Week 6: Reading (News in levels)


News in levels is a page in which you can find different new to work with. The great about this page is that you can find the same new written in different levels of difficulty, so all students will be able to read and understand.

This is a excellent page for teachers that need material for their reading classes, since they only need to know their students's level in order to create an interesting activity. I think that students of high school will work better with something like that, since they are older and capable of thinking critically and through this type of activities they will improve their reading skills and writing as well. 

A limitation is that you can't work with the first thing you find, you need to find news that call students' attention, otherwise they won´t feel motivated to work.

The following is a plan lesson made using this interesting page.



Unit 4: Mass Media


Context: Class of 25 students from a second year of High School in a subside school in Valparaíso.
Methodology: Task Based and ITC
Comprehensible input Techniques: Images of different newspapers, tabloids to ask what print mass media is
and an article from News in Levels.
Active Participation Strategy: Reading Aloud and critical thinking about a controversial issue to express their
opinion.  
Objective:
  • Students will identify the type of text presented in order to discuss the topic in class
  • Students will identify main ideas in order to complete a Wh- Question Chart
Materials:
Pre-activity: The teacher will write on the board the name of the unit: Mass Media and will present images
of different newspapers and tabloids
Then, the teacher will ask:
  • What type of the texts are these?
  • What is the importance of news in our daily life?
  • What do these news have in common?
Students will have to skim the news to identify the topic that will discussed later. Once, they find out that the
common aspect is abortion, they will have to discuss with their classmate what they know about abortion in
Chile and then, they will have to report it to the rest of the class (Think, Pair, Share)
While-activity: The teacher will apply the skimming technique by asking to the students to read Abortion
in Chile (https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/abortion-in-chile-level-3/) once in order to identify the
main idea of the text. Then, students will read the text again. They will look for unknown vocabulary and
look for their meaning at the same time, they can listen to it in order to identify the pronunciation,
intonation and fluency when reading. Students will have to pay attention to special information in order
to complete a Wh- Question Chart


Post-activity: Finally, hoping that a small class discussion can be developed to promote respect towards
others opinions; the teacher will ask:

  • What is being said about abortion?
  • Do you think it is important to inform our society about important decisions made in our country? why?
  • What is your opinion about this controversial issue nowadays in Chile?
  • If you were the President, what would you do about this?
Appendixes: 

Appendix 1:



Appendix 2:
Wh- Question Chart:
Wh- question
Answer ( main ideas)
WHO (protagonist)

WHAT (facts)

WHEN (time)

WHERE (places)

WHY (reasons)

HOW (manner)

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