NEWS MEDIA AS AUTHENTIC MATERIAL

IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

Autumn Jackson, English Language FellowUNMUL, Samarinda

“Current Events” & Using News Media

For which classes? Which ages? Which grades?

As supplement or as a base for a lesson Why use news?

Textbooks have limits; news is up-to-date (Banville, 2005)

Authentic materials are important – and may also facilitate authentic communication (Banville, 2005)

Being aware of current events is important; news introduces students to both “cultural and linguistic concepts” (Chandler, 1990)

Reading level?Legislators in Connecticut Agree on Broad New Gun LawsBy PETER APPLEBOME | Published: April 1, 2013

HARTFORD — More than three months after the massacre of 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., state legislative leaders announced on Monday that they had agreed on what they called the most far-reaching gun-legislation package in the country.

It would require new state-issued eligibility certificates for the purchase of any rifle, shotgun or ammunition; mandate that offenders convicted of any of more than 40 weapons offenses register with the state; require universal background checks for the sale of all firearms; and substantially expand the state’s existing ban on assault weapons.

Using News Articles in Class

Reading, listening,and content comprehension

Article structure

Writing in specific genres

Example Activity: Story Jigsaw

Class activities using a news article

Students match the pieces of a story one story: put the pieces in order many stories: separate the stories and then put

them in order

Match headlines: many headlines to many stories choose one headline from a collection for a

single story

News Story Structure Headline, Lead, Body

You can learn a lot from a headline…

Example Activities: Newspaper Headlines

Media headlines in English usually have unique grammar “rules” (or guidelines)

Class activities: Determine the grammar of headlines

(teach, find, review) “Translate” or “rewrite” (not “correct”)

headlines Write your own headlines

Headlines Grammar Guidelines Eliminated articles (no “the,” “a,” “an”)

Bomb found at Bonn rail station Missing “be” as main verb

DJs ‘heartbroken’ over nurse’s death Missing “be” as helping verb

Many missing in Philippines typhoon Tense changes:

Present often used in place of past Brazilian 'genius' architect Niemeyer dies

Future indicated by to + verb Facebook to overhaul its privacy controls

For more, see Yoneoka (2002) (or Google “newspaper grammar”!)

News Media Resources The Jakarta Post

The Jakarta Globe

Voice of America: Learning English http://learningenglish.voanews.com/

BBC: Learning English http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/

Time For Kids (from Time Magazine) http://www.timeforkids.com/

New York Times: Learning Network http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/

Final Reminders DON’T:

choose a news story at random force students to take sides on very sensitive

issues let a debate develop into a political or moral fight

DO: be sensitive to topics and student reactions recognize both or many sides of an issue encourage students to be critical about the

presentation of issues (look for biases) remember that news articles may be difficult!

Resources Banville, S. (2005). Creating ESL/EFL lessons

based on news and current events. Internet TESL Journal. http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Banville-News/

Chandler, C.E. (1990). Using newspapers in the ESL literacy classroom. ERIC Digest. http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED321619.pdf

Yoneoka, J. (2002). Newspaper English. Seminar paper. Link to Yokeona's Text

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