What's on TV?

You are about to start an entertaining adventure which focuses on the world of television. By working on this project, you will be able to learn English in a funny way with activities and practical communicative situations that you will do and develop together with your classmates, in pairs and in small groups.

Geralt. TV (CC0)

Throughout this project, you will learn about vocabulary related to TV programmes and TV jobs. You will also find out about people's viewing habits. Here, we present you the chance to describe a TV guide and explain about the contents of several TV programmes. It is advisable that you have common sense when you watch TV, that is why we suggest you a section in which you will learn to distinguish programmes which are a great learning resource from those that do not contribute any positive aspects.

The practice of all the contents mentioned above will help you carry out this project's final challenge: the design and production of your own TV magazine. Challenging, isn't it?

Let's get started!

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EDIA Project: English PBL by CeDeC.

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License 4.0

About the project

Our project. General information

The final challenge of this project is to create a magazine programme. But before that, you need to surf different websites and overcome several missions that will help you gain knowledge and acquire strategies.

Collaborative work is highlighted in this project, which means you will mainly acquire knowledge by working in pairs or small groups. Likewise, you will also work individually on interactive activities to which you will access by clicking on the website links provided.

Do not forget that your teacher can help you whenever necessary on your way towards the big final challenge.

Stokpic. Ordenador portátil (CC0)

The missions you will have done at the end of this project are:

a TV guide containing a great variety of programmes.

a questionnaire to find out on your classmates' interests and likes on TV.

a TV series dubbing.

a visit around a TV studio explaining about several TV jobs.(Making of video).

a news report.

and, finally, the final challenge which consists of the design and production of your own magazine programme.

To create, design and edit your work, you will be able to use the following apps, among others.

Cacoo, an online tool with which you will create word maps to work on key vocabulary.

Canva, which will enable you to design and create your own charts.

StoryboardThat. You will use this online app to prepare the drafts for your presentations. 

Google Slides, to create slide presentations.

Wevideo, the tool with which you will create and edit your big final challenge: a magazine programme, which will be published on a YouTube channel. If you prefer, you can find other video-editing tools at the edtechteacher.org site.

Notice that you will be performing several missions and we are sure that, by the end of this project, you will be proud of your great work, which you can prepare, publish or share with the help of the online tools and apps listed below.

To publish, you will use Weebly site. An email account is required to create your own site where you will be posting all your missions. Within this site, you will create a blog entitled 'Your learning diary' in which you will be including relevant information concerning your learning process.

To share your work with other people, you will use Pinterest, a digital board where you can publish your tasks and share them with your classmates.

Throughout the project, your teacher may award you with a badge from Class Badges in case of excellent performance. 

Evaluation

Your progress on this project will be assessed according to the following criteria:

Teacher's evaluation: your teacher will use the assessment rubrics to evaluate your work on the missions and the final challenge. This will be 40% of the final mark.

'Rubric for assessing a digital poster'

'Rubric for assessing a presentation', (In two missions: the TV guide and the results of your TV questionnaire).

'Rubric for assessing a questionnaire'

'Rubric for assessing a podcast'.

'Rubric for assessing a video in the classroom'(In two missions: the visit around the TV studio and the production of your own news report).

'Rubric for assessing a video challenge recording'.

'Rubric for assessing your digital site' . This refers to your Weebly site where you will publish all your work of this and other projects.

Peer evaluation: you will assess other partners by creating your own assessment sheet with the items that you consider as appropriate or by using the assessment rubrics listed above. This will be 20% of the final mark.

You will self-evaluate the final outcome using the document 'Rubric for assessing the project'. This rubric brings together the main criteria for assessing your missions and challenge and it is a 20% of the final mark.

Teacher's observation in class based on your degree of participation in the project and how well you perform all the missions will be 20%.

As you can see, you will get entirely involved in this project by acquiring, creating and sharing contents as well as assessing both, your own and your classmates' learning process.

Your TV guide

Let us start this project on the world of television by reflecting on the great variety of programmes and film types that people can watch on TV.

At the end of this section, you will have:

Learnt and revised vocabulary related to TV programmes and types of films.

Asked your classmates about their favourite TV programmes.

Created a TV guide.

TV channels offer a great variety of programmes for entertaining, informing or learning. Play the video entitled Five top picks for teens, which is based on the description of five programmes on some American TV channels. 

RonPorter. Control remoto (CC0)

Then, with a classmate, answer the questions below.

Do you recognize these TV programmes?

What type of programmes are they? Enter the ESOL Courses site and learn about different kinds of TV programmes.

Are there any similar programmes on the channels that you usually watch?

What time are they on? Revise how to tell the time on the vocabulary.cl site and with this matching activity and have more practice on times and the days of the week on the document entitled  myTVguide.

Enter the TV guide from the English BBC channel and read about the different programmes. With your classmate, comment on the types of programmes they are. Revisit the ESOL Courses site and revise vocabulary related to TV programmes. Have a look at the IELTS LIZ site to revise vocabulary on types of films. On the same TV guide, you can also read programmes' reviews and descriptions that help you know about the programme contents.

Sign in at Canva and create a chart with three columns with the following headings:

Entertaining: You watch the programme just for fun.

Informative: Programme contents make you keep informed about current topics.

Learning: You learn about new things and relate them to what you already know.

Put under each column the programmes' titles from the TV guide you have read before. Go round the class and ask your partners about the programmes they usually watch on TV. At home, you can also ask the members of your family about their favourite programmes. Add the new programmes' titles under the correct heading depending on the purpose each one has.

After finishing your chart, create a page entitled  'Key vocabulary' in your Weebly site and add the link to your chart. In case that you need some help on how to use Weebly, watch the Weebly 2014 tutorial.. Do not forget that this vocabulary will be helpful for you throughout the project.

As an extra activity, enter the ESL About site and broaden your vocabulary on television with a gap-filling exercise.

Reading & Speaking

Develop your reading skills by entering the britishcouncil. org site. With your classgroup, comment on the reality shows that are popular in the UK. Can you watch the same reality shows in the place where you live? Choose a reality show that you know about and describe it to a classmate.

Coming on your TV

Now that you have revised vocabulary on TV programmes and film genres, we want you to create a short TV guide for today and tomorrow based on two channels. Take into account that your guide must include the time at which programmes start, the programmes' title and a brief description of them. 

ClkerFreeVectorImages. Televisión (CC0)

You are going to do this mission in groups of four. Please, read carefully the instructions below.

Get together and agree with the members of your group on what programmes your guide will include.

Use the online tool Canva or any similar tool to create your TV guide.

Remember to insert a great variety of programmes and images that illustrate them.

Agree on the times at which each programme is going to start and finish. Practise telling the time at the agendaweb.org site.

Under each programme's title, write a short description so that viewers get informed of the contents available.

Publish your TV guide on a page that you will entitle 'My digital resources' in your Weebly site and share it with your classmates on Pinterest. Remember to include a picture illustrating your guide.

On a fixed day, you and your group will present your guide in front of your class group. For the presentation, take the following points as guidance.

Take turns to perform the roles of presenters informing the audience of what programmes and films they can watch today and tomorrow.

Each member in the group will present the TV shows that are emitted during a time zone (morning, midday, afternoon or evening).

Refer to the viewers' profile for each programme, that is, whether they are watched by children, teenagers, housewives, the elderly, etc.

After all the presentations, the whole class will vote for the best guide taking into account the variety of TV shows included and how interesting and entertaining they are.

Your teacher will evaluate your work on the guide following the criteria included in the 'Rubric for assessing a digital poster'. Your guide presentation will be assessed according to the criteria in the 'Rubric for assessing a presentation',

Learning diary

In this mission, you are going to start creating your Learning Diary. It will help you reflect on what you are learning and, most important, what the best way of learning is.

Peter O'Shea. Writing tools (CC BY)

In your Weebly website, you have the possibility to create a blog which you will entitle  'What's on TV?'. This is going to be your Learning Diary.

After reading all the instructions related to your first mission, we encourage you to reflect and answer the questions below in your diary. Make a first post on your blog with the title 'Your TV guide' and write your answers:

How could I sum up the sequence of contents I am going to deal with? What do I have to achieve to overcome the mission?

From my point of view, what aspects or tasks are the most important to be developed in this project? What do I expect to learn throughout this work project?

What difficulties may I face? What ideas come to my mind for developing the content sequence?

What doubts do I still have?

Do not forget it would be great if you shared these feelings and thoughts with your classmates. You will have 10 or 15 minutes to complete this part.

Feedback

Please, we strongly recommend that you reflect and think about the development of your first mission:

Is it clear for me how to access and manage the site where I will be publishing all my work based on this and other projects?

Am I able to use vocabulary based on TV programmes?

Am I able to describe the characteristics of each TV show?

Can I give my opinion on different types of programmes?

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Don't be a couch potato!

Too much TV?

Nowadays it is possible to watch your favourite programmes, series or films not only on TV, but also on your computer or smartphone. Does this mean that you spend too long in front of a screen? Do you choose what to watch in a critical and selective way? In this section, we want you to reflect on  your own and your classmates' viewing habits.

At the end of this section, you will have...

Read about unhealthy lifestyles.

Revised and learnt vocabulary related to free time activities.

Listened to a conversation.

Revised and learnt adjectives to describe TV programmes.

Prepared and asked a questionnaire on people's viewing habits.

Enter the elllo.org site and listen to several people talking about how much TV they watch. With a partner, speak about how long you both spend in front of a TV set.

mojzagrebinfo. Television (CC0) 

A person who spends too much time watching TV while sitting on a sofa is called a couch potato. Read the tips to avoid being a couch potato on the Writing Wizard web site. With your partner, comment on activities that you both do in your free time and give them a score. Enter the free time activity worksheet and get some ideas. For example, sleeping is zero and running, 10. After checking the score based on the activities that your partner and you have chosen, do you think you are 'couch potatoes'?

A couch potato is the opposite of someone who is energetic and physically healthy. Enter the worksheet entitled A generation of couch potatoes and take a quiz on how active you are..Then, read the text in the worksheet and develop your reading comprehension by anwering to the questions provided.

Discuss with your class-group about your lifestyles.

Do you think you have a healthy lifestyle?

What activities do you usually do to be fit?

At home, ask some members in your family and calculate the total amount of hours that they spend watching TV. Who in your family spends the most time in front of the TV set?

Sign in at Canva and draw two columns with the headings I could.... and My relatives could...Write under each heading activities that you and your relatives could take up to be physically fit.

Share the link to your chart with your classmates on Pinterest . Do not forget to accompany a picture to illustrate your post. Publish the chart on the page entitled 'My digital Resources' in your Weebly site.

A TV questionnaire

TV programming caters for people of all kinds who want to get informed or entertained as well as to learn about interesting things. Listen to a conversation at the esl-lab site. Comment with a partner on the types of programmes that you both identify in the conversation.

ADMC. TV (CC0)

With your classmate, exchange turns to ask and answer which programmes you both prefer and the reason why you like them. On  the TV guia site, you will find popular TV shows and channels that you will probably know about. You can find useful expressions to talk about TV programmes on the englishlife.ef site and on the ESOL courses site. Also, we recommend that you have a look at a list of adjectives to describe TV shows on the Second of ESO English site and at some useful expressions on the Native Speaker Online web site. All this vocabulary will help you prepare and answer the questionnaire, which is the mission you are about to carry out.

In the previous section, you have already taken a quiz which was mainly focused on the time that you spend in front of the TV set.  Now, we want you and three other students in the class to prepare your own questionnaire to find out about your class-group viewing habits and interests.

Please, follow the guidelines to perform the mission successfully.

Get together in groups of four students.

Prepare general questions that enable you and the members in your group to know about your classmates' viewing habits. You can get some help at the iteslj.org site.

Think of different TV programmes and prepare some more specific questions to know what your classmates' opinion is about them. Have a look at the TV Guìa site if necessary. For some questions, give three options (click on 'An example' below to see an example and to go on reading the instructions).

Your work on your questionnaire will be assessed according to the criteria included in the 'Rubric for assessing a questionnaire'. The presentation in front of the class-group will be evaluated according to the 'Rubric for assessing a presentation'.

Feedback

What talent show do you prefer, cooking, singing or dancing?

Base some of your questions on these topics: favourite programmes (make your classmates choose three TV shows and ask them to describe their characteristics: what happens in the shows, how often each programme is on and, finally, whether they are for entertaining, informing or learning).

You can revise the form of interrogative sentences at the English Language Guide site and practise them on the K12 reader worksheet.

After finishing your questionnaire, go around the classroom and ask some of your classmates about their viewing habits and likes. You will also have to answer to other group's questions. Remember that you wll be asked to describe some of your favourite TV shows so prepare your information beforehand.

Also, include a few questions for you teacher, parents or other adults around you. Ask them if television is better or worse than ten years ago and whether they think it is more violent or interesting than it used to be.

Get together with the members of your group and comment on the answers that you have got from your classmates and the other people interviewed.

Organize the information that you have collected.

Publish your questionnaire on a page that you will entitle 'My Writing guide'  in your Weebly site. You can share the questionnaire with the rest of classmates on Pinterest. To do this, remember to accompany the questionnaire with an image. Read  other groups' questionnaire and suggest any questions that you consider as important so that they can improve it.

On a fixed day, your group will present in front of the class-group the data about your classmates' viewing habits and likes. Accompany your presentation with an infographic or PPT file.

Learning Diary

As you did in the previous section, reflect on how you have performed this mission in your Learning Diary.

Peter O'Shea. Writing tools (CC BY)

Create a new post on your blog with the title  'Don't be a couch potato!' and answer the following questions:

What are the most difficult aspects?

What tool was the most difficult for you to work with?

What do you think is the most important aspect you have learned?

Are there any aspects you didn't understand?

Do not forget it would be great if you shared these feelings and thoughts with your classmates. You will have 10 or 15 minutes to complete this part.

Feedback

Please, we strongly recommend you reflect and think about the evolution of the project:

What you are really learning during the project.

What the difficult aspects are.

Value how we are working as a group and try to solve the problems we have had until now.

Please, clarify everything you did not understand.

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The good side of TV

Learning through TV

Television is an important electronic medium among children and teenagers. You must be aware of the positive and negative effects this medium can have on your personal development. As you have learnt in the previous section, too much TV or inadequate programme contents may not be good for you. However, television also has a positive side which we want to present you here.

At the end of this section, you will have:

watched some excerpts of TV series.

talked about what you can learn from TV shows.

written a review of a TV show or a film.

dubbed an excerpt of a TV show or a film.

Television can be a great teacher of lessons related to history, society, arts, science, nature, social and practical skills, among many others.

Geralt. Proceso de Aprendizaje (CC0)

You may think that your favourite TV shows just make you laugh or have a good time, but in one way or another be sure that you can also learn from them about social relationships, moral issues and, also, get some basic cultural knowledge. 

Watch the excerpts of some TV series on the Mashable site and take them as examples of what you can learn while you enjoy yourself. Comment with your teacher and your classmates on the points below:

What can you learn from these episodes?

What other TV series do you usually watch? What contents can you learn from them?

Write down notes of the ideas that you all comment in class as this can help you write a review of your favourite TV series.

Your teacher will explain to you the contents on the Kids TV Movies About webpage which presents some reasons why watching TV can be good. 

Think of one of your favourite series and write a review with more details than the ones you have included in your TV guide mission. State what you can learn from watching this series.

In your Weebly site, publish your review in the page entitled 'My writing guide'.

Share your writing on Pinterest with your classmates on a board entitled 'Educational TV' that your teacher will create for the classgroup. Do not forget to accompany your text with an image that illustrates your TV series. 

With your own words

In this section about educational television, do not forget either that television can be a really efficient tool to learn English or any other foreign languages.

With a partner, comment on the questions:

Where can you find videos, TV films or series in original version with subtitles?

How often do you usually watch TV programmes in English?

Do you know about any TV shows from an English-speaking country? Which one/-s?

Watching and listening to soap operas or films in the original version is a great way of getting out of the 'artificial English' taught in your text books. 

Skitterphoto. Micrófono (CC0)

TV series actors reflect the colloquial language used by English native speakers in real life. Also, you can listen to the right intonation and to different accents while watching TV, which will help you improve your communicative competence in English.

Enter the English at home site and read some tips on how you can use TV to learn English. Which tips are new to you?

Listen to Marika talking about TV on the elllo.org site. With a partner, answer the questions below.

Does she understand everything in Japanese?

What helps her understand what is happening in a drama?

What programme types does she find difficult to understand?

There are some educational TV channels which are great to learn English, but do not worry if you do not have a cable or satellite TV at home. From a computer connected to the Internet, you can also access websites where videos on many varied topics or different TV programmes are broadcast. Take the following sites as examples of resources that can help you learn and improve your English.

LinkEngPark, a site with access to sitcom episodes, news programmes in English.

ESL-lab Video Clips. Video snapshots created to reinforce listening activities of the same site.

Multi-media English, a gallery of videos referred to varied topics.

English tonight site. Cartoons are a really helpful resource for learning English. 

Simple News page on the TV English Club site. Here you can watch the news and learn about some vocabulary.

British Council site. Resource bank of online reference for learning English through films and TV programmes.

Listening and comprehending what is happening on a TV series is good for developing your English communicative skills. In the mission you are about to carry out, we go a step further as we want you to create and reproduce your own dialogues. 

Notice the assessment criteria in the 'Rubric for assessing a podcast' that your teacher will use to evaluate your work in this mission.

Please, read carefully  the guidelines.

Feedback

You and three other classmates have to select an episode of the Extr@ English series and write your own script for each character. You can also choose a five minute excerpt  from a favourite film to do this mission.

Watch the episode with the audio on.

Comment with your group members on what you have understood about the story.

Get ready to write new conversations among the same characters of the same episode excerpt. You can use the Storyboardthat tool to write the script.

Try to be original and invent new dialogues different from the original ones.

Agree on the role that each member is going to play. If there are more characters than members in the group, assign more than one role to a member. 

Practise the dialogues as if you were actors. Mind pronunciation, intonation as well as grammar correction.

Edit the original episode and switch the volume off. Record your voices as if you were the actors. You can also include subtitles based on your script. The tool clipflair can help you practise dubbing and putting subtitles before you do the final version with an editing video tool (choose the one that best fits you or ask your teacher for advice).

Your teacher will create a channel on Youtube where all your dubbed new versions of the Extr@English series or of the film excerpts will be published.

You can embed the link to your episode in the page entitled 'My digital resources' on your Weebly site. Share the link to your video with other people on Pinterest. To do this, take a snapshot of the series and publish it together with the link to your episode.

Comment on the rest of the groups' episodes or films and their dubbing and vote for the best work.

Learning diary

How is it going? Open again your Learning Diary on your site and write down your reflections on your work progress.

your learning diaryPeter O'Shea. Writing tools (CC BY)

Create a new post on your blog with the title  'The good side of TV' and answer the following questions:

What are the most difficult aspects?

What tool was the most difficult for you to work with?

What do you think is the most important aspect you have learned?

Are there any aspects you didn't understand?

Do not forget it would be great if you shared these feelings and thoughts with your classmates. You will have 10 or 15 minutes to complete this part.

Feedback

Please we strongly recommend you reflect and think about the evolution of the project:

What you are really learning during the project.

What the difficult aspects are.

Value how we are working as a group and try to solve the problems we have had until now.

Please, clarify everything you did not understand.

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Broadcasting

About TV jobs

TV programmes are produced at studios where a lot of professionals work in team to offer interesting and entertaining contents. In this section, we want you to learn in detail about the most common TV jobs as you and your group will have to do some similar work in the final challenge consisting of broadcasting your own TV programme.

At the end of this section, you will have:

Learnt about TV jobs and broadcasting tasks.

Learnt and revised the Present Continuous tense.

Described what is going on.

Interviewed TV workers.

Let us start by reflecting on the process of creating and producing a TV programme, for example, a game show, a talk show or the news programme. How many TV workers are necessary to do any of these programmes? 

Unsplash. Talk show (CC0)

Click on the TV studio image and, with a partner, answer the questions below.

What type of programme is it?

Who are the people on the image?

What do they do?

In case that you do not know much about TV jobs, enter the Macmillan Thesaurus site and read about job titles and their main tasks.

Have a look at the list of TV jobs at the Wikipedia.org site. As you can see, a lot of professionals work to create and broadcast a TV programme.

Brainstorm with your class group and your teacher the jobs and tasks that you think are necessary to produce your TV show from the beginning to the end. Then, enter the Creativeskillset.org to help you complete a chart on TV jobs that you will be able to create with the online tool Canva.

In the chart, draw three columns with the following headings:

Before broadcasting tasks (Pre-production)

Broadcasting tasks (Production)

After broadcasting tasks (Post-production)

Include the job titles that you have chosen under the right column and describe what these jobs consist of. Type the student's name next to the job each one of you is going to perform. If necessary, search for information on the Internet about other tasks that are specific for these jobs. It is important that you understand what these tasks are so that you and your classmates organize well before you start your final challenge.

Copy the url link of your chart and paste it in the page entitled  'My digital resources'  of your Weebly site. Share the chart with your classmates on Pinterest.

We invite you to have a look inside an animation studio. Watch the Inside the studio video and comment with a partner on the questions below.

Can you name the job titles of some people who appear on the video?

What are the workers doing?

Try to describe what you watch on the video with Present Continuous sentences.

Take the Grammar challenge to check you have understood the use and form of this tense as you are going to use it in the mission below.

Live from the studio

In the following mission, you are going to become TV professional workers and your classroom or any other room at your school is going to be the studio where you work. Here, you need to start thinking about the contents of the magazine programme that you are going to carry out in your final challenge. 

Neva79. Reportero (CC0)

In this mission, we suggest that you show a group of TV producers (other classmates) around your TV studio and describe what you are doing to prepare and produce the pilot TV programme. This mission will help you know how to describe TV jobs and will help you get a better understanding of what you will do in your challenge.

Your teacher will assess your work in this mission considering the criteria included in the 'Rubric for assessing an oral presentation'. The edition and production of your video will be evaluated with the criteria in the 'Rubric for assessing a video in the classroom'.

Please, follow the instructions below to do your mission accurately.

Feedback

Get together in groups of four students.

From the jobs that you have learnt in the previous section, choose the ones that you consider as important for the creation of your TV show.

You need to organize your work and distribute the tasks among you all. Decide on what tasks of reporter, presenter, script writer, subtitle editor, etc. each member in the group is going to do.

Search for information about these tasks and find images to illustrate them. We want you to show the group of visitors around your class as if it were a TV studio and tell them what your TV team are doing at the moment to create a pilot TV programme. Remember to use Present Continuous sentences. You can revise this tense at the British Council site.

Refer to the type of contents that you are preparing for your magazine programme. Remember that a magazine programme usually contains several sections such as reports on current events, interviews or debates.

Prepare a set of pictures representing the production tasks that you are performing to broadcast your TV show and hang them on the classroom walls or somewhere else. 

Show the visitors around the classroom and point at the pictures representing professionals working to prepare and broadcast the TV show. Take turns to explain to them about these professionals' tasks. Enter the British Council site to revise how to describe pictures using the Present Continuous.

This mission can be included in the final part of your challenge as the  programme making of . That is why we encourage you to record the visit and keep the video for your great challenge.

Edit your video recording with titles and publish it on the page entitled  'My digital resources' of your Weebly site. Share the video link with your classmates on Pinterest. Remember to attach an image to the link.

After watching all the videos, the classgroup will vote for the best and most efficient TV crew and the most attractive pilot programme.

Learning diary

One last thing, but not the least. It is very important that you reflect on how you felt while you were learning the contents and preparing the job interview.

Peter O'Shea. Writing tools (CC BY)

Create a new post on your blog with the title  'A Job Interview' and answer the following questions:

What are the most difficult aspects?

What tool was the most difficult for you to work with?

What do you think is the most important aspect you have learned?

Are there any aspects you didn't understand?

Do not forget it would be great if you shared these feelings and thoughts with your classmates. You will have 10 or 15 minutes to complete this part.

Feedback

Please we strongly recommend you reflect and think about the evolution of the project:

What you are really learning during the project.

What the difficult aspects are.

Value how we are working as a group and try to solve the problems we have had until now.

Please, clarify everything you did not understand.

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License 4.0

News report

The latest news

A lot of people like watching news programmes on TV to get informed. The news stories presented can be related to economics, politics, sport, society or culture, among other topics. Both, presenters and reporters tell the audience about them following the principle of the 5 Ws.

At the end of this section, you will have:

Listened and watched a news report.

Learnt and revised question words.

Revised and practised the Past simple and the Present Perfect tenses.

Created a news report.

Channels broadcast news programmes at prime time, but remember that you can also watch the news on specific websites at any time. 

Geralt. Preguntas (CC0)

Enter the newsinlevels site to read and listen to a news story. Comment with a partner how much you have understood. Then, answer with short phrases to the following questions about the news story.

What happens?

Where does it happen?

How long is it?

These questions contain question words that help you check you understand the most important information presented in a news story. Open the Question Word infographic and revise more particles. With a partner, invent and add new information on the news story by answering the questions below.

When does it happen?

Who does it?

Go round the class and ask your classmates what information they have added to the original news. Is it similar to yours and your partner's?

Let us go a bit further and change all the verbs in the news story into the Past Simple tense. Enter the ef.com site and refresh your knwoledge about this tense. Remember to include in your news correct Past - time expressions.

With your classmate, change the news' headline into a different one. Use the Present Perfect in your headline. Enter the E-books site and get some ideas.

As further practice, we suggest that you change the tenses in the same news story into the Present Perfect tense. Enter the Perfect English Grammar website and learn about the use and form of this compound tense.

Your news story

The mission you are about to start will allow you to create your own news story. In this mission, you will have the chance to develop, write and broadcast a news story that happened in the last few weeks or a long time ago. 

Alexas_Fotos. Noticias (CC0)

Here, you are going to work individually first and then with three other classmates. 

Your teacher will assess your written news story taking into account the criteria included in the 'Rubric for assessing an informative text'. Read the criteria in the 'Rubric for assessing a video in the classroom' that your teacher will consider to evaluate your team work. 

We suggest that you follow the instructions to do the mission accurately.

Feedback

Remember that a news story gives important information about a recent event. The first step that you are going to take is to choose a news event that you think is important for others to know about.

Search for an important news event that has happened at your school or invent one to be more original.

Before writing your news story, get organized and plan your text with the help of the News Story Organizer document. Remember to keep your story simple and concise. Add a headline and use the Present Perfect and Past simple to develop the news story.

Hand or send your teacher the text for correction.

Your teacher will create a board on Pinterest entitled 'The Hottest News' where you can publish your text accompanying it with an image. Copy the text link and paste it in the page entitled 'My writing guide' of your Weebly site.

Get together in groups of four students and choose one of the four news stories on which you are going to base your report.

Watch the BBC News video to have an example on how to write and film your own news report.

In your report, include some interviews of  the people who got involved in that news story. In your group, each member will have to play a different role when filming the report. You can use the online tool Storyboardthat to prepare the draft of your video considering the texts, images, the people participating and the places where you will film your report.

Together with your classmates, you are going to create and edit a video which will be part of the magazine programme that you will face in the great final challenge.

Try to attract the audience with relevant information about the event.

In order to create and edit your video, you can use the Wevideo tool or a similar tool.

Share the video with the rest of your classmates on Pinterest.

Your teacher will publish your video on an educational channel so that you can embed it in your Weebly site, on the page entitled 'My digital resources' .

Learning Diary

We hope you finished your mission successfully. Reflect on how you performed it and write down your reflections and thoughts about your learning process in your Learning Diary. This will help you become aware of what you have achieved or what you need to reinforce.

Peter O'Shea. Writing tools (CC BY)

Create a new post on your blog with the title  'News Report' and answer the following questions:

What are the most difficult aspects?

What tool was the most difficult for you to work with?

What do you think is the most important aspect you have learned?

Are there any aspects you didn't understand?

Do not forget it would be great if you shared these feelings and thoughts with your classmates. You will have 10 or 15 minutes to complete this part.

Feedback

Please, we strongly recommend you reflect and think about the evolution of the project:

What you are really learning during the project.

What the difficult aspects are.

Value how we are working as a group and try to solve the problems we have had until now.

Please, clarify everything you did not understand.

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Your TV programme

Let's go on air!

Working behind the scenes step by step, you have arrived at the last stage of the project and it is now and here where you have the chance to put into practice all that you have learnt  and show it to the world.

At the end of this section, you will have:

Gathered and organized all the information necessary to produce and broadcast a TV programme.

Designed the structure of your TV show.

Written the scripts before recording.

Produced and edited the different parts of your programme.

Promoted your work on the web and social networks.

Please, follow the instructions to carry out successfully the final challenge.

moleshko. Cámara (CC0)

As you did in the other missions of the project,  you are going  to work together with other students in the final challenge. Remember that you and your classmates can learn a lot by working collaboratively.

Your TV magazine

All the outcomes that you have done throughout the project have helped you become a TV professional.

aloiswohlfahrt. Grabación (CC0)

All your expertise and knowledge will enable you to face the great challenge you are about to start: the production and broadcasting of a magazine programme.

Your work on the final challenge will be assessed by your teacher with the criteria included in the 'Rubric for assessing a video challenge recording'.

Please, follow the steps that we suggest you to complete the challenge.

Feedback

Before you create the video, prepare a draft with the parts that your TV show is going to include. Remember that a TV magazine usually contains varied sections such as reports, interviews, the news, etc. Try to include in your programme the parts below because they will allow you to put into practice contents that you have learnt in the previous sections. These contents are:

A preview of the upcoming contents, that is, an introduction to the programme contents. Tell the audience what they are about to watch in your programme an say what time each part is going to be broadcast.

A report on a past event (you can search for information about an activity at your school or a famous event  that took place some time ago).

A live report or description of what is happening around your school (the student roleplaying the presenter will connect to several reporters to ask them what is going on at different parts of the school. You can also record this part somewhere else outside school. Reporters will report the breaking news using the Present continuous.

An interview with a celebrity, teacher or classmate. Prepare a set of questions to ask the guest in your programme so that the audience gets to know the person being interviewed. The students who roleplay the guest must also prepare the answers according to their identity

A more entertaining part in which people show their talent such as a cooking show or a dancing show. Before your classmates and you record this part, you need to find people at your school who are good at different activities. Then, you will record these people performing their skills. Later, you will present them by telling the audience who they are, why they like the activity they do and how long they have practiced it.

The programme making of. Use the video that you produced in the Broadcasting section to conclude your TV show. This will show the audience who has produced the programme and what tasks you have done to obtain the final result.

Of course, your group and you can change the structure of the programme and include a different part that you like. 

You are a team and it is important that you distribute and organize all the tasks to produce your programme.

In the post-production stage, get together all your recordings and introduce each part with suitable titles. You can use the Wevideo tool or any other online tool to edit your programme.

Publish your TV magazine  on the page entitled 'My digital resources' of your  Weebly site and share it on Pinterest with your classmates.

Promoting your work

You have made a great effort to complete all the missions and the challenge within this project. At this final stage of the project, we encourage you to show it to as many people as possible. The promotion of your project is a very important part of your work. Otherwise, what is the point in doing such a hard work if nobody knows about it?

OpenClipartVectors. Proyecto (CC0)

In order to make this possible, we present you several activities that you must / could develop:

Why don't you show all your work to your family, friends and classmates? In groups, you will prepare and develop a complete presentation of your work. The final result can be developed in the classroom or/and recorded as a video that will be uploaded on a channel.

You can put flyers on the school walls announcing and promoting your TV programme and the channel where can be viewed. In your flyer, include concise information on the positive effects of watching your TV show.

We want you to promote it by using the social network Pinterest. Here, you can create a board where you must include all the links to the outcomes that you have completed. Remember to insert images to illustrate each mission. You will find out the number of people that pin your tasks, which means they like them a lot.

Another promotional activity can be done by using your own school web page. Your teacher will create a page entitled 'English Portfolio - 2nd Year CSE'  in your school website and will include the links to your classmates and your own Weebly site. This would be not only a good way of promoting your work within your school community, but also a way of reaching a higher number of people interested in learning English through collaborative projects.

Any other ideas? Can you imagine other ways of promoting your work?

Learning diary - project assessment

Your participation in this project will be completely finished after you evaluate your own experience all along your learning process. 

Peter O'Shea. Writing tools (CC BY)

Please, enter the documents below and answer the questions.

Classroom experience assessment

Reflection on your project work

By answering the questions, you will become aware of all the work that you have been able to do easily and of the difficulties that you may have come across. Besides, from your evaluation, your teacher will find out which contents and aspects of the project were meaningful to your learning process and which ones need to be modified because they did not help you achieve the project objectives.

You can discuss the questions with some classmates with whom you have shared the missions and challenge.

Finally, add your answers to 'What's on TV?', the learning diary that you have created in your site. Create a final post summarizing all these reflections. In this case, you will decide the title of this post.

Feedback

At this point, it could very useful for you to focus on these questions:

Did you have the same difficulties as your classmates in the accomplishment of the missions?

Which missions did you find the most difficult to carry out?

Has collaborative work been a positive experience to you? Why/ why not?

Do you prefer learning from textbooks or from online projects like this one?

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Didactic Guidelines

General guidelines for teachers

This project is part of a set of projects entitled 'What a Digital World!' which is based on the curriculum for the 2nd year of compulsory secondary education.

The following objectives have been considered in the design of this project:

to learn while working on a project.

to encourage collaborative work, since most assignments require information sharing and interaction with other students.

to foster students' self-learning process by using IT resources.

to reinforce students' communicative skills through activities of listening and reading comprehension, but above all, through tasks in which they must produce their own oral and written messages.

The project includes several stages that students will need to go through to eventually do the final challenge based on the production of a magazine programme. Within this learning resource, relevant language contents can be practised and a wide range of tasks is presented so that students are encouraged to practise and improve the linguistic skills required for their final output.

geralt. (CC0)

About the project is the first section of the project containing information about the channels that students will use to publish and share all their work as we think that they will be happy to showcase their familiy and classmates all the outcomes that they will be doing throughout the project. From the wide range of websites and social networks available, we suggest that students have their own site at Weebly.com, just like a portfolio, where they can post all their work and complete a Learning diary that will help them reflect on their own learning process.

Encourage students to design their site following a clear structure. Their site must contain at least these pages:

Homepage, the first and main page which must include a title, index, images and a description of the project.

'My writing guide' . This page will include all the student's writing tasks and tips for good writing.

'Key vocabulary'. Students will include here links to the word maps and charts that they create using key vocabulary.

'My digital resources'. On this page, students will publish the links to the digital material that they will have created in their missions.

On the other hand, students can use Pinterest to share their outcome with the people they like. Google drive apps can be also used for writing texts and preparing presentations collaborativelly. Besides, students can collect and add notes about vocabulary and grammar using online tools such as Cacoo and Canva.

The rest of sections in the project include several stages that students will need to go through to eventually do the final challenge, which is described in the section entitled 'Your TV programme' and is based on the production of a TV magazine. 

Assessment

Evaluation

As a teacher, you can use the rubrics included in each mission and in the challenge to evaluate your students. This will be 40% of the final mark.

These rubrics are listed below.

'Rubric for assessing a digital poster'

 'Rubric for assessing a presentation' (In three missions: the TV guide, the results of the students' questionnaire and the visit around a TV studio)

'Rubric for assessing a questionnaire'

'Rubric for assessing a podcast'

''Rubric for assessing a video in the classroom' (In two missions: the visit around the TV studio and the production of your own news report).

'Rubric for assessing a video challenge recording'

'Rubric for assessing a digital site' (The site where students will publish all their work of this and other projects).

Alexander Henning Drach. Question Mark in Esbjerg (CC BY-SA)

Students will also play an important and active role in the evaluation process.

peer evaluation: students will assess other partners by creating their own assessment sheet with the items that they consider as appropriate or by using the assessment rubrics listed above. This will be 20% of the final mark.

students will self-evaluate their work using  the criteria stated in the 'Rubric for assessing the project'. This makes 20% of the final mark.

Teacher's observation in class based on the students' degree of participation in the project and how well they perform all the missions will be 20%.

Timing

This project has been designed to be worked on along approximately fifteen sessions of 50 minutes each one. However, feel free to adjust the time sequence according to your students' learning pace and needs.

Sese Ingolstadt. Bahnsteiguhr.jpg (CC BY-SA)

For carrying out this project, remember that you can follow the flipped classroom-based pedagogical model with which the majority of assignments such as watching videos, reading texts, doing collaborative work online or writing down doubts about contents can be done at students' home. Later on, in the classroom, you can revisit the contents students do not understand and offer them support in the realization of their missions and final challenge.

Resources

The following links offer some useful resources for the development of this project and, also, of other projects based on the topic of mass media.

Language Resources

In this project, students are presented several language contents that they can practise by clicking on the links below:

Video on American TV shows

(TV shows)Five top picks for teens

TV Vocabulary

TV programmes- Vocabulary

How to tell the time

vocabulary.cl site

matching activity 

agendaweb.org site

TV guide - guide samples

myTVguide document

TV guide 

Types of films . Vocabulary

IELTS LIZ site

Television - Extra-vocabulary

ESL About site 

Conversation on TV - Listening practice

esl-lab page

Reality TV - Reading practice

britishcouncil. org 

Viewers' habits - Listening Practice

elllo.org site 

Tips to avoid being a couch potato - Reading

Writing Wizard web site

List of leisure time activities

worksheet

Quiz

A generation of couch potatoes

Listening - conversation

esl-lab site

Realia: TV guide

TV guia site

TV programmes – Useful expressions

englishlife.ef site

ESOL courses site

Native Speaker Online web site

List of adjectives to describe TV shows

Second of ESO English site

Conversation questions

iteslj.org

Interrogative sentences - Theory

English Language Guide site

TV series excerpts

Mashable site

Interrogative sentences - Practice

K12 reader worksheet.

Kids TV Movies About webpage

Listening practice - Television

elllo.org site

Video resources to learn English

LinkEngPark

ESL-lab Video Clips

Multi-media English

English tonight site

Simple News page on the TV English Club site

British Council site

Extr@ English series

Vocabulary: TV jobs

Macmillan Thesaurus

Wikipedia.org site

Creativeskillset.org

Videos

Inside the studio video 

Mr Bean's episode

Present Continuous: theory & practice

Grammar challenge

British Council site

Online bank of news

newsinlevels.com site

Past Simple - Use & Form

ef.com

Past time expressions

cristoleon.wordpress.com

Present Perfect - theory

Perfect English Grammar website

How to create your news report - video

BBC News video

News story: writing help

News Story Organizer document

Online apps

Throughout this project, we suggest a wide range of open source apps and tools with which students will carry out their missions and final challenge. However, feel free to replace them or recommend your students others which you think are more suitable according to their profiles and needs.

Weebly site

Pinterest

Cacoo

Canva

Padlet

Google slides

Storyboardthat

Voicethread

Google forms

Quizlet

Wevideo

YouTube channel

How to

Some links to tutorials are provided throughout the project to help your students  learn about how several online tools work so that they can perform their work more easily.

How to create and edit a Weebly site

Pinterest 2015 tutorial for Educationn

Video on Voicethread

WikiHow, an explanatory site presenting some tips on how to prepare a questionnaire

How to create and edit a video with Wevideo

Remember that you can find more tutorials about other online apps and tools on YouTube.

Project Mindmap

Contents (LOMCE Curriculum)

At the end of the project, students will have been able to work on the following contents:

Listening, speaking and interaction:

Comprehension and identification of general and specific information of oral texts.

Production of short and coherent oral texts.

Participation in conversations and role plays in the classroom.

Use of correct answers in communicative situations in the classroom.

Reading and Writing:

Students understand general information and identify specific information in written texts.

Preparing and writing a questionnaire.

Writing  a basic and logical paragraph on a TV show review.

Writing a news report.

Knowledge of the language

Sentences in Present and Past tenses.

Past- time expressions.

Sentences in Present Perfect.

Question words.

Vocabulary: TV shows and film genres.

Vocabulary: telling the time and days of the week.

Expressions and adjectives to describe TV shows.

Vocabulary on TV jobs and broadcasting tasks.

Use of open and closed questions to find out relevant information in a questionnaire.

Pronunciation practice:scene dubbing; intonation in open and closed questions.

Use of IT resources for self-learning

Participation in self-assessment and peer-assessment activities.

Organization of personal work.

Participation in group work.

Socio-cultural aspects:

Recognition of a foreign language as a tool for international communication.

Notice that all the contents are related to the four blocks stated in the new curriculum for the first foreign language area in the first cycle of compulsory secondary education. These four blocks are comprehension of oral messages, production of oral messages: expression and interaction, comprehension of written texts and production of written texts: expression and interaction.

Learning Standards (LOMCE)

At the end of the project, students will have been able to practise and acquire the following learning standards stated in the BOE (3rd January 2015) regarding the curriculum for the first cycle of CSE.

Bloque 1. Comprensión de textos orales

Capta los puntos principales y detalles relevantes de indicaciones, anuncios, mensajes y comunicados breves y articulados de manera lenta y clara (p. e. cambio de puerta de embarque en un aeropuerto, información sobre actividades en un campamento de verano, o en el contestador automático de un cine), siempre que las condiciones acústicas sean buenas y el sonido no esté distorsionado.

Identifica el sentido general y los puntos principales de una conversación formal o informal entre dos o más interlocutores que tiene lugar en su presencia, cuando el tema le resulta conocido y el discurso está articulado con claridad, a velocidad media y en una variedad estándar de la lengua.

Comprende, en una conversación informal en la que participa, descripciones, narraciones, puntos de vista y opiniones sobre asuntos prácticos de la vida diaria y sobre temas de su interés, cuando se le habla con claridad, despacio y directamente y si el interlocutor está dispuesto a repetir o reformular lo dicho.

Comprende, en una conversación formal, o entrevista (p. e. en centros de estudios o de trabajo) en la que participa lo que se le pregunta sobre asuntos personales, educativos, ocupacionales o de su interés, así como comentarios sencillos y predecibles relacionados con los mismos, siempre que pueda pedir que se le repita, aclare o elabore algo de lo que se le ha dicho.

Distingue, con el apoyo de la imagen, las ideas principales e información relevante en presentaciones sobre temas educativos, ocupacionales o de su interés (p. e., sobre un tema curricular, o una charla para organizar el trabajo en equipo).

Bloque 2. Producción de textos orales: expresión e interacción

Hace presentaciones breves y ensayadas, bien estructuradas y con apoyo visual (p. e. transparencias o PowerPoint), sobre aspectos concretos de temas de su interés o relacionados con sus estudios u ocupación, y responde a preguntas breves y sencillas de los oyentes sobre el contenido de las mismas.

Participa en conversaciones informales cara a cara o por teléfono u otros medios técnicos, en las que establece contacto social, intercambia información y expresa opiniones y puntos de vista, hace invitaciones y ofrecimientos, pide y ofrece cosas, pide y da indicaciones o instrucciones, o discute los pasos que hay que seguir para realizar una actividad conjunta.

Toma parte en una conversación formal, reunión o entrevista de carácter académico u ocupacional (p. e. para realizar un curso de verano, o integrarse en un grupo de voluntariado), intercambiando información suficiente, expresando sus ideas sobre temas habituales, dando su opinión sobre problemas prácticos cuando se le pregunta directamente, y reaccionando de forma sencilla ante comentarios, siempre que pueda pedir que se le repitan los puntos clave si lo necesita.

Bloque 3: Comprensión de textos escritos

Identifica, con ayuda de la imagen, instrucciones de funcionamiento y manejo de aparatos electrónicos o de máquinas, así como instrucciones para la realización de actividades y normas de seguridad (p. e., en un centro escolar, un lugar público o una zona de ocio).

Entiende los puntos principales de anuncios y material publicitario de revistas o Internet formulados de manera simple y clara, y relacionados con asuntos de su interés, en los ámbitos personal, académico y ocupacional.

Capta las ideas principales de textos periodísticos breves en cualquier soporte si los números, los nombres, las ilustraciones y los títulos vehiculan gran parte del mensaje.

Entiende información específica esencial en páginas Web y otros materiales de referencia o consulta claramente estructurados sobre temas relativos a materias académicas, asuntos ocupacionales, o de su interés (p. e. sobre un tema curricular, un programa informático, una ciudad, un deporte o el medio ambiente), siempre que pueda releer las secciones difíciles.

Bloque 4. Producción de textos escritos: expresión e interacción

Completa un cuestionario sencillo con información personal y relativa a su formación, ocupación, intereses o aficiones (p. e. para suscribirse a una publicación digital, matricularse en un taller, o asociarse a un club deportivo).

Escribe notas y mensajes (SMS, WhatsApp, chats), en los que se hacen breves comentarios o se dan instrucciones e indicaciones relacionadas con actividades y situaciones de la vida cotidiana y de su interés.

Escribe notas, anuncios y mensajes breves (p. e. en Twitter o Facebook) relacionados con actividades y situaciones de la vida cotidiana, de su interés personal o sobre temas de actualidad, respetando las convenciones y normas de cortesía y de la netiqueta.

Escribe informes muy breves en formato convencional con información sencilla y relevante sobre hechos habituales y los motivos de ciertas acciones, en los ámbitos académico y ocupacional, describiendo de manera sencilla situaciones, personas, objetos y lugares y señalando los principales acontecimientos de forma esquemática.

Key competences

By working on this project, students will be able to develop and acquire the following key competences published in the organic law on the improvement of the quality of education (LOMCE).

Linguistic competence: students are able to use and interact with othe people using the English language, both in oral and written registers.

Digital competence: students are able to use IT resources to obtain, analize, produce and share information.

Learning to learn: students are able to manage their tasks and time throughout their learning process and can work in an individual and collaborative way to achieve an objective.

Social and civic competences: students are able to ineract with other students and participate actively in different missions following codes of good behaviour.

Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship: students show themselves as creative and are able to take risks, plan and manage their projects.

Licencia de Creative Commons
EDIA Project: English PBL by CeDeC.

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