Reporter: Marica Romano
Group Members: Francesca Bon, Ambra
Minisini, Marica Romano, Mauro Sandre
Discussion: How to use the text “All school pupils to get a
behaviour mentor” for teaching purposes
Text Type: A newspaper article published in “The Guardian”
Features of the text:
- It is a piece of realia
which can develop the students’ reading and writing skills in a meaningful way.
- According to the Common European Framework, the language
used in the text is explicitly related to the educational domain. Therefore the
article naturally addresses those, like students, who are engaged in any kind
of organised learning.
- It could elicit a class discussion about the
following topics: education, freedom, discipline and social rules.
- Its language is quite simple. So it could be exploited
to introduce and analyse the main features of a specific text type like the “newspaper article”.
- The text is quite long
- Since there are no pictures, the layout may be not
very appealing for students.
School and Target class: Liceo scientifico,
4th Form.
Aims:
- To develop communicative competence (in particular,
discourse competence) and language awareness.
- To improve critical thinking in order to be able to
play an active role when reading a newspaper.
Objectives:
- To analyse the stylistic features and conventions of
a newspaper article.
- To compare and contrast two different types of
newspapers dealing with the same topic (i.e. a tabloid like “The Daily Mirror” vs. a quality newspaper like “The
Guardian”).
Activities:
1) The teacher gives out two texts on the same topic
(the above mentioned article and another one printed in “The Daily Mirror”). Pre-reading
activity: students look at the titles and make predictions about the content of
the two articles. This brainstorming activity allows the students to activate their
previous language knowledge before dealing with the new topic.
2) The students read both the articles to get the main
idea. Then they are asked to identify all the key words and cognates related to
the lexical area of education and discipline. Carrying out this task, students learn
new vocabulary and reflect on the linguistic differences between a tabloid and a
quality paper (e.g. formal vs.
informal language, connotation vs.
denotation, etc.)
3) The students focus on the main stylistic features
of the two articles (e.g. layout, paragraph organization and text cohesion, deviations,
passive forms, noun phrases, reporting verbs…) in order to point out how they convey
the same information. In particular, the students are encouraged to reflect on
the overall purpose(s) of the articles (to inform, to entertain, to criticize…)
and to consider the viewpoints from which they are written. This kind of
activity is meant to enhance students’ language awareness, since it allows them
to distinguish facts from opinions and personal judgements.
4) Creative writing activity. Students are asked to write
a report on the issue through different perspectives. They are one of the
following: a teacher, a student, a parent, a head teacher.