Learn with the News

"Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light." – Joseph Pulitzer
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 I love when teachers get students to act as reporters and regularly produce podcasts, vodcasts, ezines, digital newspapers, or radio shows. Every subject has their own news sites, journals, or podcasts with examples students can replicate. Students learn to write for an audience and the responsibility of providing accurate and succinct information. In my book, Learning to Go, I include a lesson plan, rubric, script template, and handouts for reporting the news. Feel free to download the slide presentation below with ideas, examples, resources, and web tools. Keep scrolling to find the bookmarks with free apps, tools, and ideas.

Tips & Resources

  • Have students evaluate newscasts from famous broadcasters such as Walter Cronkite or Barbara Walters. Find audio clips and bios of famous broadcasters here, http://otr.com/news.html
  • Teach students how to conduct digital research, which involves social bookmarking, curation, citing resources,  note-taking, etc. You’ll find this visual map of the process helpful, http://kyvl.org/kids/homebase.html
  • Storycorps.org is a great site for teaching students how to interview.
  • Newsela– News you can choose by grade level with quizzes and writing activities.
  • Newseum– Find the headlines of the day and sign up for free to access primary resources and lesson plans.
  • Breaking News English– Sean Banville’s news stories that are read aloud and accompanied with pdfs of activities and online games for learning vocabulary and grammar.
  • VOA News– Stories read aloud accompanied by PDFs of activities.
  • News in Levels– Students take a test to decide their level then do activities with news items according to the level. They learn grammar, vocabulary, and more.
  • BBC News Report– Students listen to authentic news from the BBC.
  • BBC Lingo Hack– Students learn with BBC news headlines and bulletins.
  • Radio Days– A website full of news recordings from famous broadcasters who reported news in the past.
  • CNN Learn English– For 30 days students can learn English wtih CNN news stories.
  • Bite Sized English Newstory– Create the headline, upload an image, and write a short news story.
  • Google Newspaper Templates– Create a class newspaper with these simple templates.
  • Talking Tom and Ben News iOS and Android App– Students work in pairs to report the news as either Tom the cat or Ben the dog! Takes place in a news station and records a video to share with others or post online.
  • Telepromptor is  free software for creating news stories and scripts students can read aloud. 
  • Piktochart and Canva both have newspaper and magazine templates. You can also get students to create a class newspaper with Issuu. 

Bookmarks

Find the tools listed above and many more resources in the bookmarks below.