Do you know what to do if someone gets a bad cut? Have you ever given first aid to someone else? In this free English listening lesson from Oxford Online English, you can hear a conversation about injuries and first aid. You can learn and practise new words and phrases to talk about injuries and first aid in English. This is a lesson for intermediate learners.
Listen to the dialogue at normal speed here:
or listen to a slower version here:
Woman: You’re bleeding! What did you do to yourself?
Man: I just slipped and fell against the door. I think the door handle must have cut me.
Woman: It looks pretty nasty. Do you think you should go to A&E ?
Man: No, I don’t think so. I’ll just clean it up, put a dressing on it, and it’ll be fine.
Woman: Alright, let’s see… Take this towel and make sure you keep pressure on it.
Man: OK. Do you have any disinfectant?
Woman: Yeah, somewhere. I’ll look for it in a minute. Are you sure you don’t want to go to hospital? It’s quite a big cut. I think it might need stitches.
Man: Well, let’s stop the bleeding and get it clean, and then we can have a proper look.
Woman: Something like that won’t heal well if you don’t get stitches. You’ll have a bad scar.
Man: Yeah, but you know what it’s like in A&E. We’ll have to wait for hours.
Woman: At least we need to check that it’s clean and there’s no dirt or anything inside it. If it gets infected, you’ll have a serious problem.
Man: Hmm, I suppose you’re right. OK, let’s put a dressing on it, then we can go.
Injuries and First Aid – exercise 1
Comprehension: understanding details
You know the general context of the conversation, because it’s explained in the introduction. Can you identify the details?
Listen to the full dialogue and answer five true or false questions.
Injuries and First Aid – exercise 2
Vocabulary: modal verbs
The speakers use a number of modal verbs. There are nine modal verbs in English, and they all have more than one meaning.
Complete five sentences from the dialogue with the modal verb used by the speakers.
Injuries and First Aid – exercise 3
Vocabulary: treating injuries
A lot of vocabulary related to first aid is used in the dialogue. If you don’t know the words, you can use other information in the conversation to work out what they mean.
Listen to clips from the conversation and choose the correct definition for five of the words you hear.
Injuries and First Aid – exercise 4
Pronunciation: missing sounds
When we put words together into sentences, many sounds are not pronounced as they would be if you said the words one at a time in isolation. Dropping sounds is not ‘lazy’ or ‘incorrect’ – it’s very common and all native English speakers do it!
Listen to five excerpts from the dialogue and identify which sounds are not pronounced.
