Theme: News
Lexical area: News and the media
Cross curricular links: Media studies

Instructions for language assistants in Italics

Classroom materials

Introduction
This lesson is about news and the media and gives students a lot of opportunities to express their own opinions.

Task 1 is to get students talking about the news. Task 2 asks students to consider the advantages and disadvantages of the four main media sources – TV, the internet, newspapers and radio. Task 3 looks at headlines and asks students to invent the story behind the headline. It can easily be adapted to your teaching context. Task 4 requires students to summarise an article. Task 5 is a discussion using controversial quotes based on the topic of news and Task 6 asks students to step into the role of a news reporter to carry out an interview with a selected celebrity. You can adapt the tasks to suit your learners depending on their level and age group.

1. Talking news
If you have a large class you could split the student up into groups to discuss the questions and then feed back to the class. In a smaller group it may be an idea to sit in a circle with the students and lead the discussion. The idea is to get students thinking about how they find out about what’s happening in the world and whether or not they consider it important to be informed of current affairs.

Task 1 Talking news

• Is it important to you to know what is happening in other countries?
• When was the last time you watched the news on television?
• Do you ever read the news on the internet?
• Do you listen to the news on the radio?
• Do you or your parents buy a newspaper every day?
• Do you think that the internet has changed the way we find out about what’s happening in the world?
• Do you always believe everything you see and hear on the news?

2. Advantages and disadvantages
Students work in groups to think of advantages and disadvantages of the four media sources. Ask them for some examples first to get all the students on the right track.

Task 2 Advantages and disadvantages

• est way to find out about what’s happening in the world?
• Think of the advantages and disadvantages of these media sources and then decide in your group which one you think is the best.
• Compare your opinions with the other groups.

3. Headlines
Cut up the headlines into strips and give each pair or group just one headline to work with. Encourage the students to use their imaginations and to make up a story. I’ve chosen real headlines here and I’ve deliberately avoided politics, showbiz and any stories that will have a very short ‘shelf life’ if you want to make this activity more topical choose your own headlines from British papers from the internet. For higher levels choose some headlines from tabloids and some from the broadsheet papers and you could look at the differences in style and content.

You could also use this activity using photos from newspapers instead of headlines. This could be an option for lower levels.

Task 3 Headlines

Look at these newpaper headlines and try to guess or invent the story behind the headline.

4. Snappy summaries
Ask students to bring in a newspaper or magazine or gather a few papers yourself. You can use newspapers in their language or in English depending on what you can get your hands on easily. Ask students to choose an article they found interesting and to read it carefully. Explain that they are then going to give a summary of the article to the rest of the class (they could write it up for homework if appropriate). They will need to pick out the important parts and make sure they have the vocabulary they need. Encourage students to use bilingual dictionaries and not to always rely on you to supply all the vocabulary.

You could introduce this activity by bringing in a newspaper (British or from where you are) and telling students that you read a really sad / funny / odd article in the paper this morning. Encourage them to ask you about it. Give them a brief summary of the article. By doing this you are modelling the task that the students will be expected to do.

As students are telling the class about the article they read ask the listening students to think of one question they’d like to ask the student giving the summary. At the end select a few students to ask their question to the student giving the summary.

Task 4 Snappy summaries

• Have a look through some newpapers and find an article that interests you.
• Read it carefully.
• Make a note of the main points.
• Check you have all the vocabulary you need.
• Explain the article to the rest of the class in English.

5. News discussion
Cut up the quotes and give them out to small groups or pairs to discuss. Encourage the use of real language for agreeing or disagreeing with somebody. Think about what you would actually say and feed in phrases and expressions as required or brainstorm ideas beforehand and leave a selection of expressions up on the board for students to use.

For example, “No way” “That’s rubbish” “I completely agree with you” “You’re right” etc. etc.

Task 5 News discussion

6. News reporter
Ask your students if they would like to be journalists. Why / why not?

Ask them who they would like to interview if they were a journalist for a day.

Students can work in pairs to produce six questions they would like to ask the selected person. When they have composed the questions. The pair should try to put themselves in the shoes of the interviewee and think about the answers.

You could either ask students to role-play the interview for a TV news programme or to write it up into an article for a paper or a magazine.

Task 6 News reporter

• Would you like to be a journalist?
• Imagine you are working for a local newspaper or TV station and have been asked to interview someone. (It could be a politician, musician, model, chef, writer, etc or a normal person who is in the news for some reason)
• Write six questions that you would like to ask them.
• Think of how they may reply to your questions.
• Either write up the interview for a paper or magazine or perform the interview for a news TV programme.

Internet links

This is a great site for you and your students. News articles with comprehensive glossaries for tricky words, listening tasks and loads more:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/

This is an article from the BBC / British Council Teaching English site with some great ideas on how to use news articles in the classroom:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/read/using_news

This is a fun and engaging lesson plan for higher levels to produce their own newspaper report:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/plans/newsreport/news

This is the Daily Mail homepage:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/dailymail/home.html

This is the Guardian homepage:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/

By Jo Budden