Preparing a news bulletin

Name of lesson plan activity: Preparing a news bulletin

Skill focus: Speaking

Teacher name: Y.U. Kaminskay-Kletskova

School name: ETС « Erudite», Kyiv

Target students: Students of  the  9 form

Materials used in class: One news brief of two or three minutes duration from any popular news channel or the internet, overhead projector/whiteboard and markers, flip chart/chart papers and markers and pins to display

Time: 45 minutes

Lesson plan

1. Objective of the lesson:

The activity will raise students’ awareness of the spoken form, and give them hands-on experience using formal and informal varieties of spoken English. In groups they will prepare and present a two minute news bulletin which will stimulate a great deal of peer interaction which will include a brainstorming session to decide on what should be included in the two minute bulletin. The group will choose a news reader to present. The group prepares a draft bulletin and a final one to transfer on to a flip chart.

The students will practise the presentation which will focus mainly on the spoken skill, other skills will also be employed.

2. Instructions for teaching the lesson:

Stage 1 (10 mins ): The teacher explains what a news bulletin is

A news bulletin is a short news announcement of an ongoing news story/newsflash for immediate publication or broadcast.

A two minute film clip of a news bulletin should be played (the sample can be from a popular news channel) to give real world experience focusing on the spoken form. The teacher briefly discusses the bulletin with possible varieties of speech. Differences between formal spoken and formal written language are drawnout. Conversational language between the news reporter and the interviewee and the informal language of the interviewees is explained.

The teacher makes a student read the text of the same sample bulletin so that the students can prepare a similar one. (Sources such as BBC One Minute World News/Euro News could be used).

Stage 2 (20 mints): Teacher does group activity

Students  work  in groups of five.

The news bulletin will require a news reader, a reporter and an on-the-spot reporter and two interviewees (five). The teacher may present three current topics, students to brainstorm for three minutes on the topic and come up with ideas and the roles as above.

Ideas to be noted on blackboard or flip chart. Keywords to be organised and pronounced by the teacher.

Put the ideas in a sequence. List contractions of written words in speech. This is done in groups with the teacher going around.

A two or three minute bulletin is scripted and edited. The teacher gives examples to show the differencein voice quality for news presentations. The students could practise it with voice modulation before presenting it to the class.

Stage 3( 10mins): Teacher gets each group to present

Each group will present the news bulletin for two or three minutes with the modulated voice of a broadcaster.

Stage 4( 5mins ): Teacher gives feedback

The teacher comments on each group’s performance (for not more than a minute). Peers are also encouraged to give feedback.

Wrap up and follow-up activity: Students listen to two news bulletins and consciously note the differences in the spoken form and the written form and report in the next session.