5 Language
Answers will vary.
6 Language
Answers will vary.
7 Speaking
Answers will vary.
8 Video
Answers will vary.
9 Research
Answers will vary.
4 Writing
Answers will vary. Students could:
outline Nightingales work at the Scutari
hospital, and suggest that the easy transmission
of infection under the conditions found there
accounted for her illness
© HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2014. This page is photocopiable.
2
© HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2014. This page is photocopiable.