Parts of the Body

Whenever I ask my students if they know the parts of the body they usually respond with a firm "Yes!", but do they? Most students know what they have learnt from books which is, as we all know, usually very limited. What most student know is the names of the most "apparent" or "visible" parts of the body meaning Arms, Hands, Mouth, Hair and so on. Amazingly, their interest to know more is unexistent. The reason might be that students tend to enter a "zone of safety" that they themselves create when they feel some learning is happening. But perhaps that learning is insufficient and that "zone of safety" is only a dellusion. For example: do our students know how to say AXILA, FOSAS NASALES or OMBLIGO? What about VEJIGA orTRAQUEA? In my own experience they do not most of the time, and they are usually surprised when I bring that to their attention. Do they really need to know? Is it something that perhaps they should do by themselves? That is for each one of us to answer separately. In the meantime here are the English words for the ones in Spanish mentioned above: ARMPIT, NOSTRILS, NAVEL (BELLYBUTTON), BLADDER and WINDPIPE.

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