Writing a news report
Intermediate level
Description
Materials
Main Aims
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To use TL in socially and culturally appropriate ways: Ss will distinguish between factual information and personal interpolation.
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To use TL to communicate in public settings: Ss will use learning strategies to extend their communicative competence.
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To use TL to achieve to obtain, process, construct, and provide subject matter information in spoken and written form.
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Ss will create mental linkages by: grouping, associating/elaborating, and placing new words into a context. Ss will practice, recombine, and analyse with reasoning. Ss will overcoming limitations in speaking and writing.
Subsidiary Aims
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Speaking: To provide fluency speaking practice in a explaining a situation, clarifying the cause and effect in the context of solving a crime.
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Reading: Ss will read a crime report, three profiles of suspects, handwritten notes by a detective. Ss will be handed a list of information in the form of questions that will be a guide for them on the facts to extract.
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Writing: To provide a brief news report on the crime. Ss will practice writing the past simple tense and the past perfect tense. Ss will get the change to express ideas in a coherent manner demonstrating cause and effect.
Procedure (46-64 minutes)
Write five jumbled words on the board and give the students two minutes to decipher them (Do one as an example so that student have the crime context in mind. Be prepared with pictures to elicit words if they are unable to figure out the words) 1. Iiahkingj=hijacking 2. ailj=jail 3. redurm=murder 4. stinglea=stealing 5. hefit=thief
1. Tell the students your own personal story about seeing a crime 2. Pair students off and give them two minutes to discuss if they have seen a crime . . . then nominate students to share 3. Elicit answers from the students and write them on the board. 4. Dictation- Dictate any words that students did not come up with 5. Handout Crime Sheets and explain what each is (three sets for three groups of students) 6. Ask students what each sheet is and ask them to highlight keywords 7. Pronunciation drills- first drill crime words chorally and then drill words to individual students 8. Read an example of the crime on the paper and ask the students to write (on a blank piece of paper) which crime they think it is, who did it, where and a short description of the circumstance that led up to the crime.
Ss are to prepare in their groups the news report. Each group will be given 10 minutes to present their report to the other two groups. They will be given the opportunity to use any facilities including drawing, pictures from the internet, using presentations and having other members from their group act out the crime.
One student from each group will be the narrator who will read out loud the report. The other members of the group will be assistants and/or actors of the crime scene.
Ask each of the other two groups about the group that presented CCQs. Get feedback from each group on the activity, how they did on it and what they would have liked to have or do for improvement on the activity. Ask each group to hang news report and/or any drawings or illustrations they produced on the wall of the classroom.
Present using the document display/scanner sentences that the groups had written that include past tense, past perfect and passive. Those are select sentences that the teacher wrote during the presentations. Ask student to read out the sentence and point out the verb and the voice.
Ask Ss what was the crime they faced the most in their work? Split Ss in pairs and give each pair a piece of paper with some verbs that were used in the lesson. Ss are to mark each verb with Past or Past Perfect and Active or Passive.