1. Using Mass Media in the
Classroom
Spring School
English Teaching Resource Center
Chisinau
March 5, 2012
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2. Newspapers &
Mass Media
For Text Analysis and Language
Learning
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3. Why use mass media
messages?
Current information
Cultural information
New vocabulary
New stylistics
Satisfaction as a language learner
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4. Connecting with
Students
• Wide range of material for students’ wide
range of interests
• Chance to understand students
• Increased participation
• Relatable material
• Discussion/debate opportunities
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5. What is mass media?
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6. 6

7. Mass Media=Connection
• Young Moldovans interested in global
engagement
• Opportunity to connect with people across
the world
• Various fora for discussion, debate and
sharing
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8. Where to begin?
• Introduce students to standard differences
• Solicit topics of interest
• Don’t underestimate the value of certain
themes
• Plan an introductory lesson to acquaint
students with ideas of mass media
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9. Journalistic vs. Literary
Writing
Past Tense
Minimize!
• Less capitalization
• Less punctuation
• Shorter paragraphs
• Internationally standard?
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10. Newspaper Articles
6 Sections Online News Today
O
L Headline
D New York Times
Byline ■Headline
■Byline
S Dateline
■Created date (no time)
■Content
C ■Dateline
H Lead ■Entities (inline)
■Contributor declaration
O ■Related Stories/Past Coverage
Content/body
O
L Conclusion/Author Contribution
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11. Inverted Pyramid
Most Important
Somewhat
Important
Fluff
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12. News Values
• Impact
• Timeliness
• Prominence
• Proximity
• Bizarreness/Oddity
• Conflict
• Currency
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13. Types of News Articles
Hard News
Feature Stories
Opinion Pieces
Columns
Editorials
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14. Where does the news
come from?
• Naturally occurring events, like disasters and
accidents
• Planned activities, like meetings and news
conferences
• Reporter’s enterprise
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15. Points for Discussion
• The role of the journalist
• Objectivity and fairness
• Bias
• News providers
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16. Suggested Activities
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17. Ongoing Project Ideas
• Journal
• Giving each student a
“beat”
• Giving each student a
publication or two to
follow
• Group writing
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18. Analysis Activities
• Practice answering the 5 W’s and H questions
• Provide an article
• Provide students with the Ws and H, along with several
variations of these questions
• Bias identification
• Provide two articles from different sources discussing
the same issue
• How do they differ? Can students identify forms of bias?
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19. Discussion Activities
• Seminar Discussion
• Students must bring 2-3 discussion questions
• Article Presentation
• Students choose vocabulary words for the class
and summarize the article’s content
• Each student required to ask at least one
question
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20. Writing Activities
• Summarizing-essential for succinct writing
• Article writing
• Begin with leads, then gradually work to
full articles
• Work through the writing process
• Observation, research, sources,
interviews, fact-checking
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21. Identifying News Values
• In your group, go down the list of news values
and see if the article contains one or more of
these values. State why or why not.
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22. Ws and H
• Who is involved in this story? Who is affected by it? Who is the best
person to tell the story?
• What happened? What is the point of this story? What is the writer
trying to say?
• Where did this happen? Where else could I go to get the full story?
• When did this happen? When did the turning points occur in the story?
• Why is this happening? Is it an isolated case or part of a trend? Why
are people behaving the way they are?
• How did this happen? How will things be different because of what
happened?
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23. Summarize!
• Work in groups to summarize your stories.
What are the most crucial elements?
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24. Advantages Disadvantages
• Exposure to • Difficult to entertain
otherwise potentially all students’
ignored topics interests
• Accessibility • Frustration with
vocabulary and style
• Linguistic exercise
• Intimidating material
• Group or individual
opportunities
• Real world practice
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25. Thank you!
Questions/Comments?
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