Understanding over-the-counter medications

Learn about over-the-counter medications

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by ESL Directions

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Lesson plan overview

Task	To understand names of common over-the-counter medications and the illnesses they treat.
CLB level	CLB Stage I (CLB 1-3)
Delivery method	Online
Class size	10-15 students (vary the number of activities according to your class size)
Estimated time	1.5 to 3 hours (depending on whether you complete all parts of the lesson)
CLB Skills and Competencies	*Speaking:* Interacting with others Sharing information *Listening:* Interacting with others Comprehending information *Reading:* Comprehending information
Language focus	Learn the vocabulary needed to understand this topic. Several activities can be used to highlight the correct usage of indefinite articles. Complete the optional “Part B: Building Sentences” activities below to help your students move from understanding vocabulary to using that vocabulary to create simple sentences. Use the appropriate grammar structures and vocabulary to respond personally to the reflection questions. (Encourage students to respond in full sentences.)
Cultural focus	Students understand the difference between over-the-counter and prescription medications in Canada.
Specific task learning objectives	Students will learn, pronounce, and understand the names of common over-the-counter remedies and the names of common illnesses. Students will be able to match common illnesses with their medications.
ESL Directions original video (🎥) and audio (🔊) activities?	This lesson includes original video (🎥) and audio (🔊) activities.
Resource attribution	ESL Directions original resources are marked below with an asterisk (*). Feel free to use these, but please give credit to ESL Directions.

Part A: Vocabulary acquisition and practice
This is a self-contained, complete lesson plan (about 1.5 hours) focused on vocabulary.

Part B: Building sentences
Part B takes your students further by giving them some tools to build simple sentences (using the vocabulary they learned in Part A).

Use Part B (about 1.5 hours) if you want to focus on:

Sentence production.

Specific lesson-related grammar points. Note: Every lesson also includes similar practice exercises for subjects, verbs, and objects — the basic building blocks of most English sentences.

Part C: Reflection Questions
These topic-related discussion questions work at the end of either part A or B.

Lesson plan

Part A: Vocabulary acquisition and practice

Warm-up: Introducing the topic and defining our terms

Today, we’re going to talk about over-the-counter medications.

What is an over-the-counter medication?
What is a prescription?
What is an illness?
What are some examples of illnesses?
What are some examples of over-the-counter medications you can buy at a pharmacy?
What does to “pick up” a medication mean?
What does “to buy” a medication mean?

Skill-building activities

Skill-using tasks

Vocabulary flashcards: Illness* 🔊 (Practice identifying the illness.)
Vocabulary flashcards: Medications* (Practice identifying the medications.)
Over-the-counter medications* 🎥 (Watch this short video that puts the illnesses and medications together.)

Match the illness with the medication*
Illness or over-the-counter medication?* 🔊
Pair matching* (Put the illness and medication together.)
Matching sentences*

Assessment/review tasks

Part B: Building sentences

Find a list of all of the grammar-based activities on this website.

Introducing the topic

In this part of the lesson, we’re going to work on creating short sentences from the vocabulary we learned in Part A.

To help us, we’ll focus on:

Indefinite articles: “A” or “an”?
Subject, verb, and object word order.

Skill-building and skill-using activities

Indefinite articles: “A” or “an”?

Asking “What does …mean?” questions is a very useful way for ESL students to get more information.

Quick guide: Indefinite articles (“a” or “an”)
Let’s practice*
Using “a” or “an” explainer* (A more detailed explanation that you can teach in class or send home with your students.)

Word order in English sentences

Today, we’ll look at three important parts of English sentences.

What is a subject?
What is a verb?
What is an object?

Let’s practice!

Quick definitions: Subjects, verbs, and objects*
Unjumble the sentences*
Create sentences in subject/verb/object order*
Subject/verb/object explainer* (A more detailed explanation that you can teach in class or send home with your students.)

Assessment/review activities

Lee buys over-the-counter medications*🎥 (Watch a story using the lesson vocabulary and grammar points.)

Over-the-counter medications: Reading passage and comprehension questions* 🔊 (Read the story, and identify the grammar points.)

Part C: Reflection questions

What are three words or phrases that you learned today?
What is an over-the-counter medication?
How are over-the-counter medications different from prescriptions?
What over-the-counter medications do you find helpful?
Do you have any good remedies for illnesses (ones that are not medications)? Examples might include lemon or ginger tea for colds.
Are there any over-the-counter medications you can’t get in Canada?
Do you need to ask the pharmacist for help when you buy over-the-counter medications?
Do you take vitamins? What vitamins do you take?
How else can you keep healthy?

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HEALTH YOUTUBE PLAYLIST

Click on the small right arrow at the top of this video to watch the videos or go to the YouTube Health Playlist.

HEALTH WORDWALL ACTIVITIES

Wordwall is a very useful interactive lesson-creation site. If you sign up for a free Wordwall account, you will be able to see our “Health” folder, which includes ESL Directions activities that you can add to your lessons.