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A reporter's life

After the news

In this mission, you and your classmates are going to play the role of reporters by starting your news search. By working in groups, you´ll make video interviews and a public presentation of the video.

At the end of this section, you will have:

  • Learnt about some kid reporters' fact files.
  • Learnt about how to gather information to write a news story.
  • Practised open questions.
  • Created and presented a video report.
Report questions
Geralt. Signo de Interrogación (CC0)

Previous activities: "Learning about reporters"

Can you imagine what a reporter's life is like? Bet you guess it is not boring at all! Here, you will have the opportunity to become a reporter and go on the hunt for relevant information for your own news story.

Activity 1: Inquisitive teenagers

For a start, enter the Time for Kids site and find out information about some inquisitive teenagers who enjoy reporting news. Tell a classmate about which reporter you are more similar to.  What interests/likes have you got in common?

These reporters refer to famous people they would like to interview. What about you? What famous person would you like to interview? What type of questions can you ask this person?

Activity 2: Ws an H
  • Interviewing people is a way to collect information for writing a news story. It is important that reporters have their questions ready to get relevant information from the people they interview.
  • When planning your interview, consider the 5 Ws and H in Journalism. This principle can help you obtain important information on a fact or event on which, later, you will write down your news story. Enter the englisch-hilfen.de webpage and practise questions in past and present tenses.
  • At the TotalEnglish.com website, you can do a lot of activities related to interrogative sentences.
Activity 3: A step forward
  • Think of six questions that you want to ask a classmate, get them ready and record them on the online tool online voice recorder. On the BBC School Report page, you can read and listen to an interview with a Syrian student, which you  can use as a model.
  • Invite your classmate to your interview and let him/her record their answers.
  • Copy the url link to your interview and paste it on the page entitled "My digital resources" of your Weebly site.
  • It is important that you ask questions properly because they are an important part in the mission presented below.
Extra resources
  • BBC News School report (listen to some important information on where to find news).
  • Healthy reporter Quiz   (take the challenge and answer several questions).
  • Kermit news video. On this video, comment with a partner on the following questions.  
    • Where is the reporter?
    • When is the interview taking place?
    • Who is the reporter interviewing?
    • What does he want to know about?
    • How are "people" feeling?
    • Why are they feeling like that?

    Then, listen to other classmates on their comments. Were their answers similar to yours?

The activity or profession of writing for newspapers, magazines, or news websites or preparing news to be broadcast.

A school report

In this mission, you and your classmates are going to play the role of reporters by starting your news search. We want you to keep us informed on what is going on at your school. Think of events or extracurricular activities that both, students and teachers, are preparing or have done.

Reporter
Alexas_Fotos. Prensa (CC0)
Your work
  • Get together in groups of four students and think about an activity or event that is being planned or that has been recently done at your school. (If you are adventurous people, you can find out information about an event that has taken place outside school).
  • You can ask the head teachers of each department at your school about the activities that have been planned or done. Also you may get valuable information from the students taking part in these activities/events.
  • In your group, prepare a set of questions that will allow you to get key information. It is important to plan your interview very carefully. To do that, we recommend that you revisit the Huw Edwards' video on gathering information for a news story.
  • Consider as important the five Ws + H in Journalism that is, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY, WHO and HOW. for your interview planning.
  • Revise your questionnaire carefully and distribute the questions among the members in your group.
  • Use a camera to record the interviews with the people participating in the activity. If there are more than one activity being planned at your school, you can prepare more questions to cover the information.
  • Edit the video with headlines announcing your news story and with subtitles containing useful information to understand better your news report. At the BBC News School site, you can find useful information on how to make a video news report.
  • On a fixed day, you will present the video with your interviews in front of your class group. When presenting, take turns to introduce the  type of activity on which you have based the interview. Also, give details about the people you have interviewed (who they are and what they are doing or have done). 
  • Before your presentation, you may revise Present tenses on both, the englishteststore.net and on the more-online.com sites.
Work evaluation
Work promotion

Publish your video on the page 'My Digital Resources'  in your Weebly site. You can share it with the rest of classmates on Pinterest. To do this, remember to accompany your post with an image.

When you finish your work, do not forget to open your learning diary and answer the questions on how well you think you performed your work.

Learning diary

How is it going? Open again your Learning Diary on your site and create a new post on your blog with the title  'A reporter's life'.

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)