Korean Job Discussion Forums

[oneofthesarahs]

You should try a newspaper scavenger hunt with your classes.

I never ever thought this would go over as well as it did, and it was one of those experimental ideas where I had a backup lesson just in case. I had a bunch of old newspapers sitting around and thought I could get some use out of them. My students loved it. It was a nice change of pace from using a text book, and who doesn't like cutting stuff up? They were also very interested in the newspapers (some old ones from home, none of this Korea Herald nonsense), and were asking me what lots of words meant. I've never seen my middle school students so engaged and actually excited, so I just thought I'd share with you. It is also a good opportunity to teach them newspaper-related vocabulary, and can easily be stretched into two class periods.

Here are the worksheet questions I asked:

1. Find an advertisement for a car. Cut it out and glue it. Then answer these questions.
What kind of car is it?
What is the year of the car?
How much does it cost?

2. Find a crime that occurred that the newspaper reported. Cut out the headline of the story and glue it.
What was the crime?

3. Find your horoscope in the newspaper. Cut it out and glue it. Then answer the questions.
What is your horoscope sign?
What kind of day does your horoscope say you will have? (your own words)

4. Find the weather and temperature for a city. Cut out the forecast and glue it. Then answer the questions.
What is the name of the city?
What will the weather be like?
What will the high and low temperature be?

5. Find a cartoon with people at work. Cut it out and glue it.

6. Find an interesting picture. Cut it out and glue it. Then answer the questions.
Who or what is in the picture?
What is happening in the picture?

7. Find an advertisement for a job. Cut it out and glue it. Then answer the questions.
What is the job that is advertised?
Who do you call if you are interested in the job?

8. Find a number bigger than 2000 (not a year). Cut it out and glue it.

9. Find an advertisement for some kind of food. Cut it out and glue it.

10. Find a number that is written in letters. For example: four hundred instead of 400. Cut it out and glue it.

11. Write the name of a puzzle that is in this newspaper.

12. List five things that are for sale in the newspaper, and how much they cost.

13. Write down the name of the newspaper.

14. How much does the newspaper cost?

[Fresh Prince]

That's a really good idea, thanks for the post.

Another good thing about newspapers is the advertisements. The ads contain prices for things which work well for reviewing vocabulary related to numbers and discounts, as well as countable/uncountable nouns.

[crusher_of_heads]

Thank you sarah

[genezorm]

good call i just copied the questions, printed it, grabbed some newspapers and there was my lesson for today

its a bit messy though

[oneofthesarahs]

That is the downside. I allowed for 5 minutes at the end of the class for clean-up. And I didn't let them leave until their area was clean.

[Hanson]

This is a great idea - I'll be trying it tomorrow, however, I think I'll be changing some of the questions:

* How many sections are there? What are the section names?

* Find an article about Korea.

* What's the newspaper's date?

* Find a full-page advertisement and answer the questions:
- What's the product?
- How much does it cost?
- Would you be interested in buying this product? Why or why not?

* Choose a short article ("In Brief") and explain who, what, where, when, why.


I'll try to think of a few more and I'll post them here.

Great idea!

[Ya-ta Boy]

Terrific idea.

I'm filing this one away for our chapter on newspapers. Thanks.

I wish we had more posts like this...creative ideas for teaching that don't require a huge amount of preparation but are flexible to use with many levels of students for a wide variety of objectives.

[bosintang]

Terrific idea. Really good summer camp idea for public school teachers.

[DCJames]

Looks like a great idea for a class...

I'll try it.

[Kim Jong Jordan]

But would this work with low-level high school students, 14 classes in a week, 40-45 students per class? I guess I should start saving up newspapers.....or perhaps combine with the 12 newsweeks I have in my office.....?

[oneofthesarahs]

You could consider doing the activity in pairs or small groups. I found most of my students were helping each other out a little bit anyway, especially if they found two or more suitable things for each question. That would limit the amount of newspapers you have to use. That would mean you might want to add a few additional questions to the worksheet, because in groups they would probably finish much faster.

[bosintang]

[pkang0202]

Where can you find a bunch of copies of dated newspapers?

I think its a great idea, but I don't want to give the kids all the same copies of the latest English newspaper.

[Bibbitybop]