 |
Newspaper lesson structure
|
|
|
|
As mentioned above, news lessons should be structured. According to Farmer (2008) a well-structured news lesson comprises the following six stages: warm up, pre-reading/listening activities, reading/listening to the article, application/follow-up, feedback and correction, and homework.one: warm upwarm-up should raise awareness of the topic and activate pre-existing knowledge and language. As in regular lessons, Teachers should avoid correcting students here. This allows students to relax, get into English-mode, and to build confidence. Some suggested activities are:
· Warm-up questions: These should be related to the topic. The teacher can write the questions on the blackboard or dictate them.
· Quizzes: Quizzes are a good way to test their knowledge of the topic and people in the article.
· Describing/discussing pictures related to the article: In pairs or groups, students speculate about the picture. At this point, they shouldn't know what the article is about.
· Brainstorming: Have the students brainstorm vocabulary related to the article's topic.
· Do you agree/disagree?: Prepare a list of four to five statements related to the article. Students pair up and ask each other if they agree or disagree citing reasons.
· Ranking: Students rank a list that the teacher has prepared. For example, if the article were about dieting, the instructor could prepare a list of common dieting fads. The students have to rank them from most effective to least.two: Pre-reading/listeninglesson proper should always begin with pre-reading/listening activities. Unlike the warm-up activities, these activities are directly related to the text and serve to get students interested in the topic, build confidence, and prepare them for the task ahead. It's common for instructors in news lessons to carefully preteach the vocabulary. If the focus of the lesson is vocabulary building, this is fine. However, the teacher should ensure that the vocabulary will be recycled in the application. If not, it is not a good use of time. Why are the students spending 10 minutes learning vocabulary they won't use again? However, the focus of the lesson doesn't have to be vocabulary-building. If the article has been well-selected, written, or edited, it is possible for students to focus on other skills such as reading or listening. If they come across an unknown word, it is a good opportunity for them to develop strategies such as asking others, guessing from context, and building their ambiguity filter.are some suggested activities:
· Synonym matching: Students match words taken from the article and match with synonyms.
· Fill-in-the-blank: Students are given a set of sentences from the article and have to fill-in-the-blanks using a provided vocabulary list. An alternative is to have the students try to fill in the blanks using their imagination first and then repeating this activity while looking at a provided vocabulary list.
· Story speculation: The students predict the story from the headline and/or the article's picture.
|
|
|
· Vocabulary speculation: Students are given the headline and predict words they expect to read. (As students read the article in the next stage they can check the words they find. They student with the most correct predictions wins.)
· Vocabulary selection/sort: Students are given a list of words, some words are from the article, some words are not. The students read the headline and then decide which ones they think are from the article.
· Sentence selection: As in the previous example, but with sentences instead of words.
· True or False: The instructor provides the students with a list of sentences about the article. Some are true, others are false. The students read them, and then decide whether they are true or false. The students can check their answers in the next stage.three: Reading/listeningtasks. These activities sever to build listening skills. If you want to focus on listening skills, it should be read at least two or three times. Two points to consider when setting listening activities: it's a good idea to move from extensive listening activities to more intensive: and if the students can get all the answers correct the first time, the tasks were to easy. If you are hoping to improve listening ability, the students' listening has to be challenged. Here are some possible listening tasks:
· Listening for gist: The students could summarize each paragraph.
· Fill-in-the-blanks: The teacher reads the story aloud. The students listen and fill in the blanks.
· Checking pre-listening ideas: The students listen and check their information from the pre-listening stage (true/false statements, vocabulary speculation, etc.).
· Listening for pre-set comprehension questions: These can be written on the board or dictated. After the first listen, have the students compare answers. Then read again until they have the answers. Ideally, the questions should be related to the pre-activities.tasks. These activities serve to build reading skills and the article should be read two or more times. As in the listening activities, it is best to move from extensive to more intensive tasks. This means the students will gain a deeper understanding with each successive read.
· General comprehension questions
· Check pre-reading ideas
· Skimming/Scanning: Skimming is when you quickly read through an article. Scanning is when you are looking for specific information.
· Detailed comprehension questions: "Which paragraph says (…)?", "What do (these numbers) refer to?", "What do (these people) think?", "Find a word that means (...)", "Find today's vocabulary, "How was the "vocabulary" used?"
· Students generated comprehension questions
· Complete the sentence: Take the beginning of some key sentences from the article and have the students try to complete the sentence from memory.
· Write a headline for the story/reach paragraph
· Summarizing: The students write a sentence summarizing each paragraph.four: Application/Follow-up Tasksthe focus of the lesson, an effective news lesson should extend beyond the article. The students need to have a chance to use the new vocabulary and/or knowledge in a meaningful, less controlled way. The students should be reminded to use the new vocabulary and/or target language as much as possible. As in any lesson, teachers should refrain from jumping in and correcting during this stage. This is the students' time to apply the new language in a free environment. Any mistakes should be noted for the feedback and correction stage.
|
|
|
· Role Play: For example, the students could take on character roles from the article and role play the situation. This could be extended to what they think happened next.
· Discussion: The teacher can provide questions related to the topic such as "Have you ever experienced such a situation?", "What would you have done in her shoes?", or "What do you think of what he did?" Of course, students should be encouraged to go beyond the article.
· Debate: The students have a debate. One idea: If the students did the "Do you agree/disagree?" activity in the warm up, the teacher could tie it to the debate. The students revisit the same statements and debate using the information from the article.five: Feedback and Correctionlast five minutes of any lesson should be reserved for feedback and correction. Together, the warm up and the feedback and correction stages are the bookends of an effective lesson. Just as the warm up serves to get them ready for the lesson ahead, this stage acts as a cool down where the students can reflect upon what they have learned. It also guarantees that they leave the classroom with a clear idea of what they have achieved. There are three things that can be covered here:
· Correction: This is a good opportunity for teacher to bring up any mistakes from the application to the class' attention. The benefit of this is that the whole class can benefit from the correction. Mistakes can include level relevant grammatical mistakes, mispronunciations, or vocabulary usage problems.
· Review: It's a good idea to briefly review what was covered. The instructor can review new vocabulary or the article itself. It's best to elicit this information and to call for examples. This will not only reinforce the information, but will satisfy the teacher that the students understand what was covered.
· Feedback and Motivation: It's important to give some praise and some advice for further improvement or study.six: Homeworkis important for students to progress in their studies. Most students have little access to English outside of the classroom. Setting homework encourages them to self-study and to re-visit the lesson. This will build retention of new information. Some suggested homework assignments for news lesson are outlined below.
· Research projects: Students have to research the topic using Wikipedia and/or other Internet sources and write a report.
· Comparison activities: Students have to read the same topic from different news sites to compare how different sources deal with the news.
· Letter writing: The students have to write a letter to someone from the article telling them how they feel.
· Summarizing: Students summarize the article.
· Listening: If the lesson is from a site where a podcast is available, the students should download the mp3 file and listen to it at least two or three times a day. They also can listen and repeat after the recording to work on the prosodic features (e.g., rhythm, pronunciation, and stress).
The teaching of culture
(as cited in Cheung, 2001, p.56) defines 'culture' as the customs, values, laws, technology, artifacts and art of a particular time or people. Culture in English language teaching materials has been subject to discussion for many years. Linguists and anthropologists have long recognized that the forms and uses of a given language reflect the cultural values of the society in which the language is spoken. Linguistic competence alone is not enough for learners of a language to be competent in that language (Krasner, 1999). Language learners need to be aware, for example, of the culturally appropriate ways to address people, express gratitude, make requests, and agree or disagree with someone. They should know that behaviors and intonation patterns that are appropriate in their own speech community may be perceived differently by members of the target language speech community. They have to understand that, in order for communication to be successful, language use must be associated with other culturally appropriate behavior., with the help of technological developments, we have access to many sources easily and quickly. Almost all the printed materials are on the Internet in electronic forms as well as digital audio and video and we can easily search anything anytime. Actually we do not lack cultural content to use in our classrooms. We have already talked in details about the use of visual clips, movies, and audio materials as the source of cultural context, so here we will present only main principals for using it.many regards, culture is taught implicitly, embedded in the linguistic forms that students are learning. To make students aware of the cultural features reflected in the language, teachers can make those cultural features an explicit topic of discussion in relation to the linguistic forms being studied. An EFL teacher could help students understand socially appropriate communication, such as making requests that show respect; for example, "Hey you, come here" may be a linguistically correct request, but it is not a culturally appropriate way for a student to address a teacher. Students will master a language only when they learn both its linguistic and cultural norms. If an utterance is considered as culturally appropriate, it means that this utterance is authentically appropriate as well.linguistic and learning theory suggests that culture can be taught explicitly as well. It should be a part of curriculum, especially in EFL settings where exposure to the target culture is limited. However, many students say that they do not want to learn about the culture. This might be because of common stereotypes, or even racist tendencies, so the teacher should be ready to face discontent of his or her students with target culture. Probably most of the students who are reluctant to explore a foreign culture have some negative experience associated with it. The teacher is expected to show and explain differences between source and target cultures.of the main advantages of the use of authentic cultural content in classroom is that it will fosters learner motivation (McKay, 2000, p. 7). She, like many other experts, believes that there should be a variety of culture in the materials and not only an overload of western culture in ELT classrooms. Eventually English is a international language. Besides, learning about a culture does not mean accepting that culture. In addition, we should keep in mind that overuse of cultural materials in the language classrooms can constitute problems not only for students but also for the teachers and decrease the motivation.exposure to culturally authentic text or movie students' own culture should be discussed together with target culture. In other words, home and target culture should be integrated. Robinson (as cited in Stuart and Nocon, 1996, p. 435) refers to this integration as 'Color Purple'. According to Stuart and Nocon, this synthesis is created when one becomes aware of one's own cultural lens (e.g. blue) through the recognition that a person from another culture has a different lens (e.g. red). Neither person can escape his or her own cultural lens, but each can choose to overlap lenses (e.g. purple) in order to understand better the other's perspectives and arrive at shared meaning.key point in successful implementation of culture in EFL settings is that the teacher should create a relaxing environment where students can discuss their own culture together with the target culture in meaningful and communicative tasks and activities.information should be presented in a nonjudgmental fashion, in a way that does not place value or judgment on distinctions between the students’ native culture and the culture explored in the classroom. Kramsch (1993) describes the "third culture" of the language classroom-a neutral space that learners can create and use to explore and reflect on their own and the target culture and language.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Conclusion
viewed the concept of authenticity from various perspectives, we arrive to the conclusion that the notion is not merely to be incorporated in teaching. Materials should be both genuine and authentic as well as relevant and potentially communicative. Learners must feel positive toward tasks and activities, otherwise, they will not benefit from using them. Also authentic materials should be interpreted by students as it was pedagogically intended. In other words, students need be properly exposed to authentic materials.the practical part of this work we showed how different types of authentic materials can be used in teaching process. In particular, we analyzed textbooks, three types of prompts, movies, teaching projects, audio materials, fiction, and newspapers in order to give practical recommendations of the concept of authenticity. Then, we also discussed the teaching of culture in the light of the concept. It is not a complete list of possible types of authentic materials, for instance, we did not observe the use of songs. The purpose of this work is, rather, to show the direction where EFL teachers may go to experience advantages of the authentic approach.materials proved to be more effective in many ways than artificial teaching materials since they have more motivating potential. They also have other advantages, for instance, the use of authentic materials leads to a more creative approach to teacher. Students are more likely to read fiction books for pleasure than textbooks. Books, articles, newspapers, and so on contain a wide variety of text types, language styles not easily found in conventional teaching materials. In addition, real discourse is presented, as in video interviews with famous people where intermediate students can listen for gist. They provide exposure to real language.course, there might be some pitfalls we can encounter while using these materials, in particular authentic materials may be too culturally biased. They can be unnecessarily difficult to be understood outside the language community. Also the vocabulary might not be relevant to the students’ immediate needs. Often too many structures are mixed so lower levels have a hard time decoding the texts. In addition, special preparation is necessary which can be time consuming., the main question is whether an EFL teacher will be able to decrease disadvantages of the use of authentic materials at the expense of its advantages. I believe that teacher professionalism plays a pivotal role in domination of positive or negative effects of the use of authentic materials. I would like to conclude by quoting Tatsuki (2006) "...it would make imminent sense to spend at least as much on teacher training and professional development as is currently spent on textbook development" (p.11).
References
Better Language Teaching. Two Learning Styles: Auditory and Visual. Retrieved 19 April, 2011 from <http://www.betterlanguageteaching.com/esl-articles/75-auditory-visual-learning-styles>, M.P. (1985). Authenticity in the language classroom. Applied Linguistics, 6, 60-70., J. (2011). Realia. British Council. Retrieved 23 April, 2011 from <http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/language-assistant/teaching-tips/realia>, R & Long, M. (1991). Teaching Literature. London: Longman., M.T. (1998). Learner's perspectives on authenticity. IRAL, 36(4), 277-306., C. (2001). The use of popular culture as a stimulus to motivate secondary students' English learning in Hong Kong. ELT Journal, 55(1), 55-61., L. Teaching materials: using literature in the EFL/ ESL classroom. Onestopenglish. Retrieved 18 April, 2011 from <http://www.onestopenglish.com/support/methodology/teaching-materials/teaching-materials-using-literature-in-the-efl/-esl-classroom/146508.article>, L. (1999). Teaching with Movies. TEFLChina. Retrieved 27 May, 2011 from <http://teflchina.org/Teaching_with_Movies>, D. & Volokhov D. Tern Pictures. EFL Teaching Recipes. Retrieved 17 April, 2011 from <http://teachingrecipes.com/2009/09/14/torn-pictures/>, S. L. (1987). Effects of repeated reading on second-grade transitional Readers’ fluency and comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, 22, 389-406., Terry (1983). Literary Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Basil BlackwellCountry Schools. Teaching English through projects in the natural environment. Retrieved 19 April, 2011 from <http://www.countryschool.com/engnatur.htm>, J.A. (2008). How to Effectively Use News Articles in the EFL Classroom. TESL Journal, Vol. XIV, No. 12., M. and M. Bonner (2006). Focus on Grammar 4: An Integrated Skills Approach, ThirdEdition.. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., W. & Morley, J. (2001). Text and task authenticity in the EFL classroom. ELT Journal 55 (4), 347-353.ündüz, N. (2006). Contributions Of E-Audiobooks And Podcast to EFL Listening Classes. Seljuk University. Journal of Faculty of Letters. Number: 16, Page: 249-259., J. (1991). The Practice of English Language Teaching. England: Longman., R.R. (1997). English for Academic Purposes: A Guide and Resource for Teachers. Camxbridge. Cambridge University Press., R. & Mary Ann Lyman-Hager, M.A. (1988). Theory driven use of digital video in foreign language instruction. CALICO Journal, Vol. 16, pp.37-48., C. (1993). Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press., I. (1999). The role of culture in language teaching.on Language Instruction, 13(1-2), 79-88., A., Johnson, L., & Smith W.L. Prompts. Teaching and Learning at a Distance. Retrieved April 18, 2011 from <http://eduscapes.com/distance/course_discussion/prompts.htm>, S. (1992). Giving your courses a dose of reality. Forum: English Teaching Forum, 30, pp 10-15.Dictionary. (2011). Retrieved April 29, 2011 from<http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/literature>, A. M. (2010). Movies in the English classroom. British Council. Retrieved 23 April, 2011 from <http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/tips/movies-english-classroom>, K. (n.d.) Applications for using authentic materials in the second language classroom., A. (2002). Authentic materials: An overview. Karen's Linguistic Issues. Retrieved May 25, 2011 from <http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/authenticmaterials.html>, S. L. (2000). Teaching English as an international language: Implications for cultural materials in the classroom. TESOL Journal, 9(4), 7-11.Online. What is Project-Based Learning? Project-Based Learning. Retrieved May 29, 2011 from <http://pbl-online.org/About/whatisPBL.htm>, M. (1997). The Effect of Authentic Materials on the Motivation of EFL Learners in English Language Teaching Journal 51, pp., C., & Medley, F., Jr. (1988). Language with a purpose: using authentic materials in the foreign language classroom. Foreign Language Annals, 21, 467-478., P. (1999). Using Newspapers in the Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.. G., & Nocon, H. (1996). Second culture acquisition: Ethnography in the foreign language Classroom. The Modern Language Journal 80(4), 431-449., D. (1994). Inauthentic authenticity or authentic inauthenticity? TESL-EJ, 1(2), 1-12. Retrieved May 25, 2011 from <http://www.zait.uni-bremen.de/wwwgast/tesl_ej/ej02/a.1.html>, D. (2006). What is authenticity? The Language Teacher, 16(5), 17-21. Retrieved May 25, 2011 from <http://jalt.org/pansig/2006/HTML/Tatsuki.htm>, H.G. (1990). Aspects of Language Teaching Oxford, O.U.P., D.A. (1976). Notional syllabuses. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [-11-], N. Fun EFL Class Projects. ESL Base. Retrieved May 20, 2011 from<http://www.eslbase.com/articles/projects>
|
|
|
|
|
|
