Video news

• Central News 1,2,3 & 4 - OUP - with accompanying activity books including other related original sources among them newspapers. Intermediate
• ITN World News - OUP With activity book - authentic world news extracts. Upper int
• Britain in View - British Council - with accompanying resource book including newspaper articles. Authentic news items from local news on the BBC - intermediate and above

Activity books

• British Studies Materials for Polish Teachers of English British Council 2000

The Newspapers unit by Anna Tomczak has a range of useful activities linking language with culture, notably on the stylistic features of articles and headlines

·         Sanderson P 1999 Using Newspapers in the classroom CUP

Probably the most comprehensive - giving a wide range of activities and discussion on every aspect of a newspaper including photographs/ adverts/ horoscopes/ problem page/ cartoons/ weather forecasts

·         Grundy P 1993 Newspapers OUP

One of the Resource Books for Teachers series - many ways of using newspapers for language outcomes many of them adaptable for cultural and intercultural outcomes

• Tomalin B & Stempleski S 1993 Cultural Awareness OUP

A variety of newspaper items are found in a number of activities scattered through this book including housing adverts, an agony column, headlines, photos, lost & found, job adverts and news articles. Despite the title not all are cultural exercises, and a number muddle the US and the UK, but the activities can nevertheless be stimulating.

British Studies textbooks

Intermediate

• Collie J & Martin A 2000 What’s it like: life and culture in Britain today CUP
• Unit 7 Newspapers, Magazines, Books
• Lavery C 1995 Focus on Britain Today Phoenix ELT
• Unit 8 The Media

• McLean A 1993 Profile UK Heinemann  
• Unit 11 Facts, opinions and advertisements
• Vaughan-Rees M 2000 In Britain Chancerel 
• The Media p 54

Good for statistics

• Harvey P & Jones R 2002 (new ed) Britain Explored Longman

• Unit 17 The Media  

Advanced

• McDowell D 1999 (2nd ed) Britain in Close-up Longman
• Ch 16 The Media: press, radio and television
• O’Driscoll J 1997 (2^nd ed) Britain OUP
• Ch 16 The Media

• Oakland J 1995 (3^rd ed) British Civilisation Routledge
• Ch 10 The Media
• Irwin J 1994 (3^rd ed) Modern Britain Routledge
• Ch 9 The News Media

Reference

• Crowther J (ed) 1999 Oxford Guide to British and American Culture OUP
• A full page article on p 377 plus individual entries for different newspapers
• Fact file 98 Carel Press
• pp 89-98 The Media with many figures, graphs and tables e.g. audience viewing habits, programme breakdown, complaints breakdown, perception of bias and so on
• The Office for National Statistics 2000 Britain 2001 The Stationery Office
• Ch 17 The Media   (Produced every year - get the most up-to-date)

Mini-review

Essential Articles Carel Press, Carlisle www.carelpress.co.uk

New volumes appear every two-three years - seven so far - check the website

Description

The fully-indexed loose-leaf volumes of the Carel Press Essential Articles series give a wide range of original articles from UK newspapers. Some volumes in the British Council resource points are a little dated now but perhaps more up-to-date volumes will be added (at least three more have been produced). Their great value is the Detailed Contents at the front of each edition enabling you to find exactly what you are looking for - this helps overcome the greatest weakness in using newspapers as a source. In addition there are brief introductions to most articles and Teachers’ Notes at the back of each volume suggesting activities for the articles included.

In their own words:

Essential Articles is a unique resource for issues and controversies providing accessible, copiable articles to support the whole curriculum and for research in the library. Over 250 issues are covered from a wealth of viewpoints and sources. Serious writing is balanced by a rich variety of cartoons and humorous pieces. To ensure diversity, articles are taken from both broadsheets and tabloids, as well as many magazines both well known and relatively obscure. Many users have commented how valuable and speedy Essential Articles is, with its carefully selected articles on a great range of subjects. Some compared it, for example, to the Internet where a bewildering, variety of information, can lead to lengthy searches, and false trails.

They are selected from within the UK for use in schools and in consequence the articles are perhaps not what non-natives need or want. The shared knowledge and experience of UK society is presumed and often necessary for comprehension - only a brief introductory comment is given. The series has a reputation for taking a pessimistic view in its selection (“a catalogue of national neuroses”), however there are many valuable articles on long-term issues (informing those living in the UK of changes in its own society), useful photographs, some delightful drawings and interesting cartoons.

ELT Journal review comments

A fuller review by Ewa Komorowska can be found in ELT Journal Volume 56/1, January 2002 based on her Polish experience of using them in a Liceum classroom (in Alan Pulverness et al. "Survey: Resource materials for social, cultural, and political issues"). Here are a couple of quotations:

Students will not only benefit by learning new vocabulary and expressions, but also by gaining access to new information

 … as a teacher from a so-called ‘former communist’ country, I try hard to be law-abiding … for many years we have been used to not paying the least attention to copyright issues. It came as an enormous relief to me therefore to find that the articles in this volume can be copied ‘… within the purchasing school, college or library’. Copying will no longer be an offence but a right of which I can take full advantage.

How to use Essential Articles

In Volume 3 pp 383-386 Ideas for Using Essential Articles can be found with a variety of outline activities for use in schools + some actual examples based on articles in the volume

At the end of Volume 3 is a series of very revealing Special articles on the Media including:

• Human instincts first - an article on the behaviour of the media by a father of a child killed by a terrorist bomb
• Editing a Weekly Paper

• Reuters - the work of an international news agency

• Life of a Freelance
• Front page Cartooning
• The Big Picture - one day in the life of a freelance photojournalist
  
  

Media bibliography

Many of these books can be found in the British Studies Resource Points. For a full list of what can be found there see British Studies Books

• Bell A 1991 The Language of News Media Blackwell
• Edginton B & Montgomery M 1996 The Media The British Council
• Fiske J 1990 Introduction to Communication Studies Routledge
• Fiske J 1987 Television Culture Routledge
• Fowler R 1991 Language in the News - discourse and ideology in the press Routledge
• du Gay P (ed) 1997 Production of Culture/ Cultures of Production The Open University/ Sage Publications
• Goodwin A & Whannel G (eds) 1990 Understanding Television Routledge
• Hart A 1991 Understanding the Media - a practical guide Routledge
• McNair B 1999 (3^rd ed) News and Journalism in the UK Routledge
• O’Sullivan T et al (2^nd ed) 1994 Key Concepts in Communication and Cultural Studies Routledge
• O’Sullivan T, Dutton B & Rayner P 1994 Studying the Media - an introduction Arnold
• Thompson K (ed) 1997 Media and Cultural Regulation The Open University/ Sage Publications

The British Studies Now bibliography has an annotated list of further books on the media but there is no guarantee they will be available in Poland