Bringing news and current events into the classroom can be challenging because many of the texts are written at a much higher level than our students are comfortable with. The same can be said for significant historical or cultural events. For example, imagine finding an appropriate text for your students that discusses the history of the Civil War.
We wanted to let you know of a couple of good online resources that can help you to introduce and discuss these types of topics to your students. VOA News is a news site that has a section of their site dedicated to those learning English. If you go to learningenglish.voanews.com you’ll see that they have many articles written in simpler English geared toward English Language Learners. The articles often also include audio if your learners want to hear the article being read and identify key vocabulary that they may not know.
Simple Wikipediaworks similarly, but instead of focusing on current events it serves as a basic encyclopedia for those wanting to read more about different subjects and events in English. Here’s their entry on the Civil War.
What other methods do you use for bringing the world into your classroom? Let us know in the comments below!