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Integrating language skills 237
Project 10.2: Radio Days
10.2.0 In learning/teaching environments where Internet surfing and videotaping are difficult, radio broadcasts can offer unlimited resources for language related activities. Local or international radio broadcasts in certain target languages, particularly English, are readily available in many countries. Generally, radio broadcasts offer a variety of programs including songs, music, news items, speeches, interviews, and sports commentaries. Depending on the interest and proficiency level of your learners, select any of these programs for designing a microstrategy to integrate language skills. Here’s one possibility.
10.2.1 Select an evening news broadcast from a popular radio sta- tion. Audiotape it. Listen to it again, looking for possible segments for classroom use, and jot them down.
10.2.2 Normally, news broadcasts begin with headlines. Think about how you incorporate that aspect by the questions you can ask your learners. How would you help them anticipate the details of the news by merely listening to the headlines? And, how would you help them understand that headlines are to news broadcasts what titles and sub- titles are to a text?
10.2.3 Focusing on each of the main news stories, think of listening comprehension questions that you can ask to help your students under- stand the day’s news.
10.2.4 Think of any prior knowledge of political or social events that is needed for learners to fully understand the day’s news.
10.2.5 Focus also on difficult lexical and grammatical structures so that you can direct your learners’ attention to them.
10.2.6 Let’s say you wish to zero in on one or two stories for detailed analysis and understanding. What preparation do you have to make? How would you encourage an extended discussion on the selected news items? A debate? A group work?
10.2.7 How would you relate the listening and speaking activity to reading and writing? Normally, newspapers have more in-depth cover- age of a particular news story than radio news broadcasts; therefore, would it be advisable to ask the learners to bring a copy of the day’s newspaper to class? How would you relate the radio story to what ap- pears in the newspaper to create an opportunity for learners to read in class?