The republic of uzbekistan uzbek state world languages university english faculty III

Using Newspaper At The Advanced Level . At this level, the teacher can bring or ask the students to bring newspapers to the class. Teacher asks them to read, for instance, letters to the editor's section of the newspaper. Students discuss in groups, the letters noting the simplicity, complexity, or controversial nature of the letters. The teacher should provide feedback to the class at the end of the exercise. Learners can also be asked to write their own letters to the editor or respond to the ones they have come across. After they have written the letters, they should be asked to compare the letters with a partner and correct the errors. The teacher should monitor the process and ensure that the letters are circulated and that every student participates effectively in the exercise. Those selected to respond to letters to the editor should cut out such letters. They can also be encouraged to write letters directly to an editor. The publication of such a letter would be an event and would motivate others to write.
Another suggested activity involving the use of newspaper is to cut out several photographs of people found in the newspaper and mandate students to write descriptions of them. Those photographs or pictures should be these that are familiar, relevant and of interest to the learners. They should also match the photographs with the descriptions and speculate about what the news story could be.
Furthermore, students can be asked to choose a newspaper article, follow its process over a period of time and discuss the events that occur. They could be asked to write down a comprehensive report that is exchanged by the class members.
Moreover, the students can be told to read an article that describes a problem and discuss its causes and effects. The teacher can divide the class into two groups. The first group takes a look at the problems while the second looks at the effects. In all these cases the teacher acts as a monitor and also offers assistance where necessary.
Another suggested activity that teachers can engage in with advanced students involves asking learners to chose a short item of news that they find interesting and rewrite it by changing some of the details or changing from present to past or vice versa. The students should exchange the news item with a partner and work to spot the changes made from the original news items in the newspaper.
The learners could also role-play the news contained in a particular portion of the newspaper. They should choose an interesting article or story from the newspaper and make copies for every pair of learners. The learners could first read the newspaper and then improvise a short role-play.²⁰
In order to encourage reading, and writing, newspaper can be used to set quiz. In the cases, the teacher divides the class into five groups and gives each group a plain sheet paper and a section of newspaper. A ten or fifteen minute quiz based on a section of the newspaper can be given and different types of questions depending on the content of the paper can be set.
For instance,
1. Where is ------------------------------------------------------------ -----------------
2. How long has he/she been in --------------------------------- -------------------
3. How many people are involved in ---------------------------- -------------------
4. What happened in ------------------------------------------------ ------------------
5. Who is --------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------
6. How much did ----------------------------------------------------- --pay/cost
7. Who won the --------------------------------------------------- and when did he win it etc.
In each group, similar questions can be set based on the content of the section and answers are provided for them by reading the section of the newspaper concern. This means that newspapers provide excellent materials to test students’ comprehension of a text. The teacher monitors the activity and checks grammar and spelling used in the questions and answers. When all the groups have finished, they change their works. The teacher goes through all the works and offer feedback where the need arises.
Students at this level may be asked to look for examples of similes, metaphors, irony, hyperbole, satire and other literacy principles found in newspaper. This is not only to develop their English language but also encourage reading activity.²¹