News English: Student Reporting Lab!
1. Course Overview
The purpose of this course is to offer students an opportunity to learn the key elements of writing a
news story and create their own news reporting video. The course begins with international news reading
and briefing practices through which students learn how to extract valuable information and present
information clearly. In class, structures and elements of writing and reporting a news are introduced to
help students achieve the desired learning outcomes, which require students to conduct an on-campus
interview and create video news reports based on their chosen topics. Through the process of reading,
writing, interviewing, and reporting news, students successfully develop a wide range of skills, including
listening, asking questions, teamwork, public speaking, and critical thinking.
2. Learning Objectives
(1) Gain skills and experiences in public speaking
(Week1-Week4)
(2) Acquire the techniques of conducting an interview
(Week5-Week7)
(3) Learn about components that make up a good video news report
(Week8-Week10)
(4) Sharpen the ability of organizing information and doing research (Week11-Week14)
(5) Cultivate the ability of collaborating in a group
(Whole semester)
3. Time required
Two/One hour(s) every week for one semester, around 15 weeks, 30/15 hours in total.
4. Activity: (Week1-Week4) Learn, practice and show! 1- minute news reporting (50 mins)
(1) Objectives:
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Sharpen their skills of extracting valuable information and forming a news reporting outline
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Have students practice reporting a news in group and performing on stage
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Learn the dos and dons of reporting news from a standard news video
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Have student listen carefully to other’s news reporting and give constructive feedback
(2) Materials and equipment
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Computer and projector
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News reporting video
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Power point slides
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Timer
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Bell
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Worksheet (1. dos and don’ts checklist and 2. news outline worksheet)
(3) Teaching Procedure
1. Before class: New outline writing practice
Student have to focus on a piece of international English news and produce an outline for a 1minute news every week.
2. Pre-activity: Observing and Checking dos and don’ts (15 minutes)
In class, Students form a group of three people and watch a news report from Student Reporting
Lab (SRL), which is a news website, engages both middle and high school students to learn
journalistic inquiry, media production, and news literacy. Next, after watching the news report,
students are required to discuss the performance of the reporter based on the checklist of “dos
and don’ts of news reporting” given by the teacher. Last, students share their observations with
the class.
3. While-activity: Time to practice and in-group presentation: (30 minutes)
With the dos and don’ts reporting news checklist in mind, students take turns reporting and
practicing the news based on their prepared news outline. Meanwhile, the others group members
need to provide “warm” and “cool” feedback on the worksheet. Warm feedback is positive and
acknowledges strengths. Cool feedback offers comments and suggestions to help the learner
reflect and improve. After in-group practicing, each group needs to elect a “correspondent of the
week” to do an on-stage news reporting. For those who are chosen as the “correspondent of the
week” will gain extra points for themselves.
4. Post-activity: Self-reflection and outline revision (5 minutes)
Before the break, every student has to reflect on his/her performance of that day and hand in the
news outline.