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A Sense of Community

A couple of weeks into lockdown I thought it might be a good idea to have a weekly newspaper which we could send out to students electronically.  The fantastic team that I work with made this happen for us.

Each week we gather news related items, simplify the language which we collate in the weekly ESOL newspaper.  We use Google Docs which can then be sent out via a link through any medium such as text message etc (if you want to try this make sure you go to the advanced settings and make link accessible to all).  Within the articles for the paper we embed links to videos and other entertaining things.  The tutors edit the newspaper but we encourage our students to write things to add into it too.  So far we've had book reviews and recipes, complete with photos.  It's been lovely and I hope also creates a sense of community and connection between students.

We have created newspapers for the entry levels so far.  Sometimes I set a couple of comprehension questions to check that it is being read and that understanding is there.

I do remember back in my early teaching days someone doing this every week.  I'm sorry to say I can't remember who, as I don't want to take credit for someone else's idea, but I am thoroughly enjoying resurrecting it! If you have memories of this do leave a comment!

It would be fantastic at some point to move to student editors and journalists which could be a whole course project!  The learning potential is vast...

  •  features of text
  • proof reading
  • comprehension
  • spellings
  • grammar (of course!)
  • reported speech
I could go on but I'm sure you get the jist!

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