Newspaper workshop

Level: B1+ (good intermediate students and beyond)

Time: approx. an hour

Materials: papers and/or the internet (in the form of laptops, a computer room, or even just
phones.) If neither of these are available, then printouts of a selection of medium-length articles on
different topics.

Lead-in

Write the following on the board

‘How often do you read(/watch) the news?’

‘How do you read the news?’  Give examples like iPad, mobile phone etc.

Ask students to discuss in pairs

Students report back on their partner’s news-consuming habits

NB: Sometimes you will have difficult students, like I did in my first class, who said ‘I don’t read the
news’ and that was the end of their contribution, but this seems to be less common now with the
popularity of Twitter and co.

Introduction to newspapers

Either take students to a computer room, if you are afforded that luxury, or let them flick through
some wonderfully ink-covered actual newspapers. Of course, you could always select a few articles
yourself for them to choose, but they seem to enjoy the process of flicking through a newspaper
(just like I do when I pretend I can understand the German contents of the Frankfurter Allgemeine!)
Sometimes it encourages them to talk about what they’ve found or are looking for if you leave the
room for a short while.

If you are using proper papers, hold up different examples of ‘tabloid,’ ‘broadsheet’ and
‘supplement,’ trying to elicit the words where possible, but introducing them if everyone looks
confused. If you are using a computer room, write up the names of a few reputable English language
news sources and briefly talk the students through them. Classics would include the websites for
The Guardian, The Telegraph, Reuters and of course the BBC, as well as perhaps the English version
of a local site – my context is Germany, and the English version of the Spiegel paper is very good.

I then write the following on the board:

1) Find an interesting article (roughly 1 page of A4)

2) Read it! Use dictionaries or your phones

3) Write a summary in note form in 6-10 bullet points

4) Present your article to the class

Then, let them loose! Throw the newspapers down on the table, or let them roam free online, giving
them twenty or so minutes to surf or search for an article they find interesting. In my (albeit thus far)
limited experience, there is always one person who selects an article far too quickly, and almost
always an indecisive person! For the fast finisher, make sure he/she knows that summarising in itself
is a valuable skill, even if they ‘think they can remember it!’ For the slow starters, it’s sometimes a
good idea to have a really interesting few back-up articles printed out, so you can invite the student
to summarise one you know is pitched at the right level. (In my experience, students don’t much
notice the date, either, so don’t worry if you keep a stash and they’re all a bit older.

As they read, just sit quietly and monitor if required. (Often a good moment to catch up on class
admin!)

Towards the end of your allotted time, count them down from 5 and then 2 minutes, so they know
to speed up if necessary, and then stop everyone together.

I like to use this random name selector, introduced to me by Adam Simpson, to select the order for
presentations. In my experience, this takes about five minutes per student: they obviously don’t
have tonnes to say, but if you can think quickly enough to come up with spontaneous questions, or
encourage the rest of the class to ask something, then five minutes per student is quite accurate.

As they talk, I fill out a simple feedback form which is one sheet of A4 divided into four sections for
Grammar, Vocabulary & Expressions, Pronunciation and General Comments. I try to write a few
comments in each box where relevant, and then an encouraging comment in the General Comments
box, as I know it’s not everyone’s idea of a dream lesson! The first time I filled out such a feedback
form, although it was quite brief, the students seemed really chuffed, and it ended up being a 5-
minute pronunciation filler at the end, going round and writing up the words people had got wrong!

Overall, this is a very easy lesson to prepare (although of course it could be expensive if you do buy
the papers yourself!) and the students seem to enjoy it by the end much more than they had
expected to – they are reassured by how much they can understand by skim-reading and everyone
loves to read a foreign newspaper and feel like a native speaker!

I really recommend incorporating such a ‘free’ lesson every once in a while, as we have a lot of
repeaters on our intensive courses!