Lesson plan

News
Topic

News media, news headlines and news stories

Learning outcomes

• Describe the advantages and disadvantages of different news media

• Create a news story from a headline
• Develop note-taking and summarising skills
• Ask and answer questions about a recent event

Age and level

13-17, Adults (B1+)

Time

Varies depending on chosen tasks

Materials

• Presentation or student worksheet

• (Optional) A selection of newspapers (or learners can use mobile devices if you have internet
access)

Introduction

This lesson is about news and news media and gives learners opportunities to express their own
opinions. Learners start by talking about the news and considering the advantages and disadvantages
of the four main media sources – newspapers, radio, TV, social media and websites. Then learners look
at some headlines and invent the story behind one. Learners also summarise a news story, discuss

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 Lesson plan
controversial quotes based on the topic of news, and finally they step into the role of a news reporter to
carry out an interview with a person from the news.

The tasks can be selected and adapted to suit your learners depending on their level, age group and
context. You can use a student worksheet for this lesson, or a presentation for a no-printing option.

Procedure

Before the There are a number of different activities in this lesson. Choose activities according
lesson to the age / level of your learners, the skills / language that you would like to focus
on, the time that you have available and your local context.

Lead-in • Show slide 2 of the presentation or refer learners to the Lead-in activity in
(10 minutes) the student worksheet.
• Ask learners to discuss the questions. If you have a large class, you could
split the learners up into small groups. In a smaller class you could sit in a
circle with the learners and facilitate the discussion.
• If learners have discussed the questions in groups, ask some to share their
answers with the whole class.
• The idea is to get everyone thinking about the importance (or not) of what’s
happening in the world, and how they get their news (e.g. newspapers, TV /
radio, websites, social media, mobile apps, podcasts, from other people
etc).

Task 1: • Show slide 3 of the presentation or refer learners to Task 1 in the student
Advantages and worksheet.
disadvantages • Option 1: In pairs or small groups, learners note the advantages /
of news media disadvantages of each type of media as a source of information. They could
(15 minutes) include other sources if they would like to.
• Option 2: Put learners into pairs / small groups. Each pair / group notes the
advantages / disadvantages of a different type of media (e.g. Group 1 thinks
about newspapers; Group 2 thinks about radio etc). Include other sources if
you like. When pairs / groups are ready, make new groups which include a
learner from Group 1, a learner from Group 2 etc. They share their ideas in
the new groups.

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 Lesson plan
• Elicit examples of advantages / disadvantages of each media as a source of
information (see suggestions below).
• Pairs / groups then decide which media they think is best. Ask pairs / groups
to say why.
Suggested advantages / disadvantages
Newspapers
Advantages: readers don’t need technical skills / device / electricity to
access; readers can decide what to look at and in which order; can avoid
advertising; news remains printed and can’t be changed
Disadvantages: no interaction; not immediate; can be expensive
Radio
Advantages: accessible with a simple device; can be immediate; listeners
can do other things while listening; listeners can share experience with
others; cheap or free
Disadvantages: lack of visuals; may have advertising; less choice in which
stories to listen to
TV
Advantages: accessible with a TV; can be immediate; viewers can share
experience with others; cheap or free; visuals help viewers to understand
Disadvantages: may have advertising; less choice in which stories to watch;
TV personalities may dominate
Social media / websites
Advantages: accessible anytime / anywhere with internet access and
device; readers can interact; can be immediate; low cost (if have internet
access / device); wide / diverse range of information (potentially)
Disadvantages: need device / internet access; anyone can publish and may
not be edited; information may be false / incorrect; quality can vary; readers
may only see certain kinds of information

Task 2: Headline • Show slide 4 of the presentation or refer learners to Task 2 in the student
stories worksheet. Explain that these are the headlines of some news stories.
(15 minutes) • Ask learners to work in pairs and choose (or assign them) one of the
headlines. They should guess or invent the story – encourage them to be
creative!

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 Lesson plan
• Tell them to make notes of vocabulary and events of the news story. They
should include important information such as: When / where did it take
place? Who was involved? What happened? What are the results?
• Walk around the class as pairs work and help if necessary. Give a time limit.
• When pairs are ready, put them together to share their stories. If you have a
small group, ask pairs to share their stories with the rest of the class.
• You may like to make notes of good language use / language errors to
review at the end of the activity.

Note: The headlines given are real and deliberately avoid politics, showbiz and any
stories that will go out of date quickly. If you want to make this activity more topical,
you can choose your own headlines.

For higher levels you could choose some headlines from different sources (e.g.
different newspaper websites, social media sites) and you could look at the
differences in style and content.

For lower levels you could do this activity using photos from newspapers instead
of headlines.

Task 3: • Do this activity if you have newspapers or if learners have devices and
Summarising access to the internet. Alternatively, ask learners to bring an interesting
news stories news story that they have found to the lesson.
(20-25 minutes) • Allow learners to choose a news story that they find interesting. With
younger learners, you may like to provide a selection of suitable news
stories. Some may not be appropriate.
• Explain that learners are going to give a summary of the story to the rest of
their group or the class, so they need to read it carefully. Once they decide
what the important parts of the story are, they should make notes of the
points and keywords that will help them give their summary.
• Give a time limit and walk around and help as learners read and make notes
for their summary. They could do this individually or in pairs. Encourage
them to use dictionaries and not to always rely on you to supply all the
vocabulary.
• When learners are ready, put them into groups to share their summaries. As
they listen to each other, they should think of one question they’d like to ask

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 Lesson plan
the learner giving the summary. At the end, select a few learners to ask their
question.
• You might like to introduce this activity by modelling it first. Tell learners that
you read a really sad / funny / odd article in the paper this morning. Give a
brief summary of the article and encourage them to ask you about it.
• Learners could also write up their summary for homework.

Task 4: • Show slide 5 of the presentation or refer learners to Task 4 in the student
Discussion worksheet.
(10–15 minutes) • Ask them to read and talk about the quotes in small groups. They should
choose some quotes, say if they agree or disagree and why, and make sure
they find out other people’s opinions too.
• The activity could also be done as a mingle, with each learner taking one
quote and going round the room to discuss it with the other learners. They
could then report to the class what the overall class opinions were for their
quote. If you have more learners than quotes, some learners could do the
same quote, then compare what they discussed in pairs before reporting
back.
• Before the activity, you might like to brainstorm functional language for
agreeing and disagreeing on the board and encourage learners to use the
language in their discussions.

Task 5: Role • Show slide 6 of the presentation or refer learners to Task 5 in the student
play worksheet.
(20-30 minutes) • Tell learners to imagine that they are a journalist, and that they have been
asked to interview someone who has been in the news.
• Elicit some names. These could be people from a local / national news
story, a politician, a sports person, a celebrity etc. The important thing is that
they have been in the news.
• In pairs, learners choose a person to interview, and then write some
questions to ask. The questions should be related to the news story
involving the person.
• Then in their pairs learners decide who will role play the journalist and who
will role play the interviewee. The interviewee should think about what their

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 Lesson plan
answers might be, and the journalist can either help them with ideas or think
of some follow-up questions they could ask to their main questions.
• Depending on your learners, they might like to perform their interview in
front of the class, imagining they are on TV or online, or do their interview
together before writing it up for a newspaper or news website.

Contributed by

Jo Budden

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© The British Council 2021 The United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We are registered in England as a charity.