2 Get learners to make a commentary. Give learners a short extract on an
issue they know about, with the sound off. Get them to produce and rehearse
a commentary that could accompany the video instead of the original sound
track. They can try out their commentary live, and in real time, against the
running video. It can also be worthwhile getting them to record their
commentary on audiotape, and then to listen to it while watching the video
again.
3 Ask learners to compose subtitles for a videoed news bulletin. Show the
whole class a short extract from a news bulletin, then ask groups of learners
to devise short messages which could communicate the main points of the
bulletin to people who could not hear.
4 News quizzes. Play to the whole class a short radio news bulletin, then quiz
groups of learners about the content of the bulletin. It is best to prepare the
quiz in advance, and possibly print it out, so each team can write their
answers against each question before scoring their work. You will soon find
out about the best level for such quizzes; the level is appropriate when no
team gets less than about half of the available points, and the winning team
gets most answers correct.
5 Cartoons and photos. Get learners in groups to devise captions for well-
chosen cartoons or photographs from a newspaper. You may then show them
the original captions, or point out how many different valid ways there can
be to describe a cartoon or photo.
6 Have I got news for you! Give learners some headlines from a newspaper,
and ask them in groups to try to work out the likely story behind each
headline. You could allow them to read the newspapers in advance for a few
minutes. For learners with well-developed language skills, this activiiy can
be turned into a fun game by asking learners to think of alternative, creative
stories which may have matched the chosen headlines.
7 Home/national news. Ask learners to look for a news story current in their
country, and to write and deliver aloud a two-minute summary of it designed
for the UK media.
8 Teletext pages. Give learners a newspaper, and ask them to capture the
essence of 10 or so main news items by turning each into a summary which
could be contained on a single screen of teletext. Encourage them to keep
sentences short and to the point. Suggest that they try to get the gist of each
story into a well-chosen, short headline and the first sentence of the teletext
page.
9 Broadsheets and tabloids. Encourage learners to read about the same story
in both broadsheet and tabloid newspapers, and to discuss the differences of
approach. Then invite them to select a different story from a broadsheet and
turn it into the register of a popular or tabloid newspaper. Often tabloids are
much harder for learners to understand than broadsheets, so you will need to
choose a particularly accessible story for this activity.50 LANGUAGE WORK IN THE CLASSROOM