Toolbox

Smart Learning-Reading the news-Compulsory

When you live in a new country, one of the most important things is to understand what is happening around us. It is also very important to understand how this country sees the rest of the world. We can do it by reading the local and worlld news regularly. We will learn a lot about the culture of Australia and, at the same time, our English will improve.

Tips to read the news (newspapers or online news):

• Read the headlines
• Look at the pictures
• Read the topic sentences: the first sentece of each paragraph is the one with the news.
• Use skimming: to quickly run your eyes across the whole article to undersstand the general meaning ( to get the gist). We do this to get an idea of what the article is about. It also gives you an indication of the writer's point of view.
  
• Use scanning: to look for a specific piece of information in the article. It could be a name, a figure (amount), a date, an explanation of a technical term, an idea to support an opinion, etc. You scan an article to get specific information without having to read the whole text.

Activity 1
Go to the Sydney Morning Herald
Write a list of the different sections. Locate the World news & national news sections. Choose one piece of news that interest you. Write about it. Do not copy and paste. Skim, scan and summarise it in your own words.

Assessment: upload your answer or write it in your notes, blog, journal.

Activity 2
Find the opinion or commentary section. Read the letters to the editor. Choose one to respond to. Before writing your letter, research the item of news (read past Sydney Morning Herald articles of the same piece of news, read about the same piece of news in other newspapers, search the net).

Assessment: write a letter to the editor about a topic that intersts you which responds to someone else's letter

Activity 3

Understanding humour is one of the hardest things to do in a second language. The Sydney Morning Herald has Column 8 at the back of the paper. It contains humorous little passages about life in Sydney. To understand them you often need to have local knowledgeand cultural knowledge of Australia.

Choose one item from column 8. Email it to one of your classmates with a list of questions to try and understand its meaning and the humour in it.

You will have to help one of your classmates to understand his/her chosen item.


We can discuss column 8 items in our forum.


Assessmment: help each oother understand 1 item from column 8 and participate in the forum.

posted by rosa ochoa @ 6:36 AM