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Medical students: 2nd year

To euthanize or not to euthanize

Expressing ones views and arguing

Warm up: speaking (10mins)

1. Comment on these pictures:

Where are these people?

How do the patients look like? Describe them.

Can you guess what they suffer from? How serious is their illness?

As a doctor, how would you consider patients who are terminally ill?

You may use these hints:

These patients need help/ They are a burden/ They are hopeless cases/ Its absurd to keep them

alive/ Their life is torture/ They should be assisted to die/ They should be relieved from pain

altogether

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Reading comprehension (22mins)

Each of the 3 groups has one text.

1. Read the text individually and guess its main idea. (5mins)

2. Compare your answers in your groups and choose the most appropriate one.(2mins)

3. Briefly describe the symptoms of the disease mentioned in the text. (orally) (6mins)

4. Each group tells the other groups what the text is about. (6mins)

5. Whats the purpose of the writer? Is his purpose to tell a story about someone?(2mins)

6. Deduce what the writer thinks about euthanasia?(1min)

Vocabulary (18mins)

Guessingfromthecontext

1. Individually, guess the meaning of the underlined expressions in the text from the

context. (8mins)

2. Compare and discuss your answers in your groups and try to come up with appropriate

explanations.(10min)

Grammar (20mins)

Discourse markers and their function

1. In the table below, place the expressions in bold from the text under their correct

function.(5mins)

Add information Contrast Cause/effect

3. Summarize the text in a few sentences and give your opinion. Use discourse markers to

link your ideas (orally).(10 mins)

Listening (15mins)

John Peyton, a Washington state man who is expected to die in a few months expresses what he

thinks of euthanasia in the following interview.

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1. Listen and tell:

a) whether John is for or against euthanasia.

b) whether the interviewer is for or against euthanasia. (3mins)

2. Listen again and describe how John sounds. Is John depressed/hesitating /daring/ brave/

rude/angered/worried/in pain?

3. Watch the interview to check your answers and focus on how John describes his actual

life. (3mins)

4. Do you believe that medical support is the only thing that terminally ill people need?

Speaking: (35mins)

1. Interrupting, suggesting, accepting and rejecting ideas

To express your views in a conversation, you may use some of the expressions below.

Classify these expressions into the correct column of the table. Add others you or someone

else in the group knows.

Yes, but on the other hand

Could I just say

Im afraid I disagree with that idea

What about the fact that?

I agree with you to some extent, but

No, I disagree

I dont think that

Well, you may have a point, but

Hang on

My view is that

I think

That may be so, but

Well yes, however

I believe

Suggesting an idea Rejecting an idea

Interrupting to make

a relevant point

Accepting an idea,

but putting your view

forward

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2. Class discussion

You are doctors having a conference about whether to legalize euthanasia in Tunisia. What do

you think of euthanasia? Should it be legalized? Should the doctor help the patient suicide if

s/he wishes to? Defend your views using arguments inspired from the texts and the interview.

Try to use as many of the expressions as possible. To encourage you to use them, do this as

a game. In this, we will count how many times each person uses one of the expressions.

Whoever uses the largest number is the winner.

Learning tip

This table will be very useful to you in the future! Keep it as a reference!!

Discourse markers and their function

Addition Contrast Summarize/conclude Cause/effect Give examples

and

on the other hand

in addition

not onlybut also

additionally

moreover

but

though

whereas

however

on the contrary

to summarize

in summary

in conclusion

to conclude

therefore

thus

for example

such as

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