Using Behind the News in the Classroom
Many teachers pre-record the program to view it at a convenient time. This also enables teachers to
pause for clarification and discussion where necessary.
Before Viewing
 Subscribe to the weekly Behind the News email and check the rundown for that week.
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/btn/teachers/mailinglist.htm
 Discuss what students know about the news and ask them to predict what is likely to be in the
program that week.
 Print the weekly Discussion questions and Activity sheets.
During Viewing
 Feedback indicates that students also get more out of the program when they watch it without
being forced to take notes.
 Quiz questions and surveys are included in the television program to engage student interest
and participation.
After Viewing
 Behind the News is a valuable tool to get students listening and talking about news and
current affairs. Focus questions are published in the Teachers’ section each week .
 After the program students can go to the BTN website and complete the weekly online quiz,
publish their opinions in the Guest book, vote in the online poll, visit other related websites
for extra information, print the transcripts or view the stories via streaming video.
 The activity ideas in this document are designed to engage your students immediately after
the program. Additional teaching ideas and student work sheets, which relate specifically to
the content in the television stories, are published weekly in the teachers’ section. They are
designed to encourage students to think in different ways and develop deeper understandings
about news and current affairs issues that influence their daily lives.
Strategies for using BtN more effectively
 Plan longer lessons: time to view, discuss & choose what kids want to explore more
 Avoid note taking & encourage students to WATCH, LISTEN & DISCUSS
 Personalise the experiences
 Use partners and small group work to promote interaction
 Adopt an integrated approach; incorporating BTN across learning areas
 Appoint a monitor to pre-record the television program, print the rundown, transcripts and
student activities in the teachers section of the website
 Encourage knowledge sharing: online poll: conduct a class debate – register the majority vote
 Students voice their own opinions and survey and analyse different viewpoints
 Use devices as tools of the trade for knowledge sharing, rather than banning them: Weblogs,
mobile phones and email
 Utilise team teaching & clusters for information and resource sharing, collaboration, surveys
etc
 Use different types of questions to encourage higher order thinking skills.
Homework tasks can include:
 Guestbook entries & email
 Predict, vote and compare final results in weekly poll
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 Search past stories and explore related links to help students recall, comprehend, apply,
analyse, synthesise and evaluate
 Pose and answer questions
 Participate in the quiz – compare scores & ask them to report back
 Compare television news stories with newspaper and Internet articles
Use BtN to teach your kids to be:
Critical and Creative
Sceptical of easy solutions
Curious about new ways of doing things
Analytical – draw comparisons and relate it to their personal experience
Active – apply what they see, hear and read.
Follow-Up Activities
The following activities are designed to engage students in listening, speaking and responding to
issues presented on ‘ Behind the News’.
1. Reflection & Favourites
Recall the five main stories and write each title on a separate sheet of paper. Place the sheets of
paper around the room. Instruct students to stand up after watching the show & reflect on their
favourite story. After thirty seconds ask them to move around the room and stand near the title of
their favourite story. Share what they liked or learned.
2. Summarise That
Have students’ pair up and write three or four summary statements about what they have just
learned. Then partner up two groups and share what has been written.
3. Reporter Role-play
Students find a partner. One student role-plays a television reporter and the other takes on the
role of a person who appeared on Behind the News that week. Allow the students enough time to
get into character. Choose some of the students to present their role-plays to the rest of the class.
4. True or False
After watching Behind the News ask students to write three true and three false things from the
program. Pass them around so others can read them and explain why they are false.
5. Brainstorming
Choose one topic from the television program and discuss it as a class. In small groups, ask
students to brainstorm and record three important things they have learned about the topic on a
sheet of paper. Students can share their ideas with other class members.
6. Quick Quiz
Provide students with a piece of paper. Ask them to work with a partner and write a list of ten
questions (with answers on the other side of the paper) about a couple of the stories they have
seen on this weeks ‘Behind the News’. Once written, form groups of four students and ask them
to take turns quizzing each other. Regroup as a class and share what they learned from the
program.
7. Match That
Ask students to find a partner and collect two sheets of paper. One person in each pair writes a
question about a fact from the most interesting story in today’s program. The other person writes
the answer. Place the questions in an empty hat and the answers in another one. Ask each student
to retrieve a question or answer and then move around the room to match the questions to the
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corresponding answers. Once they have found the student with the corresponding answer they sit
down and think of another question, which could have the same answer. Regroup as a class and
share what they have learned.
8. Circle of Ideas
Stand students in circles of about five students. One person begins a sentence about one of the
topics in this week’s show. For example, “One thing I learned about Islam is …” The person to
the right of the speaker has to continue the sentence, leaving the next person to add to it. Allow
students to explore issues rather than just recall content from the program.
9. Transcript Follow-Up
After watching ‘Behind the News’ form five groups of students. Provide each group with a
printed transcript from one of the stories. (These can be printed from the BTN website.) Each
group member takes it in turns to read a sentence aloud while the others in that group listen.
When the transcript has been read completely, ask the students to answer Who, What, Where and
Why questions about that topic. Discuss answers and regroup as a class. Each group can present
any points they would like clarified or that they would like to discuss or research further.
10. Who, What, Where, When, Why, What if..
Write ‘Who, What, Where, Why, When and What if’ on a board. After watching ‘Behind the
News’ ask students to form a small group and write a question starting with each word based on
one of the stories from the television program. Ask each group to swap their list of questions
with a list from another group of students. Give them three minutes to work out the answers and
then instruct the two groups to join up and share their questions and answers. This activity can be
repeated to encourage movement and sharing of their recollections and understandings.
11. Thumbs Up or Down
Allow students to vote for the online poll when they hear the question in the show. They can vote
by putting thumbs up in the air (“I agree”), sitting on their thumbs (“I need more information as I
still have some questions about this”), or thumbs down (“I disagree”). After they have watched
the entire program discuss the issue and then allow them to vote again. Ask students to share
reasons for their choice and explain why he or she might have changed a point of view.
12. What’s My View?
Students are asked to give a brief oral review of one story from Behind the News. They need to
add their own personal comment about an issue explored in the story.
13. Rewrite
Working in pairs or small groups, provide students with a transcript for the most unusual,
interesting or controversial story in the program. Ask them to rewrite the transcript for another
television program or a different audience. Give them a choice about how they present their new
transcript. It might be a reading or they may choose to act it out.
14. Lyrics
Students can create a poem or song lyrics about one of the stories or issues presented on Behind
the News.
15. What Do I Know?
Print the Coming Up page from the website. Tell the students about the topics to be covered in
the television program. Pass out large sheets of paper and form 5 groups. Ask each group to
spend a few minutes talking about what they already know about each topic. View the program
and then allocate one story to each group and ask them to write what they now know about that
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topic. They can also include things they still want to know. Just before finishing, ask the students
to write one statement summarising the story. Share these statements.
16. Game Show
Create a ‘Behind the News Game Show’ with a range of open and closed questions based on the
program.
Students can design and conduct a survey of their family and friends to find out what they think
about an issue presented on Behind the News. Collate the data and compare it to the comments
on the BTN Guestbook.
17. Quiz Alternative
Ask students to write 2 questions on a sheet of paper / card. Write the answers to both questions
on another piece of paper/card. Place all cards in a bowl and mix the up. Ask students to take two
pieces of paper/card from the bowl and move around the room to find the matching question or
answer.
18. Compare & Contrast
Ask students to design a rubric to help them compare & contrast the reporting of a news story or
two stories from the program. After they have made their comparisons, allow enough time to
share their results.
19. New Words. Suggested ESL in the mainstream activity
Ask students to learn one new word each time they watch Behind the News. They will need to
teach this word and its meaning to another student.
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