ABSTRACT

        One suggestion that is often made for increasing topic relevance and student interest in foreign language classrooms is the frequent introduction of various types of "realia," including current articles from newspapers or magazines. This paper discusses the following aspects of using current news articles in Korean university English classes: (1) how to choose appropriate and motivating articles; (2) how to make use of the articles for more than the traditional reading practice, that is, how to use the articles as background material for lively discussions and motivating writing assignments; and (3) how to prepare effective classroom materials based on the readings with a minimum investment of time and effort on the part of the instructor. Several examples of the authors' use of authentic news articles in their classes are discussed.
 

INTRODUCTION

        Most of us would certainly agree with Ur (1996) when she states that "ultimately we want our learners to be able to cope with the same kinds of reading that are encountered by native speakers of the target language" (p. 150). Johnson (1998), however, reminds us of the following reality: "In most cases, after years of study, translating, and reading (decoding) English, most college [EFL] students have never read an English newspaper nor encountered a study environment that encourages it" (p. 29). Brown (1994, p. 299) discusses the importance of introducing students of all levels to unsimplified, authentic material:

WHY USE CURRENT NEWS ARTICLES?

        There are many excellent commercial textbooks available for ESL/EFL students of all levels that include either actual (e.g., Tiersky & Chernoff, 1993; Tiersky & Hughes, 1996) or simplified (e.g., Heyer, 1996) news articles. A major advantage of these texts for busy instructors, of course, is that the articles have been carefully selected to be accessible and of high interest to students of a particular level, and the texts provide a number of useful vocabulary and grammar exercises, comprehension and discussion questions, etc. So why use current news articles in your classes at all?
        First of all, as their instructor, you know the level of ability as well as the unique needs and interests of your students better than any textbook author. Current articles can be chosen that are not only at an appropriate level for your students, but are also more interesting, relevant and timely than those that appear in textbooks. After all, by the time most textbooks are written, published, and distributed, the articles in them may already be several years old. By using current articles, your students can read, talk, and write about the same kinds of events that they are reading about and discussing in Korean. In addition, in composition classes, authentic articles can often serve as real-life models for various genres of student writing assignments (e.g., writing letters, reporting facts, describing a process, stating an opinion).
        Second, reading, understanding, and discussing authentic English articles may increase students' confidence and motivate them to read more outside of class (Dubin & Bycina, 1991; Johnson, 1998). Furthermore, introducing such articles into your classes may help to provide students with the necessary skills not only for reading the articles, but also for selecting appropriate articles from "local" sources to read on their own. Although most Korean university students are aware that there are two national English-language newspapers published in Korea, for example, many are simply overwhelmed by the idea of deciding where to begin reading. The result is that they avoid them altogether.
        Finally, Jameson (1998) points out that learning to deal with authentic materials will be an important job-related skill for many of our students after graduation. The sometimes overly simplified reading passages that appear in many of the popular conversation books most often used in English classes in Korea provide little meaningful practice in this respect. Material can be chosen from current newspapers and magazines that is both authentic and appropriate for your students' majors.
　

CHOOSING APPROPRIATE AND MOTIVATING ARTICLES

        The best way to choose articles that are appropriate and motivating for a particular group of students is simply to know your students well. Of course, you need to consider their proficiency level, but also consider their majors and personal interests as well as what topics are being discussed in general among people in their age group. Also, don't overlook your own interests. Students will often be more motivated to contribute to a discussion if it is clear that the teacher is genuinely interested in the topic. We have also found it effective to allow (or require if necessary) individual students or groups of students to choose some of the articles. A successful example of this is discussed in the next section.
        Consider using a wide variety of types of published materials (e.g., newspaper and magazine articles, advertisements, charts and graphs, cartoons, advice columns, letters to the editor, etc.). Also, look for articles in a variety of sources. Sokolik (1998) suggests that teachers who want to use authentic materials in their classes "develop new reading habits" (p. 15) and occasionally pick up copies of publications they do not normally read to look for articles their students might enjoy. We have recently used articles from Time, Newsweek, The Korea Herald, and The Korea Times, for example, but we have also used materials from such sources as Parade Magazine, ACTFL Newsletter (from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages), Complete Woman, and Potentiality '98 (a journal published by the students in our department).
        Don't overlook student publications such as the last item just mentioned above, student newspapers and newsletters, the winning entries in composition or speech contests, etc. The level and topics of these publications are usually highly appropriate, and we have found that students are especially motivated when they read the published work of other students they know. Also, these readings make excellent models for student writing in composition classes as well as topics for conversation.¹
        Think ahead, and keep a file of articles you might use in the future. Cut out or copy articles as you are reading that you find personally interesting or you think might be appropriate for your students in the future and simply place them in a folder. Soon you will have a resource file of articles on a variety of topics that are appropriate for various levels of students. This can also be useful for your students in choosing topics for presentations or writing assignments.
        In addition, be sure to consider the "readability" of the articles you are considering for use. You can find many techniques for calculating the readability of a piece of text in various books on the teaching of reading, ² but the most important thing, again, is just to know your students. Don't choose articles that are too long or too difficult for your students to handle. Avoid articles with vocabulary that is too advanced for your students or with too many unfamiliar idioms or slang expressions. At the same time, however, keep the purpose of the reading in mind. Sokolik (1998) points out that "students can handle more difficult language in small doses" (p. 15). You might choose a very short article that contains a number of idioms if your main teaching objective is to teach those idioms, but in general, the articles you choose should follow the same rules as for other types of language input: the articles should be challenging but comprehensible to your students.
        Finally, there are two rules of thumb that we have developed from our experience with using authentic current news articles in Korean university English classes: (1) Articles written by Koreans (e.g., newspaper reporters and columnists) or foreign residents of Korea are generally more successful than those written by and primarily for native speakers of English. (2) Avoid using articles that are larger than one A4 page in size. In fact, perhaps for a number of reasons, we have found this much more important than the actual number of words in the article.
　

USING AUTHENTIC ARTICLES EFFECTIVELY

        One major reservation many teachers have about using authentic articles in their classes is that developing materials and exercises to be used with them can be time-consuming. We have found, however, that with just a little creativity, such materials can be prepared with very little work on the part of the instructor, and in many cases none at all other than making the article available to the students. Certain types of articles themselves, for example, suggest how they might be used in the classroom.
        Advice columns such as "Dear Abby" or "Ann Landers"³ are almost ready-made writing assignments when your students are learning to write letters. Articles with tables of numbers or information can often be used just as they are for information-gap activities. The short "psychology" quizzes found in many magazines can be used to set up competitions in which groups of students discuss the questions and then compare their answers. Editorials and other articles from the opinion pages of newspapers that discuss current social issues can be given as reading assignments to advanced students to provide background knowledge for class discussions or debates. Actual discussion questions or topics can often be written by the students themselves. Furthermore, even when the instructor does feel a need to prepare written materials to aid students with comprehension or to facilitate discussion, those materials can be saved and used over and over again in the future.
        Below are a few examples of how we have used authentic articles from newspapers and magazines in our classes. ⁴
 

A Freshman Composition Assignment Based on a "Dear Abby" Letter

        I recently used part of a "Dear Abby" column in my freshman composition classes as part of a unit on writing personal letters. The letter I chose was written by a woman who was seeking advice for dealing with a friend who telephoned her too often and talked for too long. The letter ended with the following question: "How can I put an end to this annoying waste of time without hurting her feelings?"
        First, I gave pairs of students a copy of the letter along with a very short vocabulary matching exercise to help them understand some of the language that I anticipated would be difficult for them. To prepare the exercise, I simply underlined the expressions in the reading and listed each of them in order below the reading (numbered 1-9) along with their definitions listed in random order (lettered a-i). I allowed about ten minutes for the pairs to read the short letter and complete the matching exercise. Then, after checking the exercise and discussing the content of the letter briefly with the entire class, students were divided into small groups to write an answer to the letter. Finally, near the end of the class, representatives from each of the groups read their letters to the class, which resulted in more class discussion. After class, I made some of the groups' letters along with the published response available to students on my web site.
 

A Class Discussion Based on a Magazine Quiz

        This is an activity I have used successfully a number of times with university juniors and seniors. I give pairs or small groups of students a copy of the eight true-false statements included in a magazine quiz entitled "What do you know about human nature?" (Didato, 1987, p. 58) which they discuss and answer. When all pairs or groups are finished, I read the answers and explanations one at a time explaining difficult vocabulary as necessary. The groups enjoy keeping score to find out who are the best amateur "psychologists," and incorrect answers always lead to a great deal of class discussion. Finally, I hand out copies of the answers for students to read after class.
　

An Entire Course Based on Current Newspaper Articles
 

        For the past two years, I have used mainly current newspaper articles instead of a textbook in a course for senior English majors at Daejin University. Here is a brief outline of last semester's course:
        During the first half of the semester, I chose topics and articles and prepared other materials for 2-3 week units on current topics in local English-language newspapers (e.g., sexual discrimination, the economic situation, educational reform). During the second half of the semester, pairs or groups of students chose the topics and prepared materials and were also responsible for "teaching" a two-hour class. Throughout the semester, class activities consisted mainly of group and class discussions, debates, and other communicative activities. Most of the reading was done outside of class, and there was little discussion of the actual content of the articles. Instead, the reading assignments were used to increase the students' interest and background knowledge of the topics. Besides selecting the articles, my only preparation often included writing a few discussion questions or a list of maybe half a dozen or so agree-disagree statements.
        As part of the three-week unit on sexual discrimination, for example, students were asked to read two articles that had recently appeared in The Korea Herald,⁵ one in the "Campus Vantage Point" column (M. Kim, 1998) and one by a staff reporter of the paper (Byun, 1998). In a two-hour class period, students were first asked to read seven statements related to the topic and indicate whether they "agreed" or "disagreed" with each of them. Then the class was divided into two groups--one all females and the other all males. Their task was to compare and discuss their individual responses and also try to predict how members of the other group would respond. Finally, there was a class discussion of the topic centered on the students' responses to the statements. These are the statements I prepared based on ideas brought up in the articles:

1. Korean culture is generally prejudiced against women.
2. It is probably true that 90 percent of Korean female workers have been sexually harassed at work.
3. It is reasonable for a company to require applicants to put their photographs on job applications.
4. Korean companies are probably less likely to hire an unattractive (ugly) woman than an unattractive man.
5. Usually, a married woman cannot do her job as well as a single woman because of her responsibility at home.
6. If a company is forced to downsize, it is better for them to lay off (or fire) single women than married men.
7. The bank manager (boss) made a good decision when he decided to fire the 25-year-old bank clerk instead of herhusband ("Hard economic times," top of the second column).

CONCLUSION

        The opinions of the experts would seem to agree with the intuition and experience of many EFL instructors that the use of carefully chosen authentic readings from newspapers and magazines can increase topic relevance, interest, and motivation in foreign language classrooms, as well as help students to develop skills in coping with real-world materials and tasks. Many appropriate materials are easily available in Korea both in print form and via the Internet, and with a minimal amount of creativity and effort, instructors can easily adapt these materials for use in Korean university English classes. In addition, these authentic and current materials can be used effectively not only for "reading" practice, but also for a variety of speaking and writing activities and assignments.
　

NOTES

1. The first author has a growing collection of his students' publications available on his personal web site. (available: http://english.daejin.ac.kr/~rtyson/students/>)
2. Vaca and Vaca (1989, pp. 54-58) provide a very useful "Readability Checklist" for teachers to use in estimating the appropriateness of a given piece of text for a particular group of students.
3. "Dear Abby" appears in The Korea Times. (available: <http:www.koreatimes.co.kr>) "Ann Landers" is published in The Korea Herald. (available: <http://www.koreaherald.co.kr>)
4. Although each of the activities described in this section may have actually been used by either or both of the authors, in the interest of readability, the pronoun "I" is used in all of the descriptions.
5. An additional advantage of choosing articles from The Korea Herald is that their past articles are archived for several months on their web site (see URL in note 3 above).
 

THE AUTHORS

Rodney E. Tyson is an assistant professor and English program coordinator at Daejin University. He teaches in the Department of English Language and Literature and the Graduate Program in English Education. He has an M.A. in ESL and a Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching from the University of Arizona and has taught at universities in the United States and Korea for a total of thirteen years.

Baek Seung-Bong has been a full-time instructor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Daejin University since 1993. He has an M.A. and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in English Literature at Hong Ik University in Seoul. He has also studied at Rice University in the United States.
 

REFERENCES

Brown, H. D. (1994). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents.

Byun, E.-M. (1998, January 12). Hard economic times, harder for women. The Korea Herald, p. 11.

Didato, S. V. (1987). What do you know about human nature? Complete Woman, 58.

Dubin, B., & Bycina, T. (1991). Academic reading and the ESL/EFL teacher. In M. Celcia-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (pp. 195-215). (2nd ed.). Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers.

Heyer, S. (1996). True stories in the news: A beginning reader. White Plains, NY: Addison Wesley Longman.

Jameson, J. H. (1998). Simplifying the language of authentic materials. TESOL Matters, 8(3), 13.

Johnson, W. K. (1998). Newspapers: A vehicle for the journey to critical thinking. ThaiTESOL Conference Proceedings 1998, 29-30.

Kim, H.-S. (1998, June 22). Beware of falling coconuts. The Korea Herald, p. 8.

Kim, J.-M. (1998, June 11). Stop nuclear tests. The Korea Herald, p. 6.

Kim, M. (1998, January 9). Workplace sexual discrimination exists. The Korea Herald, p. 8.

Na, S.-U. (1998, June 20). Influences of my life. The Korea Herald, p. 6.

Sokolik, M. E. (1998). Authentic readings for all learners. TESOL Matters, 8(3), 15.

Tiersky, E., & Chernoff, M. (1993). In the news: Mastering reading and language skills with the newspaper. Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook Company.

Tiersky, E., & Hughes, R.. (1996). Morning edition: Mastering reading and language skills with the newspaper. Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook Company.

Ur, P. (1996). A course in language teaching: Practice and theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Vacca, R. T., & Vacca, J. L. (1989). Content area reading. (3rd ed.). Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company.

Related Articles:

Merino, A., & Massi, M. P. (1998). Using the news in the classroom: A discourse approach. English Teaching Forum Online, 36(3), Retrieved April 21, 2001, from the World Wide Web: http://exchanges.state.gov/forum/vols/vol36/no3/p16.htm

Stoller, F. L. (1994). Making the most of a newsmagazine passage for reading-skills development. English Teaching Forum Online, 32(1), Retrieved April 21, 2001, from the World Wide Web: http://exchanges.state.gov/forum/vols/vol32/no1/p2.htm