Using news clips in the classroom

Why use news clips?

• It helps with the Social Issues elective module in English and Liberal Studies.
• Students are often already familiar with the story because of Cantonese media.
• They can learn the English names for people and organisations.
• Clips serve as an alternative to reading about news as many students are visual learners.
• Short clips can be a good introduction to a theme.
• They are great source of background information for students to write an essay.
• Subtitles help with understanding.

Learning Activities 

Before watching

• Ask students what they know about this story. (They may have watched the relevant clip in Cantonese.)

• Show class the list of clips for a period of time, say three days. Let them choose which one to watch and discuss.

• Read a news article related to a clip. Get students to present a news story about the issue, with a presenter, reporter and interview. Afterwards, watch the actual clip.

• Tell students the headline. Ask them to guess the vocabulary which will appear in the clip.

While watching

• Stop the clip. Ask what happens next.

• Listen for a particular word or phase. Ask students to tell you to stop when they hear it.

• Watch without sound or subtitles. Guess what the clip is about.

• Watch without sound or subtitles. Think of alternative stories.

After watching

• Have a group discussion based on the news story.

• One Minute ‘Individual response’: Put class into groups.  Each group thinks of questions related to the clip. They ask a student from another group.

• Interview someone in the story: Half of the class as interviewers, and half as interviewees. Keep them apart while preparing so that the interview is not rehearsed.

• Press conference: Have some students role play key people from the clip and government officials. The other students are reporters who ask the panel questions.
  e.g. I am Peggy Yip from CNN. I would like to ask the Chief Executive a question.

• Role play in different registers: Re-do the interview but the person interviewed is very angry, tired, impatient, keen…

• Put class into groups and let each group choose a clip. Groups report to the class the background information and follow-up of the story, i.e. ‘What happened next?’

• Alternative viewpoint: Show an interview. Then get students to say the opposite of what the interviewee says.

• Read a news article related to a clip. Get students to present a news story about the issue, with a presenter, reporter and interview. Afterwards, watch the actual clip.

Writing activities

• Write a news journal (instead of newspaper cuttings). Watch one clip per day. Choose two clips to write about.

• Write a letter to the editor about the issue.

• Write a fictional story in the future or the past linked to the clip.

• Write a complaint letter to an organisation about the clip.

• Read a news article related to a clip. Get students to present a news story about the issue, with a presenter, reporter and interview. Afterwards, watch the actual clip.

Critical Thinking Questions 

1. What is the main issue in this clip?
2. What do you think about this issue?
3. Would your parents (teachers) have a different opinion to you? Why?
4. Would men and women have a different opinion of this story?
   (rich & poor / Hong Kong & mainland Chinese / helpers & Westerners…)
5. How could this issue be solved?
6. Will this type of story still happen in 10 (20/50/100) years' time?
7. What can the government do to improve this situation?
8. Is there a limit to how much the government can do to improve this situation?
9. Which issues are more (less) important at the moment? Why?
10. Does this news story distract us from a more important issue?
11. How would people have found out about this news story 200 years ago?
12. How will people find out about this news story in 100 years' time?
13. Do you agree with X?
14. Who would disagree with X?
15. How are you similar to X?
16. How does this issue affect you (your school / your family)?
17. Who are the stakeholders in this story?
18. Who benefits in this story?
19. Who suffers in this story?
20. How have the statistics been presented?
21. Can you trust the statistics presented?
22. What information might be missing?
23. What references or sources were used in this story?
24. Do you trust those sources or references?
25. Are the sources objective?
26. Is this a new issue or has it existed for a long time?
27. How is this story related to other stories in the news?
28. Is this story specific to Hong Kong or do similar things happen in other places?
29. How is this story being reported in media from other countries?
30. Would newspapers (radio stations / websites) report this story differently?

We hope you find these ideas useful. Share with us yours!