On BreakingNewsEnglish.com you can find ready-to-use lessons for English as a Second Language teachers and English as a Foreign Language teachers. It goes without saying that these lessons are equally well suited for learners of English.
Each week you can find several new lessons at two different levels. All lessons are based on stories currently in the news. The lessons are downloadable in Word.doc and PDF formats. Classroom handouts are readily reproducible and teachers can easily copy and paste the parts of the lessons they want to use. Listening files can be downloaded in mp3 format or subscribed to via a podcast.
About BreakinNewsEnglish
* The lessons are free.
* There is a new lesson every three days.
* All lessons are based on stories currently in the news - as the world's news breaks, teach it.
* All lessons are also downloadable in Word.doc and PDF formats.
* Listening files can be downloaded in mp3 format or subscribed to via a podcast.
* Classroom handouts are readily reproducible.
* There is a graded listening with each lesson.
* Teachers can easily copy and paste the parts of the lessons they want to use.
History
Half way through a Master’s in TEFL/TESL with Birmingham University, I was reading a wonderful book called "Appropriate Methodology and Social Context" by Adrian Holliday. This got me thinking about what would really interest students on a daily basis, which got me thinking about daily news, which got me thinking about having a cup of tea and a sit down, which then got me thinking about a website offering news English lessons the same day the news breaks. Eighteen months and one dissertation later, I started my new project. I called it "Breaking News English.com".
Why did I start this? Well, years of producing news materials for my language school in Japan; too many teachers to mention telling me to write a textbook; dozens of other teachers telling me my news materials worked well for them; my experience as a teacher-trainer; a lovely iMac computer; a stupendously supportive and wonderful wife; and a horribly loud alarm clock delicately balanced on the top stair outside my bedroom. What better recipe for success?
And so onto successes - and many have there so far been. Just getting everything online was a huge one; each pre-toast-and-marmalade lesson upload; wonderful E-mails of encouragement - fuel for fingertips at keyboard; lots of support and encouragement from other ESL sites; seeing my site in #1 position for many searches on various search engines; and lots, lots more. Small though these successes may be, I hope my materials will in some way contribute to the world of ELT and help students learn more about English and their world.
Visit BreakingNewsEnglish.com
If you are interested in getting to know more about the site and its author Sean Banville, you might want to read this interview with him on tefllogue.com