What’s in the news? If you haven’t had time to read a newspaper or catch the latest news programme, try: http://news.bbc.co.uk/ and click on One Minute News at the top of the page.
What is it?
It’s a 60-second round-up of the current international news.
Why is it useful?
It’s good for listening practice, predicting content, vocabulary connected to current affairs, dictation, note-taking and being aware of what’s going on in the world around you!
Any drawbacks?
There are no subtitles so you can’t read the text while you are listening to it – but you can watch and listen as many times as you like!
Suggestion for Language Practice:
- Try watching it all the way through once without the sound. Focus on the visuals and write down in English what you think the story might be.
- Then listen and see if your predictions were correct.
- Listen twice more, writing down the key words (the nouns, adjectives and verbs). Try and write sentences using the key words, thinking about the function words (the prepositions, the articles, the adverbs).
- Write it up in your English journal and show it to your teacher at the end of the week or email it to your teacher to be checked.
- Look up any words you didn’t understand but heard – you could try using http://www.macmillandictionary.com/ for definitions and the thesaurus function.
- Pat yourself on the back* for being an independent learner and practising your English!
Vocab:
- to pat yourself on the back (idiom) = to hit yourself gently on the back to tell yourself “well done” for some good work