Using Newspaper Articles in Online English Courses
Online newspapers are a great resource for English learners and teachers in any online English course. They are generally free to use and can be accessed from all over the world. Newspaper articles are for learners who have a higher level of English as the English isn’t modified for learners and are they are written in a journalistic manner. Certain newspapers have special sections for online learners where they modify the article for the English learner.
A teacher can decide to send the chosen article over to read before the lesson, or to introduce it into the lesson. If the article is sent over before, the teacher will then engage in a conversation about the article by asking general questions, general and specific. If the article isn’t sent over before the online English lesson, the teacher should introduce the topic of the article, eliciting the subject through questions. If problematic language is used then it is probably better to send the article ahead of time, so that the student can look up any words or phrases they don’t know.
The next stage is for the student to read the text out loud. This is an important stage on any online English course. The tutor should check for any pronunciation mistakes or errors by writing these down and then typing them in the chat box once the student has finished reading. Each error or mistake should then be pronounced properly by the tutor followed by the student repeating through drills. At this stage any new vocabulary or grammar points should be explained.
A conversation about the topic should now ensue. The teacher can make it specific to grammar points recently introduced or have a general conversation about the topic. A combination of the two is best. There are lots of different ways of incorporating the topic into conversation, allowing the student to creatively use their English.
The re-reading of the article can be done at the end of the class or at the beginning of the new class. Some teachers prefer not to do this due to it being too repetitive and instead focus on the pronunciation mistakes made before.