Events > IATEFL Conference 2004, Liverpool, 16-17 April > page 3
Friday 16 April
Students make the news: exploiting the media
Claire Millar (Bell Saffron Walden, England)
- Track: Media & Video/AV Aids.
- 15.30-16.00.
- Style: Talk.
- Focus: experienced and inexperienced audience; secondary and adult teaching.
Report by Geoff Taylor, Computer SIG Committee member
Summary
Claire described a lesson framework based on published news media that:
- practised all four skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening) and
- exploited the facilities of the computer room and the language laboratory
She detailed a two-part 180-minute lesson, starting in the Internet-enabled computer room, and finishing in the language lab.
Part 1: In the computer room:
- Students, in the role of journalists, choose 4 different news stories
- They read and write short summaries of the stories
- They devise 3 comprehension questions per story
Part 2: in the language laboratory:
- Students record their summaries, then switch places with other students
- They listen to the other people’s story summaries, and answer the comprehension questions
Suggested variations and adaptations included:
- Different topics could be used, e.g. students’ own countries or famous people
- Those without an Internet-enabled computer room could source stories from printed newspapers
- Those without a language laboratory could record onto cassettes, or give face-to-face oral presentations
Comments
The lesson plan seems eminently practical.
The talk was well-organised, very clear and well presented, with effective use of PowerPoint.
