The news can be a challenging thing to talk about. For intermediate to advanced students, it can be motivating to talk about real world topics. CNN offers a 10 min news recap every day. You can put the close captions on so the vocabulary can be heard and read and you can scaffold the activity by discussion what they know about the news. It is also a good natural context to speak in the past tense.
Pre discussion
- What kind of news stories do you follow?
- What are some of the top news stories these days?
- What newspapers, blogs, news channels do you use to get your news?
The Video: CNN in 10
- Make a list of the news stories
- Do a Tell Back of what is said in each story
- Is there a story that you would like to discuss?
- Why is this story significant for you?
- Were there some interesting words or vocabulary?
Have a good discussion.
Mel