5 Ways to Use News Articles in the ESL Classroom

If you’re looking for an easy, low prep ESL class, look no further than news articles. They are ideal for one-to-one classes, small groups, and larger group settings. You can also find something for nearly every level. Read on to find out the best ways that you can include news articles in your ESL classroom. 

News Articles in the ESL Classroom

I’m going to use one of my all time favorite news articles for Spanish students as an example. 

As you can see, this news article is over a year old, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a fun topic. You can use current events if you have a more politically inclined class, but if you do, try to keep it about teaching English rather than teaching your political opinions. This kind of news article, however, is safe to use in any context and will never become dated. You can use it year after year.

In the example news article, even from the title we have interesting cultural vocabulary. You can ask them what they think about the title and why they think it’s called that (allow them a moment to skim the text). Then you can teach them the expression “Blessed are the peacemakers” and add a little cultural context (this one happens to be biblical).

1. Read the news article in class: 

This works for any size class. Most news articles are divided into small, one to three sentence paragraphs. You can have a student read one paragraph. Not only is this a good way to check for pronunciation and reading fluency, but you can also stop and ask if there is any vocabulary that they don’t know. In a group setting, anyone can ask about vocabulary. Here is an example of the text: 

Some possible vocab: napkin-strewn, mild, bulked out, namesake, standoff, denomination of origin, adamant, etc

You can also look at grammatical structures, such as: One is…the other is, as (Spanish) as – compared with “As American as apple pie”, etc.  

I like to stop after every couple of paragraphs and actually talk about what we’re reading. If they have a lot to say about it, it can extend the amount of time you spend on the one article. For example: Did you know there was a Brotherhood of Manchego Cheese? What do you think about that? Is there anything else you know of that tries this hard to protect their products? (They may talk about champagne in France, vs cava in Spain).

2. Have Them Pre-Read the Article at Home

Students can come in with a list of questions ready to go. You could then use the class time to do a debate if you’d like to work on speaking and listening, or you could have them do a timed writing exercise focusing on the opinion essay. 

Here are some links to PDF guides for Cambridge writing assessment.

• B1
• B2
• C1

3. Found Poetry

You can do this with any kind of text. Give each student or pair the news article (or even different news articles if you prefer). They should read the news article and black out any words or phrases that they do not want. The words they leave on the page create the poem. 

This exercise is not only fun for creative type students, but it also makes them think about how the words can be fit together grammatically.

4. Presentations

Students can be assigned specific news articles or you can give them different resources to find some on their own, such as BBC News, The New York Times, or any other favorite news site. You could even use News in Levels if you would like to assign them something specific to their English level. I personally prefer real news pages, as it’s the best way to learn vocabulary in context, but a graded site may be useful for lower level students. 

Once the students have their news article, you can set a specific time limit for each student to present their article. You could have one student present per day, and create a more elaborate power-point presentation, or you could have multiple students do a more basic summary report. 

Whichever format you choose, you need to give other students something to do. You could assign them the role of interviewer after the presentation, where each listening student is responsible for asking at least one followup question.

5. News Games

When working with kids and teenagers, it’s important to not only focus on exam tasks, but to also keep it fun. Here are some fantastic activities from TeachingEnglish.org that would be great for this age group. You may find that some adults will love these ideas too!

Which of these ideas is your favorite? Do you have any other ideas for using news articles in the ESL classroom? Let us know in the comments below!