Introduction & Overview

for the Teacher

Many ESL/EFL students would like to read English newspapers,

but they find it too difficult, in part because they do not know
enough about the conventions of newspapers and newspaper
articles or because they tend to approach newspaper articles in
class from the perspective of form – grammar and vocabulary
rather than the “informative purpose” for which it is intended.

WHY DID WE WRITE THIS BOOK?

To set a purpose for reading and removing fear of not understanding
English newspapers by raising awareness of the whole organization and
arrangement of English Newspaper.
There are numerous books in the market helping students to deal with
the same problem. The newspaper can be daunting for beginners so why
write a book in a daunting way too!
The goal of the book is to show the students a different perspective of

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newspapers. Though we are saying the same thing that other books are, we
intend to simplify the concept of reading the newspaper to reduce the stress
surrounding the students and increase their satisfaction, enthusiasm and
pleasure while using the book.
We thought it might be better to come out in a “less serious attitude”
and try to “loosen the tension” already present in the black and white and
congested pages of words and appear as colorful and frolic as possible.
When we talk of fun, it does not mean fooling around and wasting time.
Learning can also take place in unserious environments. In fact, it takes
place faster and better!

OBJECTIVES
In order to understand how this book has been designed and developed, it is
necessary to first outline its objectives. They are twofold:
A. Encouraging students to bin their phobias relating to English newspapers
and dealing with them as a rich informative source for learning the
language and getting information on topics that interest them,
appreciating them as a sign of literacy in the target language. We have
tried to design the book considering psychological aspects like humor,
pictures, color and large fonts. Psychologically better learning takes
place in a stress-free environment.
B. Teaching students how to read newspapers in English by developing
their general reading skills through critical thinking and reading
abilities in reading newspaper articles and develop their ability to use
context to garner the meanings of unknown words and make reading
newspapers a not so difficult task to accomplish.
We want our students to learn to read newspapers efficiently in English.
We want them to be able to skim through pages on the worldwide web and
identify relevant information with speed and efficiency. We hope that one
day many of them will read quickly and efficiently enough in English to use

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the language as a medium of study at university level or beyond. If we want to
encourage this kind of reading, we need to recreate the circumstances in which
readers operate in the real world outside the classroom. We are going to look
at a skill/task-based approach to reading which will enable us to do this.

SYLLABUS DESIGN AND APPROACH

The purpose of this book is to teach some specific skills that are considered
necessary or useful in reading newspapers. Skill-based syllabus focuses on
skills, and gradual development of skills gives learners confidence. This has
been designed and implemented while keeping in mind the learners’
cognitive levels. Skill-based syllabus groups linguistic competencies
(grammar, vocabulary and discourse) together into generalized types of
behavior, such as reading for the main idea, summarizing, etc.
Students read well, but fail to understand what they have just read.
Reading comprehension is simply “Depth of Analysis”. Students with poor
thinking skills have poor reading comprehension skills, too.
Burmeister (1986 qtd. in Cherney, 1986) defines critical-creative
reading and thinking as requiring the skills of analysis, synthesis and
evaluation. He adds that such cognitive abilities require readers or thinkers
to reason using techniques of formal logic or at least to be consciously aware
of the thought processes they are using. Analysis, according to Burmeister,
requires the examination of parts of the whole; synthesis is the act of
combining or unifying elements into a coherent whole; and evaluation
requires the establishment of standards and also a judgment as to the
goodness of fit of the idea. Burmeister considers evaluation to be the highest
level of the cognitive domain.
Students will comprehend and critically evaluate text as they read to
find the main idea. They will construct meaning as they analyze news
articles and write a summary.
We thought the best approach for writing this book which provides

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techniques and strategies on How to read newspapers in English would be
a skill-based/task-based approach since it is:
● useful when learners need to master specific types of language,
● easy to predict skills students will need to deal with in a context, and
● relevant to students’ needs or wants.

SELECTION OF MATERIAL/LANGUAGE DATA

Appropriateness
We could have chosen newspaper articles randomly and provided the
students with the reading strategies but based on our objective which was “to
interest” them. We have tried our best to choose less boring and upsetting
topics and articles, which are more appropriate for university students while
trying to eliminate all kinds of cultural, religious and political bias. Also
the topics and articles are chosen according to the amount of “general
knowledge” that would be useful and interesting to the students.

Length
We were careful to avoid long articles. Reading a news report in a second
language is demanding, and if the article is too long, it will discourage
students and also take up the time of the class.

Language Content and Data

Data is taken from “authentic sources” which in this case are
“newspapers”. Besides the general interest in the topic and length, the
articles were chosen with a reasonable degree of difficulty: They are chosen
from local newspapers or standard news sites like the BBC or the CNN;1
therefore, the language as well as the news provided are more of a Standard

1. These sites have a wider range of international followers rather than English
newspapers with limited domestic news about a certain English speaking country
that would require the reader to be living there in order to understand that news.

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English – neither too professional nor too facilitated. Information provided is
linguistic, experiential and cultural.

Generative
The topics lend themselves to discussion and further language practice.

Tables
Tables of vocabulary used in newspapers, abbreviations and acronyms have
been placed in the book.

THE ORGANIZATION OF CHAPTERS

The chapters of the book have been chosen according to the skills of
analysis, synthesis and evaluation i.e., starting out with looking at
newspapers as a whole.

Warm up: All chapters in the book start off with a warm up section to give
the students an idea of what they are about to encounter and also raise
questions in their mind about the information they will be processing soon.

Part 1: This part includes three chapters with the help of which students will
be able to use the following strategies necessary for understanding a
newspaper article:
 using reading strategies to comprehend,
 understanding the headlines and predicting what will occur in the
selected reading,
 using a variety of strategies to analyze words and guess meanings
from context,
 determining main idea and relevant details,
 understanding correct usage of punctuation marks,
 correctly identifying parts of speech,
 identifying details and using information to construct meaning and
make inferences,

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  distinguishing between facts and opinions,
 summarizing the key supporting details and ideas and evaluating the
article.

Part 2: Here students are introduced to various sections of the newspaper

where they use their analytic, synthetic and evaluative skills acquired
through the previous chapters. Students are provided with articles to practice
the knowledge they have gained in Part 1 of the book.
All articles are provided in the reading section of the chapters and
consist of four parts:
● Before You Read
● Comprehension Check
● Vocabulary Booster
● Translation
Before You Read: We have set up reading activities which provide a
context and a reason for reading. These are used to raise awareness of the
topic and to activate knowledge and current language. The following
activities are used:
a. First, we need to provide a context.
Before students begin to read, they will have some idea what it will
be about and what to expect from it. We start with questions which
are interesting in themselves and which are not detailed. When we
read real life, we usually have some expectations about what we are
going to read. Perhaps we know quite a lot about a topic and we
want to check on a few details. Or perhaps we have just heard about
something and are curious to know more about it. We rarely set out
to read something without knowing anything at all about the topic and
without having any expectations about what we are going to read.
b. Secondly, we need to provide a reason for reading.
We have provided a reason for reading in that we arouse the

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 curiosity of the learners by asking questions that are directly related
to the text. This provides one reason for reading: to find an answer to
the question. Sometimes in our reading we are looking for very
specific information. We may have certain beliefs which we want to
confirm or perhaps to reconsider. Or perhaps our curiosity has been
aroused by a newspaper headline or the title of an article in a
magazine, and we want to satisfy that curiosity. We try to put our
students in the same situation when they approach a reading. What
exactly do they expect to get out of the reading? What gaps in their
knowledge do they want to fill? What expectations do they have
which they want to check against their reading? How has it added to
their general knowledge?
Comprehension Check: Students are made to use their critical reading and
thinking skills in answering the comprehension questions related to the
stories in the articles. The questions in the book are not to test students
but a way to help them understand and give them practice.
● True or false
● Choose the best answer, a, b or c
● Which paragraph says …?
● What do these numbers refer to?
● What do these people think?
● Putting events in chronological order
● Summarizing
Students need to be reminded to focus on meaning rather than form.
Grammar questions are introduced as a means of getting information from
the news and not a topic to be answered on per se. They are taught to be used
as decoders and a strategy for extracting information from the newspapers.
In this way, students do not look at these grammatical tools as boring
obstructions to understanding newspapers. Often a news article provides
good examples of grammar – for example the past perfect. In this case,

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asking students to put particular events in chronological order leads to
further work on this verb form.
Unlike most course materials, the grammar work in this book is based
on context.
Vocabulary Booster: We want to develop students’ general reading fluency
and their ability to use context to garner the meaning of unknown words
focusing on strategies like prediction, anticipation, looking for
synonyms, clarifications and explanations and guessing words.
Lexical sets: An article may provide vocabulary associated with
particular topics – money, crime, and politics. Students either search the
article for members of a given lexical set with a sorting activity which uses
words from the text. This is a key skill for students to develop. Students are
given either definitions of certain words or a matching exercise (match the
word to a definition). They can then check their ideas with a dictionary (if
there is time).
Affixes: To familiarize students with formation of words, exercises in
which students are to find a particular suffix or affix are provided to help
them guess meanings and grammar of words once they learn the affixes used
with them.

Choice of words was based on:

 A greater incidence of some words
 Words having different (most common) meanings when used in
headlines
 Some words often having an unusual part of speech in headlines,
e.g., the verb “to pen”
 Different collocations or number of incidences of them (lift +
embargo, life + ban, etc.)
 Gap filling
Translation: Though using the mother tongue in English teaching
atmospheres has been quite a taboo. Research has shown that it has

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 proved very effective in better understanding of concepts of the news
and comprehension of the students.

Newspaper Activity: Here students are given the chance to bin their phobias
relating to newspapers and are ready to hold one in their hand and dig into it
for extracting the information asked from them.
Teachers can use these activities as homework projects and depending
on the time they have at hand, students can exchange information in class or
give them to the teacher to be checked and marked.

Breaktime: After each unit we have a breaktime which has various stress-
free materials related to solely news or newspapers. The aim is to just give
the students a sense of relaxation and renewing the used up energy after each
chapter of work.

LEARNER OUTCOMES
What happens when you read a book, a newspaper or magazine for
information on a topic that interests you, or when you are reading as part of
a course of study? If you are a good reader, you almost certainly don’t read
every word carefully. You read with a purpose, and as your eye skims over
the page you take from it whatever you need, predicting what is likely to
come next and adjusting your predictions as you go along. Our goal is that
students become more proficient in getting information from newspaper
articles.

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 Breaking the Ice!

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 In our modern world, the news is everywhere. On TV, radio
and the internet it is both fast and easy to stay informed
about what’s happening around the world. So, why read the
newspaper?

The answer to that is simple. It’s just like the difference

between going to the theater and reading a book; the
book is almost always better.

Tick the true statement/s about newspapers.

● Newspapers are a means by which we learn languages.
● Newspapers are the source of the information about the world –
cultural, political, etc.
● Newspapers give you a chance to improve your general knowledge
about the world and make you a more interesting person to hang out
with.
● Newspapers can help you find a job or rent an apartment in the
country where you are going to move.

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 ● Newspapers are a waste of time when we have TV news channels
and can get news faster and more conveniently.

Why Newspapers?
It doesn’t matter whether you read the news in the form of print in a
newspaper or magazine or online. What’s important is that you understand
the language and concept of news telling. Understanding news requires
knowing the “behind the scenes” events – knowing about columnists, feature
writers and reporters. There is a whole new world you need to discover
about news – whether in paper, online, or on news channels! And this will
remove your fears of the unknown and then you shall see the light!

Why English Newspapers?

If your goal is to read at a native speaker level:

So if you are a university student, then you need to be reading at that level in
the foreign language.

What Is the Role of Newspapers in Our Lives?

The newspaper may be the most commonly read print medium anywhere in
the world. It has always been a means by which we learn languages and
improve our awareness of the world – many read newspapers to learn about
cultural and political situations.
Newspaper reading can boost students’ test scores!!
“Research from the University of Minnesota indicates that students who read
a newspaper in class score 10 percent to 30 percent better on standardized
reading tests than their peers who do not read newspapers in class.”

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 For those who are going to pass international exams (IELTS / TOEFL /
FCE / CAE) in English, examiners recommend to read newspaper articles in
English regularly as such articles will be used in Reading and Writing.
Cambridge exams want to check not only how well you understand articles
but how well you can write them, too. It’s especially useful to read New
Scientist and The Economist to get ready for the Academic Module.
– You read more, you can write better essays because your knowledge is
adequate, too.
– You can provide interesting ideas to talk about.
– Shortly, reading English newspapers will not only upgrade your language
ability but also makes you more knowledgeable.

What Kinds of English Newspapers Are There?

Newspapers in English can be divided into those published in English
speaking countries and in others. Newspapers are written for native English
speaking people and for those who study the English language (ESL
learners). And newspapers for native speakers can be divided into
professional and popular.

Where Does Fear of Reading Newspapers in a Foreign Language

or Boredom from Reading Newspapers Arise from?
People are always afraid of the unknown! When you do not know the
concept of news writing and what it is based on, you get both bored and
frightened and think it is the hardest and most boring concept in the world.

Here are some suggestions to help you with an easy start!

1. If you haven’t read a newspaper in your native tongue, how can you read
it in a foreign language? Seven-year-olds may not know the words
“population, economy, government, referendum, currency” in their native

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 tongue, so, reading a foreign newspaper would be difficult for them,
because reading a newspaper in their mother tongue is difficult”.
But then you are asked to do that in English!
To understand English newspapers, you also have to know all of the
news and concepts in the newspaper. The best way to deal with foreign
newspapers, at the beginning, is to read a news story in your own language.
Then read the same news story in the foreign language newspaper. Also
you can watch the news in your own language and then in whatever
language you are studying, and compare them.
It isn’t just about knowing words. You have to know concepts.
2. If you choose to read the news, keep your dictionary close by and use it.
Do not use the dictionary 247 i.e., all the time. Sometimes you can guess
the meaning of the words that you don’t understand.
3. Writing out vocabulary helps remember it. Start a vocabulary notepad.
Use each page for the each letter, A-Z. When you learn a new word, write
it in your vocabulary notepad on the right page.
4. Explore the different sections of the newspaper. Some will be easier than
others. Choose the interesting parts of the newspaper you really want to
read. Read the first paragraph, then stop unless you think it’s interesting.
If so, go ahead.
5. Everyday read five articles which you are interested in. Once you become
familiar with the vocabulary in newspapers which appear several times,
you will remember them easily.
6. Read them as fast as a student can. In a short time, understand what the
main ideas are in newspaper articles. In addition, translate them.
7. Keep reading the newspaper regularly. The more hours you invest, the
better you will get. It may seem difficult at first, but keep going! Don’t
give up.

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 Start from today!

Keep reading English news as your

daily habit.

We hope this information is useful to you. Enjoy your book. It is

written for you!

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