The Use of Newspapers for L2 Reading: Practical Activities

doi:10.4236/ce.2012.34072

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Creative Education

2012. Vol.3, No.4, 471-478

Published Online August 2012 in SciRes (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ce) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2012.34072

The Use of Newspapers for L2 Reading: Practical Activities

Gloria Luque-Agulló, Lucas González-Fernández

Department of English Filology, Faculty of Humanities and Education Sciences, University of Jaén, Jaén, Spain

Email: gluque@ujaen.es

Received January 27th, 2012; revised February 30th, 2012; accepted March 15th, 2012

Nowadays the acquisition of literacy skills in the foreign language is a highly demanding task cognitively

speaking. To improve this learning process, this paper presents a three-fold approach using print and vir-

tual newspapers: first, a brief theoretical revision of the issues involved in learning how to read in a for-

eign language or transfer L1 reading skills to the foreign language, second, a wide selection of activities

to be used when working with newspapers, and third, two sessions that exploit newspapers in the class-

room which can constitute part of a wider lesson plan for Students preparing the English test for the Uni-

versity Entrance Exam (2nd of Bachillerato in the Spanish Educative System).

Keywords: Literacy Skills; Newspapers; Second Language Learning; Spain

Reading Processes and Theories: Learning

to Read an L2

Like learning how to speak, the acquisition of reading is a

very complex process. Historically speaking, reading systems

have progressed from concrete and simple schemes to highly

abstract procedures, cognitively more demanding. The first

known reading system used pictograms in the form of small

drawings representing objects or concepts. Then, Chinese ideo-

grams, also in the form of pictures, symbolized ideas or objects,

but not concrete words. The following type of writing, logo-

grams, was more abstract, for instance, Egyptian hierograms,

which had an equivalence with words and sounds. Nowadays,

syllabic systems like the Japanese Kana represent syllables,

whereas alphabetic systems like English or Spanish represent

phonemes. As can be seen, there has been a progression to-

wards more abstract and cognitively demanding reading and

writing systems. The development of literacy skills is, in most

developed countries, universal, and it has been suggested (Wolf,

Vellutino, & Gleason, 1999) that this process is parallel to the

cognitive and cultural development of human beings: from

more simple ways of knowledge, thought—and literacy—to

more complex systems. Thus, nowadays, learning to read in-

volves highly challenging phonological, visual and memoriza-

tion skills.

Some of the tasks involved in acquiring the literacy skills in-

clude being able to discriminate between graphemes, (cat vs.

pat), their order (pat vs. tap), the size of words, types of print

and style. To carry out these tasks learners have to use a num-

ber of strategies:

 Storing rules about the order of appearance of graphemes;

 Storing rules to order graphemes within words;

 Storing representations of redundant combinations of gra-

phemes with invariant orthography and pronunciation;

 Discriminating between visually similar words;

 Storing as units combinations of morphophonemic units

smaller than words, and

 Identifying new words t hrough the re-combination of known

elements.

Besides these visual strategies, reading involves knowledge

of the phonological, semantic and syntactic codes, their rules,

and last but not least, abilities in the motor systems so that the

learner can articulate (produce) the concepts formulated. Part of

this knowledge is already established in the case of learning a

second/foreign language when learners are beyond 6 or 7 years

and, according to some theories, (Kong, 2006; Stevenson,

Schoonen, & de Glopper, 2007) it can be transferred and used

for L2 reading.

However, alphabetic systems can represent phonemes and

sounds in a direct way, as in Spanish or Italian, with shallow

orthographies, or the relationship might not be direct, as in

English, with a deep orthography. When this relationship be-

tween orthography and pronunciation is not transparent, cogni-

tive demands are higher, as there is a mismatch between the

oral representation and its written form. Thus, a Spanish learner

will be able to use his/her reading skills for learning English,

but he will have to learn to compensate for the lack of corre-

spondence between the two systems: orthography and phono-

logy (Wolf, Vellutino, & Gleason, 1999).

L2 Reading Models

A lot has been written about L1 learning literacy skills (i.e.

Arroyo, 1998). Much of that knowledge has been used to ex-

plain the same process for the L2. In general, there are two

groups of reading models depending on how the processes of

recognition and identification of written words are interpreted.

Learning to read can be considered as a top-down process or a

bottom-up one. Top-down reading is related to a global proce-

dure, easy for native speakers or advanced learners of a lan-

guage, whereas bottom-up reading is related to analytical de-

coding, and it is driven by a process that results in meaning and

proceeds from the units to the whole. Alderson (1984) states

that reading in a foreign language is possible even when the

knowledge of the language is lacking provided that the reader

makes usage of skills as guessing, anticipating information or

inferring. In contrast, bottom-up reading results much easier for

learners of a foreign language as it is a useful technique for

scanning tasks or intensive reading. Whereas top-down models

interpret reading as a process guided by the contextual informa-

G. LUQUE-AGULLÓ, L. GONZÁLEZ-FERNÁNDEZ

tion, which helps the reader deduce the printed stimuli (textual

cues: grapho-phonic information, syntactic and semantic data),

bottom-up models assume that recognition is codified mainly

through using the text cues or printed words, but not the context.

This recognition is carried out in discrete stages, hierarchically

organized: first visual data are processed, then recognized and

finally interpreted (Wolf, Vellutino, & Berko, 1999).

Specifically in the case of L2, reading models also interpret

the reading process as a data-driven (bottom-up) and/or con-

ceptually driven (top-down) process. Bottom-up L2 reading

models (LaBerge & Sa muels, 197 4; Gough, 1985 ) consi der read-

ing as a part-to-whole processing of the text. Its advocates be-

lieve the readers need to identify letter features, then link these

features to recognize letters, combine letters to recognize spell-

ing patterns, link spelling patterns to recognize words, and then

proceed to sentence, paragraph and text-level processing. De-

chant (1991) claims that bottom-up models operate on texts

which are hierarchally organized—grapho-phonic, phonemic,

syllabic, morphemic, word, and sentence—and that readers first

process the smallest linguistic units to decipher the longest

units later.

The second group of models, top-down approaches, assume

that readers can understand a text selection without recognizing

some of the words by deducing the meaning through contextual

and grammatical cues, (Gove, 1983). More recent accounts

assume there is an interaction between top-down and bottom-up

models, and in fact teaching approaches focus on teaching us-

ing both data-driven and conceptually driven techniques (Mo-

hamad, 1999; Alderson, 2000).

Regardless of the approach, reading for meaning should be

the primary aim of reading, and the most important aspect of

reading is the amount of information obtained through reading,

particularly in the case of intermediate (A2-B11) and advanced

learners (B2 and beyond), such as those preparing for the Uni-

versity entrance exam in Spain 2.

Pedagogical Approaches to L2 Reading

In order to teach L2 reading two possibilities arise: one may

assume the learner is able to transfer his/her L1 literacy skills

(Goodman, Goodman, & Flores, 1979, in Kong, 2006). In that

case teaching should focus on data-driven processes, to notice

the differences in orthography, syntax, and so on, that is to say,

the learner main task is to decode units in order to acquire

meaning. On the other hand, if L1 literacy skills are only par-

tially transferred to the L2 (Kong, 2006), teaching should focus

on both bottom up and top down processes, to make learners

use the help of the context and their background knowledge.

Whatever the theory, learners read a language they may not

understand, so both processes have to be used.

Learning to read a second language in and outside the class-

room (Harmer, 1998) usually involves two types of reading,

intensive and extensive. On the one hand, extensive reading,

also referred to as “supplementary reading”, consists on reading

rapidly, this is what advanced learners of languages, teachers,

or native speakers use when reading a book, a magazine, or a

newspaper: attention is focused on the meaning of the text and

not on the language used. As background knowledge is used, it

is a conceptually-driven or top-down process. On the other

hand, intensive reading means that the readers take a text, read

it line by line, and examine it in depth using dictionaries or

grammar books, among others. They focus on the units to ex-

tract meaning, so this would be a bottom-up or data-driven

oriented process. To facilitate the development of reading skills,

both types of reading include a series of stages in which the

learner either focuses on the units or on the whole: pre-reading,

during-reading, and after-readin g (Arroyo, 1998; Harmer, 1998;

Mora, 2001; Wallace, 2001). These stages help learners and

readers reach a better understanding of the text, transfer L1

literacy skills and improve their L2 competence.

Pre-reading is good to activate schemas and background in-

formation, and it is closely related to top-down reading. The

main aim of the tasks before reading is to activate the topic and

world knowledge of the learner and promote reading strategies

like inference, hypothesis reformulation and use of context for

the global comprehension of the text.

After the pre-reading activities, while-reading exercises can

focus on the content and/or the use of language (Luque, 2011).

Tasks during reading, particularly language ones (see Section

4), are closely related to bottom-up strategies. The exploitation

of the text will depend on the abilities of the teacher. Several

readings of the text should be carried out to acquire the proper

skills. First reading in order to know what the topic is about,

second reading to look for details or specific information, and

third reading (in advanced levels) to analyze critically the text.

The main aim of these activities is to guide the reader through

the text. Different reading skills are implemented to automate

the reading process in the second or foreign language. In con-

clusion, the main goal of tasks before and during reading is to

develop the autonomous learning, so learners can pass from

intensive to extensive reading with longer and less graded texts

(see Hammer 1998 for more information about graded readers).

Finally, after-reading activities are aimed at developing the

meta-comprehension of the reading process, to improve the oral

and written production, and in general, the linguistic compe-

tence (Luque, 2011). Besides, Grabe and Stoller (2001) claim

tasks after reading mean understanding the main ideas of a text

(see Section 4).

Use of Newspapers for Second Language

Reading: A Typology of Activities

The use of the press for teaching an L2 is not new. However,

different teaching approaches have emphasized different as-

pects: the style, the language and its features, the communica-

tive possibilities of the genre… The relevance, interest, topic,

and varied information can turn newspapers into really moti-

vating aids for learners. Newspapers are valuable resources;

several editorials publish text books with comprehension texts,

either real or simulated, extracted from real newspapers. People

learn through reading, and reading about new things in one’s

interest subject, undoubtedly helps motivation (Sanderson,

2001). Their didactic use is wide and complex since the four

language skills, together with vocabulary and grammar, can be

developed and improved, aspects about the target society or

1Council of Europe (2006) Common European Framework of Reference for

Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEFR): http://www.coe. int/

t/dg4/linguistic/cadre_en.asp

2The University Entrance Exam in Spain includes a test for a second lan-

guage (English and French are the most frequent languages) which consists

of a text for reading with some comprehension questions, use of English/

French with vocabulary and grammar questions, and a written composition.

Its approximate level according to the CEFR is A2 or B1. This test is now

in the process of being adapted in order to measure oral competence, but

most Comm unit ies have not yet updated the exam.

472

G. LUQUE-AGULLÓ, L. GONZÁLEZ-FERNÁNDEZ

culture are learnt, and discussions may be motivated and trig-

gered.

The use of real newspapers as material for improving L2

reading has been so frequently used that it has become stereo-

typed and worn-out, overgeneralizing students’ interests, using

outdated pieces of news or texts which have not been adapted

to the students’ level of L2. After the extensive experience,

researchers (Allwright, 1981; Hill, 1990; Hobbs, 2001) have

determined some of the benefits and drawbacks of using the

press in the English as a foreign language (EFL) class. Many

teachers like the use of newspapers in the class because they are

very easy to access and are a great source of information for

lessons. Newspapers usually deal with more recent topics of

interest for learners than course-books. There are many kinds of

language in newspapers (stories, narrative, advertising, letters,

and reports, among others) and they help develop the aesthetic

competence, required by the Common European Framework of

Reference for Languages3, and which influences our perception

of the world.

Besides, most learners do not read just for developing their

reading fluency or incidental vocabulary acquisition, they are

more pragmatic in this sense: they tend to carry out extensive

reading. The use of authentic materials such as newspapers is

claimed to be a good resource for the design of activities related

to both types of reading process (top-down and bottom-up) at

different stages (Widdowson, 1990; Nuttall, 1996).

In addition to printed texts, which become obsolete rapidly,

nowadays we can also use a wide range of free online resources.

However, there are two possible drawbacks: first, some educa-

tion centres are not yet equipped as ICT centres, so teachers

will feel forced to adhere to their own traditional resources; and

secondly, some old professionals are not updated in the use of

new technologies so the introduction of Internet in their class-

room planning may constitute a hindrance. Besides, these vir-

tual materials are frequently transitory, which means that they

may suddenly disappear from the site where they were located.

Finally, one more disadvantage is how demanding and time-

consuming the use of printed or virtual newspapers could be for

the set curriculum and busy schedule of the mainstream class-

room education.

Following the pedagogical approach to L2 reading described

in Section 3, which includes top-down and bottom-up processes

and organizes the activities into pre, while, and after reading,

the following list can be implemented making use of pieces of

news as main learning resource.

A. Pre-reading activities (focus on top-down processes)

 Activate prior knowledge about the topic of the piece of

news.

 Start a discussion about the topic to trigger interest and

motivation.

 Refresh vocabulary up in the mother and foreign language.

 Use of the pictures appearing in the news to guess what

information will provide us.

 Use of intuition answering true or false statements.

 Answer according to your opinion a multiple choice answer

exercise and see if your expectations are fulfilled.

 Use of the headline to predict the content of the news arti-

cle.

 Write the sub-heading for the article using the main head-

line as referen ce.

 Selection of a picture matching the headline of the piece of

news (if Internet connection is available) and discuss ex-

pectations and how information can vary depending on the

accompanying picture.

 Compare two different pictures or drawings about the same

topic but dealing with different information to activate in-

formation and ease the comprehension of the text later.

 Do a quiz game in pairs to activate the passive vocabulary

of the learner which will appear later in the text.

 Use of the radio or video to introduce the topic with general

information and trigger a discussion in class.

B.1. While-reading activities for content (focus on top-down

and bottom-up processes)

 Categorizing texts.

 Check if your true or false statements of the pre reading

activities were correct or not.

 Check if your expectations about the cont e nt were true.

 Writing sentences using headline words cut from broad-

sheets or tabloids and jumbled.

 Match different headlines with their correspondent piece of

news.

 Find factual information in introductory paragraphs to arti-

cles. Students should answer the wh-questions: who, what,

where, and when.

 Match different parts of news times. Teac her should jumble

up all the headlines, photographs, captions and opening

paragraphs and give one item to each student. Each student

has to read or describe them aloud and find the other stu-

dents with matching photograph, headline or caption to

make a set.

 Answer comprehension questions with restricted access to

the article. Making use of the overhead projector, the teach-

er will display a transparency of the news while the students

try to answer the questions they were passed before the be-

ginning of the exercise.

 Insert missing paragraphs into the correct position.

 Find common points shared by pairs of articles.

 Find differences between two versions of the same story

using one tabloid and one broadsheet.

 Reconstruct newspaper photographs captions. Students

should match photographs with their corresponding cap-

tions.

 Illustrate a newspaper article with photographs after reading

through them. Photographs must follow the original order

of the story.

 Find partners in the Meeting place section of the classifieds

ads in a newspaper. Read men and women ads carefully,

match them, and explain why.

 Identify cultural differences in cartoons (objects, interior or

exterior scenes, people’s physical appearance, dress and

hairstyle, etc.).

 Find one’s way around a newspaper. Each pair should write

one or two sentences indicating roughly where the story can

be found (Grundy, 1993; Sanderson, 2001).

B.2. While-reading activities for language (focus on bottom-

up processes)

 Rewriting ambiguous headlines to make them clearer. Stu-

dents have to change some words in order to make head-

lines more understandable.

3Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning,

Teaching, Assessment (CEFR): http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/cadre_

en.asp  Predict missing words. Read an article chosen aloud but

G. LUQUE-AGULLÓ, L. GONZÁLEZ-FERNÁNDEZ

stop in several places before a word. Make a clear gesture

to let the students call out their ideas.

 Rank jobs from most popular to the least popular.

 Rewrite strip cartoons as short narratives.

 Identify linking features in text by a name in common, a

vocabulary item, or something thematic.

 Identify “potted biography”—first or second paragraph

opening an article containing information about the person

in the article—in broadsheets and tabloids. Check what in-

formation learners receive about the people in the articles

and how the potted biographies could be expressed in a dif-

ferent way.

 Reconstruct a short newspaper article manipulated where

grammatical words (e.g. a, the, in, to, is, was) are omitted,

grammatical changes to the ends of words (e.g.’s or s’ to

indicate possession, -r or -er to form the comparative of

certain adjectives) are omitted, and verb inflections (e.g. -s,

es-, -d, -ed, -ing) are deleted.

 Rewrite negative articles about depressing, unhappy news

stories to make them positive.

 Matching adjectives to large advertisements from newspa-

pers or magazines.

 Learn vocabulary through personal association. Students

should take note of useful idioms, expressions or phrasal

verbs for them and should explain them in front of the class.

 Reconstruct the ending of a newspaper article. After the

reading of the headline and the article, when reaching the

last sentence, try to make the students figure out the con-

clusion of the article. When ran out of ideas, write the con-

cluding sentence on the blackboard in jumbled order. Stu-

dents should put the words in order to discover how the ar-

ticle ends.

C.1. After-reading: Oral (focus on top-down processes)

 Rewriting ambiguous headlines to make them clearer. Stu-

dents have to change some words in order to make head-

lines more understandable.

 Predict missing words. Read an article chosen aloud but

stop in several places before a word. Make a clear gesture

to let the students call out their ideas.

 Rank jobs from most popular to the least popular.

 Rewrite strip cartoons as short narratives.

 Identify linking features in text by a name in common, a

vocabulary item, or something thematic.

 Identify “potted biogra phy”—first or second para graph open-

ing an article containing information about the person in the

article—in broadsheets and tabloids. Check what informa-

tion learners receive about the people in the articles and

how the potted biographies could be expressed in a dif-

ferent way.

 Reconstruct a short newspaper article manipulated where

grammatical words (e.g. a, the, in, to, is, was) are omitted,

grammatical changes to the ends of words (e.g.’s or s’ to

indicate possession, -r or -er to form the comparative of

certain adjectives) are omitted, and verb inflections (e.g. -s,

es-, -d, -ed, -ing) are deleted.

 Rewrite negative articles about depressing, unhappy news

stories to make them positive.

 Matching adjectives to large advertisements from newspa-

pers or magazines.

 Learn vocabulary through personal association. Students

should take note of useful idioms, expressions or phrasal

verbs for them and should explain them in front of the class.

 Reconstruct the ending of a newspaper article. After the

reading of the headline and the article, when reaching the

last sentence, try to make the students figure out the con-

clusion of the article. When ran out of ideas, write the con-

cluding sentence on the blackboard in jumbled order. Stu-

dents should put the words in order to discover how the ar-

ticle ends.

C.2. After reading: Writing (focus on top-down and bottom

up processes)

 Offer a brief resume of the article.

 Invent stories and listening to them to decide which is true.

Each group should prepare a short oral summary of their

real article, previously given by the teacher. Once students

are ready, one group should tell the other their newspaper

headline and tell them three possible stories accompanying

them. The other group should decide which of them is true.

 Understand information-packed sentences. Students should

make a list of all the facts an article contains in one long

paragraph.

 Write suitable paragraph headings.

 Shorten a long newspaper article to fifty words.

 Write profiles of famous people. Spread out photographs

and each student should write two characteristics about the

character in the picture. Once all the students have written

something, they should read all the information provided

and write a short profile of the person.

 Write the thoughts of people with unusual or interesting

expressions on their faces in photographs.

 Dictate and miming horoscopes. In pairs, one student

should dictate his/her partner’s horoscope miming those

words underlined previously by the teacher.

 Write a letter to a newspaper in small groups about a topic

of common interest.

 Write different endings to dialogues in strip cartoons.

Exploitation of the Press in the Classroom: A

Brief Example

The press constitutes itself a magnificent resource of infor-

mation not just for the general acquisition of foreign cultural

notions but for the learning or improvement of a FL/L2, as it

was explained above. Taking into account the different reading

skills involved when reading complex texts, the main objective

of the following example is to show how one cross-curricular

topic as the environment can be exploited within a didactic unit

making use of the press and some of the activities recom-

mended in Section 4. These two sessions can be part of a whole

and more complex lesson plan designed for students with an

intermediate or upper-intermediate level of English (around B1).

According to the Spanish curriculum for non-compulsory Sec-

ondary Education, we could include this session, considering

the difficulty of the activities detailed below, within the first

course of Bachillerato. From a pedagogical point of view, the

next two sessions fulfil the nine basic competences established

by the Spanish Ministry of Education4.

Session 1

Warm up

Have a look at the pictures in Figure 1 and answer the fol-

4Spanish Royal Decree 1513/2006 for Primary Education and Royal Decree

1631/2006 for Secondary Education.

474

G. LUQUE-AGULLÓ, L. GONZÁLEZ-FERNÁNDEZ

Figure 1.

Recycling containers.

lowing questions:

1) What can you see?

2) Are you familiar with their use?

3) What are they used for?

4) Are recycling containers in Spain as in England?

5) Do containers keep the same colours for paper, drink cans

and glass?

Reading

1) Before reading the passage, reflect on the following ques-

tions. Discuss them in groups of three or two.

a) Does your family recycle at home?

b) What type of products do you recycle?

c) If not, have you ever thought about recycling?

d) What containers can you find in your living area?

e) How would you feel if you had to pay every time you do

not recycle?

HOUSEHOLDERS who fail to separate rubbish for recy-

cling could face £50 fines.

They may also be given wheelie bins with LOCKS to stop

neighbours dumping trash to escape the levies.

But there will be cash incentives for those who abide by new

“pay-as-you-throw” schemes [...]

Some 27 per cent of household waste was recycled last year?

well up on 7.5 per cent in 2005-06.

Under a new Waste Strategy, Environment Secretary David

Miliband said he plans to boost the level with cash rewards.

But town halls must pay them, leading critics to believe they

will be offset by council tax rises. Mr Miliband said any au-

thority bringing in the scheme must offer effective ways to recy-

cle. Lockable wheelie bins and pre-paid sacks were among

options to stop waste being dumped in neighbours’ bins. Mr

Miliband also backed WEEKLY collections of food waste [... ]

He announced plans to cut plastic bag use by 25 per cent by the

end of 2008, and hopes to persuade supermarkets to scrap them.

He also revealed plans to help householders opt out of receiv-

ing junk mail. He said: “We need not only to recycle and re-use

waste but to prevent it in the first place. Despite the progress

we have made, England’s waste performance still lags well

behind much of the rest of Europe. Other countries landfill far

less and recycle and recover energy from waste much more.

“All countries face a challenge in reducing of waste? And it

is waste reduction which produces the greatest environmental

benefits.” [...] The Sun, 26/05/2007

2) Complete the information in Table 1. Please, underline

the answer in the t ext.

3) What do the following numbers refer to?

25, 50, 27, 7.5, 2008

4) Where would you find this passage? In…

a) An encyclopaedia b) a newspaper c) an advert

Vocabulary

Complete Table 2:

Table 1.

Choose the right an swer and circle it.

Reducing h ousehold waste is one of the worst pra ctices

to benefit the environment. T F

Law-abiding cit izens will be required to pay for a fine. T F

Wheelie-bins and sacks may stop dumpi ng waste into

neighbours’ bins. T F

Town halls will have to compensate economically cash

rewards. T F

Supermark ets will be encouraged to r educe the amount

of waste. T F

England’s waste performance is going ahead the rest of

Europe. T F

Table 2.

Match these words and phrases to their defini t ions.

Sack Rubbish

Wheelie binGetting rid of large amounts of rubbish by bu r ying it,

or a place where rubbish is buried.

Junk mail A large ba g made of stro ng cloth, pap er or plastic, used

to store large amounts of something.

Landfill To throw away.

Dispose A container for rubbish which has wheels so that it can

be moved easily.

Trash To post, usually advertising products or services, which

is sent to people altho ugh they hav e not asked for it.

Speaking and writing

Write and discuss in pairs the reasons why people should or

not pay a fine for not recycling.

AGREEMENT POSITION: you will have to support recy-

cling and give all the necessary arguments for it. The main

argument is going to be the environmental problems. Your

composition has to prove that recycling really helps to preserve

our environment and the application of fines would be really

useful. DISAGREEMENT POSITION: there are a lot of people

who do not consider recycling to be so significant. Their main

arguments are the economical aspect of the process, there are

no resources close home for recycling like containers, and

having to pay for a fine would be an abuse. In your composition

on recycling you can exploit these arguments.

Note: a chart with useful language on agreeing and disagree-

ing should be available to students.

Session 2: WHA T IF…?

Warm up

Read the following headlines from different newspapers and

match them with the pictures in Figure 2:

What do you think the news is about in each headline? Why

such natural disasters happen? How would you react in such

situations? Does your country experience natural disasters? If

so, what kind and how often?

Tsunami strikes after Chile quake.

The Sun5

Haiti earthquake left 100,000 dead in 60 seconds

Mirror6

5Spanish https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Tsunami+strikes+ after

+chile+ qu ake (Febr uary 27th, 2010)

6https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Haiti+Earthquake+left+100%2

C000+dead+in+60+seconds (January 14th, 2010)

G. LUQUE-AGULLÓ, L. GONZÁLEZ-FERNÁNDEZ

Figure 2.

Natural disasters.

Houses damaged and power cut as tornado hits Stornoway

The Times7

Chile earthquake: Pacific nations brace for tsunami

Guardian8

Hurricane Katrina victims to sue oil companies over global

warming

Telegraph9

Spectacular sunsets, dirty cars... and a change in the weather:

It’s all down to that volcano

Dailymail10

Reading

1) Before reading reflect on the following questions and dis-

cuss them in class: Have you ever been a victim of a natural

disaster? What would you do in case of an earthquake in your

city? How would you feel after the catastrophe?

2) Read the declarations from some real victims of natural

disasters, can you identify the type of catastrophe?

“I was lying in bed, I had been there for about an hour, and

the whole house shook, the whole house was moving,” Peter

said.

“The front of my chest of drawers fell out and my candles fell

on the floor and broke. I thought it was a ghost,” Mary de-

clared.

“There was lots of lightning, and thunder, and rain. I can

remember one time, a big bolt of lightning hit nearby. There

was a huge flash, even bigger sound. The next morning, there

was a lot of branches, twigs, leaves, and puddles everywhere,”

Matthew stated.

“I feel sick to my stomach and extremely worried and anx-

ious even when a storm hasn’t reached my location yet. Just

knowing it’s out there scares me really bad. I feel physical ef-

fects as well as mental. I feel sick, I either can’t eat, or am very

hungry, and I have a bit of trouble breathing,” little Liam ex-

plained.

“The scene ashore was chaotic. All the hundreds of beach

umbrellas and chairs were gone. Everything on the beach was

being sucked out to sea,” Mao said.

Vocabulary

1) How many types of natural disasters can you think of?

Rank them from the most frightening (1) to the least frightening

(4) in Table 3. You can add as many words as you already

know about natural disasters.

Listening

1) Have you ever watched a movie about natural disasters?

In this exercise, you are going to watch the trailer of the

Table 3.

Ranking of natura l disasters.

1 2 3 4

Tornadoes

Tsunamis

Earthquakes

Volcanic Eruption

Thunderstorm

Avalanches

Floods

Sandstorms

Other Phenomena: ...

American movie “The day after tomorrow”.11

2) Write a composition answering the following points:

a) What happens in this movie?

b) Where is this natural disaster happening?

c) What is the language used to communicate what it is oc-

curring to the rest of the world?

d) Can you describe the characters appearing in the scenes?

Discussion

These two sessions are organized, (Kong, 2006), in the as-

sumption that L1 literacy skills have been already partially

transferred to the L2: students already know how to read and

write in the first language and have also transferred this

knowledge to the second language. In this way, students will be

able to concentrate on the differences between the two lan-

guages and cultures, as can be seen in questions such as “Are

recycling containers in Spain as in England?” (Session 1)

“What do you think the news is about in each headline? Does

your country experience natural disasters?” (Session 2) and the

references to places in different parts of the world (Stornoway,

Chile, Haiti…) in the headline activity (Session 2). Pedagogi-

cally speaking this is an example of data-driven intensive read-

ing (Harmer, 1998) which aims at promoting reading skills

through the three steps mentioned in Section 3: pre-reading

activities, to activate background knowledge, during-reading

activities, focusing on the content, and after-reading, focusing

on written and oral production (Arroyo, 1998; Wallace, 2001;

Luque, 2011). Thus, we find photographs (Figure 1), personal

questions and pre-reading questions to activate knowledge in

Session 1. In Session 2 there is a set of headlines supported

with pictures (Figure 2) and several personal questions which

relate students’ knowledge to the topic of the reading. While

learners read, there are several questions students have to an-

swer. In Session 1 students will complete comprehension ques-

tions and true-false questions (Table 1) and then find specific

information concerning different numbers that appear in the

text (skimming and scanning skills). In Session 2, while reading,

students need to find a word that summarizes the general

meaning of each short paragraph. Both reading texts and com-

prehension questions (including true/false ones) will improve

7https://www.goog le.co m/sear ch?hl=en&q=Hou s es+damag ed +an d+p o wer+

cut+as+tornado+hits+ Stornoway (July 29th, 2009).

8https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Chile+earthquake%3A+Pacific

+Nations+brace+for+tsunami (February 27th, 2010).

9https://www.google.co m/search ? h l=en&q=Hu rr ican e+Katrin a+v ictims+to

+sue+oil+c ompanies+over+global +warming (March, 4th, 2010).

10https://www.google.com/search? h l=en&q=S pectacu lar+su ns et%2C+d irty

+cars+and+a+change+in+the+weather%3A+it’s+all+down+to+that+volcan

o (April 16th, 2010). 11http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQDSAiPiEDU

476

G. LUQUE-AGULLÓ, L. GONZÁLEZ-FERNÁNDEZ

students top-down, comprehension based skills (Alderson,

2000). After reading there are several activities that focus on

other skills and components, such as speaking (for and against:

Session 1), writing or listening (Session 2) and vocabulary

(Sessions 1 and 2: Tables 2 and 3). Besides learning and using

conceptually-driven processes, these follow-up activities will

help students improve their analytic, bottom-up skills while

getting familiarized with newspaper language and format (De-

chant, 1991).

Conclusion

These specific examples were created for Bachillerato stu-

dents in Spain in order to cater for two special educational aims

addressed in the Spanish official documents12: the first one

deals with transversal competences, that is to say, issues con-

cerning sexual and environmental education, equality, etc.

which have to be contemplated throughout Primary and Secon-

dary Education and which, according to these orientations, have

to be integrated in different subjects, such as language, mathe-

matics, history or sciences. The activities within these sessions

address environmental issues within the English classroom.

These Spanish official decrees have emphasized the acquisi-

tion of competences such as life-long learning or autonomous

learning. Both can be carried out by reading newspapers. Be-

sides, most virtual readings, essential for another competence,

the digital one, are in the second language. In addition, content

reading (such as the type found in magazines and newspapers),

in paper or virtual form, is essential for University students and

bilingual higher/secondary schools (Loranc-Paszylk, 2009), as

mentioned in such documents.

The second aim this type of newspaper-based sessions fulfil

relates to the University Entrance Exam for students finishing

Bachillerato, which includes an English (second language)

exam with four points out of a total of 10 devoted to reading

comprehension. Thus, promoting the reading ski ll is compl etely

justified. Again, this Entrance exam includes a vocabulary sec-

tion (one point) and a writing section (three points). Both issues,

vocabulary and writing, are considered in the two sessions

above.

Going beyond Spain, a more general aim that supports the

use of newspapers in the classroom concerns the role of lan-

guage learning in Europe. According to the Common European

Framework for language (CEFR, for short), learners “... Can

scan quickly through long and complex texts, locating relevant

details. Can scan longer texts in order to locate desired infor-

mation, and gather information from different parts of a text, or

from different texts in order to fulfill a specific task” (Council

of Europe13: 2006).

Concerning learning tasks, reading newspapers is mentioned

as a useful resource in the CEFR (Council of Europe, 2006:

14314).

“In general, how are learners expected to learn a second or

foreign language (L2)? Is it in one or more of the following

ways?

1) By direct exposure to authentic use of language in L2 in

one or more of the following ways:

 Face to face with native speaker(s);

 Overhearingconversation;

 Listening to radio, recordings, etc.;

 Watching and listening to TV , video, etc.;

 Reading unmodified, ungraded, authentic written texts (news-

papers, magazines15, stories, novels, public signs and no-

tices, etc.)”.

In addition, for the B2 level, the CEFR asserts that learners

“… Can quickly identify the content and relevance of news

items, articles and reports16 on a wide range of professional

topics, deciding whether closer study is worthwhile…” (Coun-

cil of Europe17, 2006).

The CEFR summarizes very well the need to use authentic

materials in the form of newspapers and magazines, but there

are additional reasons for their use:

Reading improves subskills that promote further reading and

increase linguistic competence (Nuttall, 1996: p. 127). Further-

more, they are close to students’ interests and open up the pos-

sibility of learning about the culture of the second language

countries.

Reading increases implicit vocabulary knowledge (Pigada

and Schmitt, 2006) and recognition of grammatical patterns

(Chio, 2009) using a linguistic model which is up-to-date. Fur-

thermore, reading comprehension tasks constitute an average of

40% in university entrance exams, as mentioned in the discus-

sion (Bueno & Luque, 2011).

As a conclusion, the use of newspapers in the classroom

should not be forgotten or believed to be out-dated.

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