News & Articles

NB: There are copyright restrictions on the use of TV/radio programmes and movies for educational purposes. Teachers are responsible to checking that their institution has an appropriate screenrights licence. See www.screenrights.org for more information.

General news sources

  • ABC News in 90 seconds – the top stories from Australia and abroad
  • Behind the News (ABC) – subscribe; use their worksheets; do impromptu who, what, where, when etc.
  • ABC local radio – good to refer to places your students know
  • Australia Unlimited Magazine – high quality reading material showcasing the “the ideas and achievements of our world-class scientists, exporters, designers, educators and entrepreneurs.”

Specific news lessons/articles

  • Plain packaging of cigarettes:
    Behind the News episode on this: Cigarette Changes (Sep 4, 2012) with transcript, related links and activities, and lots of student comments on the program.
  • “Wi-fi, dual-flush loos, and 8 more Australian inventions” by Phil Mercer, BBC News Magazine, 8 Nov 2012 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20071644 Great article with bite-size chunks and pictures – ideal for prediction, jigsaw reading, and extension activities (great/kooky inventions [from your country], passive, future forms, presentations, interviews, trip to Powerhouse Museum etc)
  • “A village invents a language all of own”, Nicholas Bakalar, New York Times, 14/7/13. This is about the “Light” Walpiri language spoken by a remote aboriginal tribe in the Northern Territory. Could be used with advanced classes and plenty of discussion around this topic (language formation, ELF vs maintaining the mother tongue, aboriginal culture) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/16/science/linguist-finds-a-language-in-its-infancy.html?_r=2& 
    • Another item on “light” Walpiri, this time an audio recording of a radio program – would be a good accompaniment to the above:
      RTR FM’s Talk the Talk: Light Warlpiri: With so many dying languages in the world, it’s good to see new languages being born. A brand new language has been discovered in the Northern Territory. It’s Light Warlpiri, and while it seems to combine English with the Australian language Warlpiri, it has grammatical rules that are entirely its own. What’s it like, and does it have a future? Linguist Daniel Midgley gets into the mix on this episode of Talk the Talk. http://rtrfm.com.au/story/talk-the-talk-light-warlpiri/

 

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