Media Review
Coordinator: Musa Nushi
Email: M_nushi@sbu.ac.ir
Media Review Template
Title plus author’s full name and affiliation
Abstract (not more than 200)
The abstract is a crucial element of any academic article; it not only summarizes your paper but also helps it reach the right audience. Your abstract should be written in both English and Persian; it should appear in block format, single spaced and justified. The abstract should include: 1) a brief (one or two sentence) introduction; 2) the media selected for the review and the significance/ purpose of the review/ selection; 3) major findings and; 4) recommendations.
Media/Application details
The authors should list the product details including:
Publisher:
Product type:
Language(s):
Level:
Media format:
Operating systems:
Hardware requirements:
Supplementary software:
Price:
Introduction (approximately 450 words)
The introduction should give a broad view of the field of educational technology with a focus on the role of technology in second/ foreign language education. It then narrows the focus on the media selected for the review and how and why the review can contribute to second/ foreign language learning and teaching.
Description (approximately 550 words)
The authors need to describe the media tool as accurately as possible, preferably using photos and graphics that make the description engaging and interesting to read. The description should tell the readers about where they can find/download the media, what its different sections are and what the features and purposes/functions of each section are, etc.
Evaluation (approximately 350 words)
In this part the overall value of the media review and its contribution to second/ foreign language is given, followed by its strengths and/or possible weaknesses. The authors can offer their own and research-supported suggestions on how those shortcomings can be removed or taken care of.
Conclusion (Approximately 250 words)
The review ends with a conclusion that summarizes the main points and make specific recommendations on the use of the media for second/ foreign language learning and teaching.
References
References should be up to date and written in APA style. The number of references should not exceed 10.
Abstract
Due to the fact that understanding the news, despite being desirable, seems to be very challenging, having a tool that can facilitate reaching this objective would be quite appealing. The present paper is intended to introduce a useful, comprehensive and up-to-date website with its different sections and their uses. The strengths and weaknesses are also pinpointed. Mr. Sean Banville who has a master’s degree in TEFL/TESL is the creator of this website and has been involved in teaching and producing digital learning materials for a long time. It must be noted that the website covers a wide range of topics and learners can select the news based on their own interests and teachers can choose the appropriate pieces of news according to cultural and political considerations.
Key Words: breakingnewsenglish, news, foreign language, practice
Media details
Publisher: Sean Banville
Product type: website
Language(s): English
Level: different
Operating systems: Windows, Macintosh, Android, IOS, etc.
Hardware requirements: connection to the Net, headphones or speakers
Price: free
Introduction
Understanding news in English in a foreign language has always been a long-lasting dream for language learners (Dornyei, 2009). However, it does not seem to be manageable for many language learners. Different attempts have been made to bring the news to language classes through various media such as websites, textbooks, and applications. One of these news-oriented programs which is offered via a website can be accessible through the following link:
www.breakingnewsenglish.com.
In this website, the learners can enjoy reading and listening to the news and do lots of activities about the theme of that news. Here the learners can feel very confident because even the beginners can understand at least the main parts of it. Because it contains different language skills, it can offer a lot of learning opportunities to the learners. It was created by Sean Banville in 2004 and was one of the nominees for the ELTon prize in 2014 for “innovations in learner resources” in the great field of English language teaching (www.englishagenda.britishcouncil.org, n.d.).
Description
This helpful website can offer a variety of services. The one that is the main concern of this review, however, has to do with news. It is updated every two days. The main lesson appears in 6 levels and in 30 pages. If you select the comprehensive lesson, you will find a large number of activities which will be available on a very long page. But it is very convenient to go directly to “mini-lessons” which are published only in two pages. Clicking on the “mini-lessons” tab will navigate you to a long list, with a picture, title, date and level (i.e. easier or harder) for every single piece of news (Figure 1).
The PDF version of the news can be downloaded and used on the phone, tablet, and computer. Besides, it can be easily printed and used everywhere. It must be noted that copying or downloading from the website causes no copyright violation as the website itself allows the users to freely use and reuse the materials online via the website or offline (Gavin & Hockly, 2007).
The parts of a two-page lesson are depicted in Figure 2:
- Title, Date, Picture: The first thing that catches our eyes when the PDF file is open is the title of that piece of news, followed by a date and a related picture.
- Text: The main part of the news is the text which appears afterwards. The text is organized in two paragraphs containing about 250 words.
- Sources: At the end, you can see the sources to further study or verify the news.
* All the following sections are activities dealing with different language skills and components which are introduced below:
- Writing: A topic is provided and you are asked to develop the topic.
- Chat: This part contains a number of key words from the text to be checked and talked about.
- True/False: Around ten sentences are to be checked if they are true or false.
- Synonym Match: Ten words are given from the passage and are to be matched with the provided words in the second list as synonyms.
- Discussion Student A and Student B: There are two lists of about 10 questions that make students think and talk about different aspects of the news.
- Phrase Match: In order to practice collocation and get familiar with this concept, the readers can do this activity and match the halves and make complete meaningful phrases using their gained knowledge from the text.
- Spelling: To practice writing of the main words, this part can be very helpful. Each word appears in a sentence in the form of underlined scrambled letters and the readers are instructed to put them in order.
- Role Play: Four cards are given with a title and each card assigns a particular role to its reader and together the readers are going to discuss the topic based on their roles.
- Speaking: As the last activity based on what has been done so far, the readers are expected to speak together and do different tasks, e.g. ranking, selecting, and organizing (Harmer, 2007).
- Answers: Finally, there are answers to synonym match and true/false items.
In order to get more involved with the text and do more exercises, another part of this website can be used which is shown in Figure 3. There are a variety of activities regarding different language skills and components which mostly deal with vocabulary (e.g. use, meaning and spelling), listening and speaking, and reading. It is noteworthy that the activities presented here are exactly the ones which will be accessible throughout the comprehensive lessons. Therefore, in mini lessons nothing is deleted. The point is that the items are presented in different sections and users can use any of them based on their needs and interests.
To ensure the correct pronunciation, there are different audio files, both in American English and British English to feed different tastes for popular accents of English. Moreover, as Figure 4 illustrates, the files are accessible in various speeds to meet the needs of different learners. To access the audio files, one must click on the news title and go below the downloadable PDF version. In “More Activities” section, under the subtitle “Listen”, one needs to click on “MP3s” and here is what they will see.
Evaluation
What follows takes the strong and weak points of this website into account very briefly.
Strengths
- Generally, it can be claimed that this website and particularly the PDF file and also its accompanying audio files can provide the learners (or the readers) with a variety of opportunities to practice language. Different areas of language, namely speaking, reading, listening, writing and vocabulary can be practiced.
- To make sure the correct pronunciation is learned, the audio files can be very beneficial. They are available in different speeds and accents. So you can choose the one that best fits your needs and interests.
-Every two days it is updated and you can find the real news in the provided sources.
- The context is very rich here. The words, discussion, writing, etc. are all based on the established context and the learners are supposed to use them and communicate in a meaningful context.
- The challenge of reading and understanding news which is really difficult to meet, can be facilitated through this website.
Weaknesses
-No feedback on learners’ production. This website provides the answers to most of the activities, but as far as the learners’ production is concerned, it seems that some modifications are required. For better results, the presented news must be studied in a class under the supervision of a teacher so that the students can receive appropriate feedback based on their performance.
- Little attention to grammar. Even though language skills and components are dealt with, grammar is not attended to a large extent here. Perhaps, it is because the main purpose is to understand the news. However, if grammar seems to be important, further explanation and practice might be required which must be provided by the teacher (Scrivener, 2011). This decision is to be made based upon the major aims of the course and the learners’ needs.
- Hard to understand (at times). Because the content of the lessons are provided through news texts, chances are that the learners are not able to understand the news. This can happen due to the learners’ inadequate cognitive knowledge or linguistic competence. To overcome this problem, teacher’s explanation of key words, a discussion about the theme of that particular news may be helpful.
Conclusion
In sum, the present article made an attempt to introduce a useful website that presents one piece of news every other day. The news can be accessed in mini lessons and also comprehensive lessons. The mini lessons appear in two pages including a number of different activities. It can offer useful exercises regarding different aspects of language.
Besides, it can satisfy some learners’ need for reading and understanding news and providing lots of opportunities to practice English in a meaningful context. Used individually or in a class, the two-page lessons have a lot to offer to the interested learners.
Acknowledgement
My heartfelt appreciation goes to the supportive reviewer(s) for their useful comments on the original version of this review article.
References
Dornyei, Z. (2009). The psychology of second language acquisition. Oxford: OUP.
Gavin, D. & Hockly, N. (2007). How to teach English with technology. Essex: Pearson Education.
Harmer, J. (2007). The practice of English language teaching. Essex: Pearson Education.
Scrivener, J. (2011). Learning Teaching. Oxford: Macmillan
Online Sources
www.breakingnewsenglish.com
www.englishagenda.britishcouncil.org/events/eltons/previous-eltons/2014