Todays news in your classroom - Rapid Authentic Text Lessons using Technology
Using authentic texts in the classroom is widely accepted as best practice.
However, there are a number of challenges associated with the sourcing and annotation
of authentic texts, not least that it is a time consuming and labor intensive activity.
Two of the key tasks for an educator preparing an authentic text are:
(1) sourcing a text at an appropriate level of difficulty for use with ESL
students, and
(2) annotating the key learning points in the text. This
practice based presentation will focus on innovative ways of sourcing
authentic texts on the internet and creative ways of annotating
authentic texts for use in the classroom. In this session we will show
educators how to create lesson plans using authentic texts in less than 10mins.
3. What are the challenges?
• Finding a language focus within the
materials
• Finding materials at the right level
• Deciding what is relevant interesting &
to students
• Fitting the materials with the syllabus
• Preparation time involved
• Temporary nature of web materials
• Keeping web based materials organised
for students to revise
4. Challenges&benefits
Student comments
Video Clip
( Cannot be shared due to copyright restrictions )
See “Dress to Kill” by Eddie Izzard”
5. What are thebenefits?
• Motivational for students
• Real context
• Style diversity
• Cultural exposure
• Intrinsic educational value
• Current language
• Helps develop students’ digital literacies
6. How can web tools help?
Find It Analyze It Create It
40. Resources
http://www.wordle.net http://www.puzzle-maker.com/CW/
http://labs.translated.net/terminology-extraction/ http://www.newsforyouonline.com
http://lexically.net/wordsmith http://www.simpleenglishnews.com
http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/ http://business-spotlight.com
http://corpus.byu.edu/coca http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekly
http://www.lextutor.ca/
http://l.georges.online.fr/tools/cloze.html http://www.lingleonline.com
http://www.sketchengine.co.uk See also http://www.youtube.com/lingleonline.com
http://storify.com for some short training videos on how to use
Lingle
http://hyperpo.org
http://scoop.it
https://sites.google.com/site/casualconc/web-
concordancer
http://fivefilters.org/term-extraction/
http://maui-indexer.appspot.com/mauiapp
http://www.alchemyapi.com/api/keyword/
Notas del editor
Using authentic texts in the classroom is widely accepted as best practice. However, there are a number of challenges associated with the sourcing and annotation of authentic texts, not least that it is a time consuming and labor intensive activity. Two of the key tasks for an educator preparing an authentic text are: (1) sourcing a text at an appropriate level of difficulty for use with ESLstudents, and (2) annotating the key learning points in the text. Thispractice based presentation will focus on innovative ways of sourcingauthentic texts on the internet and creative ways of annotatingauthentic texts for use in the classroom. In this session we will show educators how to create lesson plans using authentic texts in less than 10mins.
1 / Month, Week, Several a week, EverydayNewspapers, Tweets, emails, WHICH PAPERS & WHY30mins 1hr 2hr+ PER LESSONChallenges & Obstacles …. Why’s difficult about it?
