Using Mass Media in the Classroom

Spring SchoolEnglish Teaching Resource Center

ChisinauMarch 5, 2012

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Newspapers & Mass Media

For Text Analysis and Language Learning

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Why use mass media messages?

Current information

Cultural information

New vocabulary

New stylistics

Satisfaction as a language learner

Connecting with Students

• Wide range of material for students’ wide range of interests

• Chance to understand students

• Increased participation

• Relatable material

• Discussion/debate opportunities

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What is mass media?

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Mass Media=Connection

• Young Moldovans interested in global engagement

• Opportunity to connect with people across the world

• Various fora for discussion, debate and sharing

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Where to begin?

• Introduce students to standard differences

• Solicit topics of interest

• Don’t underestimate the value of certain themes

• Plan an introductory lesson to acquaint students with ideas of mass media

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Journalistic vs. Literary Writing

Past Tense

Minimize!

Less capitalization

Less punctuation

Shorter paragraphs

Internationally standard?

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Newspaper Articles6 Sections

Headline

Byline

Dateline

Lead

Content/body

Conclusion/Author Contribution

New York Times■Headline■Byline■Created date (no time)■Content■Dateline■Entities (inline)■Contributor declaration■Related Stories/Past Coverage

OLD

SCHOOL

Online News Today

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Inverted Pyramid

Most Important

Fluff

Somewhat Important

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News ValuesImpact

Timeliness

Prominence

Proximity

Bizarreness/Oddity

Conflict

Currency

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Types of News Articles

Hard News

Feature Stories

Opinion Pieces

Columns

Editorials

Where does the news come from?

• Naturally occurring events, like disasters and accidents

• Planned activities, like meetings and news conferences

• Reporter’s enterprise

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Points for Discussion

• The role of the journalist

• Objectivity and fairness

• Bias

• News providers

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Suggested Activities

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Ongoing Project Ideas

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• Journal

• Giving each student a “beat”

• Giving each student a publication or two to follow

• Group writing

Analysis Activities

• Practice answering the 5 W’s and H questions

• Provide an article

• Provide students with the Ws and H, along with several variations of these questions

• Bias identification

• Provide two articles from different sources discussing the same issue

• How do they differ? Can students identify forms of bias?

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Discussion Activities

• Seminar Discussion

• Students must bring 2-3 discussion questions

• Article Presentation

• Students choose vocabulary words for the class and summarize the article’s content

• Each student required to ask at least one question

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Writing Activities

• Summarizing-essential for succinct writing

• Article writing

• Begin with leads, then gradually work to full articles

• Work through the writing process

• Observation, research, sources, interviews, fact-checking

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Identifying News Values

• In your group, go down the list of news values and see if the article contains one or more of these values. State why or why not.

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Ws and H

• Who is involved in this story? Who is affected by it? Who is the best person to tell the story?

• What happened? What is the point of this story? What is the writer trying to say?

• Where did this happen? Where else could I go to get the full story?

• When did this happen? When did the turning points occur in the story?

• Why is this happening? Is it an isolated case or part of a trend? Why are people behaving the way they are?

• How did this happen? How will things be different because of what happened?

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Summarize!

• Work in groups to summarize your stories. What are the most crucial elements?

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Advantages

• Exposure to otherwise potentially ignored topics

• Accessibility

• Linguistic exercise

• Group or individual opportunities

• Real world practice24

Disadvantages• Difficult to

entertain all students’ interests

• Frustration with vocabulary and style

• Intimidating material

Thank you!

Questions/Comments?

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