Boosting student engagement during English lessons with NiE
Hands-on newspaper activities spur interest and encourage student autonomy in learning
ONE challenge that most teachers face is getting students’ attention.
When lessons get monotonous, English teacher Banu Piriya Andiappan knows just the thing to spice them up.
The Newspaper-in-Education (NiE) pullout was used by her teachers when she was a primary school student. Then, she was reintroduced to it as a teaching tool during her teacher training course.
“It is a challenge to get them to focus but NiE helps with student engagement in class. NiE exposes them to different learning material. Students get bored when there is too much chalk and talk. By using the newspaper, I get to keep students interested throughout the lesson.
“And the newspaper is something authentic. Students get to see language used in real situations,” said the teacher from SMK Desa Cemerlang, Johor.
The Star-NiE programme, now in its 21st year, has been breathing life into English classroom lessons with novel and hands-on activities with the newspaper. The colourful NiE pullout is written by a team of experienced English language teachers.
With PPB Group Berhad’s recent sponsorship of NiE pullouts to schools in Johor, many have been reaping the benefits of fun language learning with the newspapers. SMK Desa Cemerlang is one of the recipients of the sponsorship.
Banu Piriya noted that students exercise autonomy with NiE activities like crafting advertisements and posters.
“Each has control over what they add to the artwork. And it helps when each student has his own newspaper. This material is cost-effective.”
“They get really excited when it comes to NiE. Some activities really add laughter to the class. The students enjoy NiE very much,” said Banu Piriya.
“They used to be a little intimated by the newspaper. So when I bring the newspapers into class every week, they familiarise themselves with the newspaper and now they find that it’s not so difficult to read. When they come across words they don’t know, they ask me because they want to know what the words mean.
When conducting NiE activities, Banu Piriya is delighted to see discussions happening in English.
“NiE prompts them to speak in English. I don’t focus on the accuracy or grammar, more on fluency. The activities are good as enrichment. NiE is suitable for all levels of proficiency.”
Form Two student Varshna R. Sanmuganathan from SMK Desa Cemerlang said that using the newspaper in class has helped encouraged her to read. “I don’t usually read newspapers. Since the NiE pullout comes with a copy of the newspaper, it is readily availa- ble for me to read and it really helps me with my English.”
“Through newspapers, we can learn about current world news. We can also learn many new words. Moreover, we can read interesting articles that cannot be found in the textbook. The newspaper is also lighter than the textbook,” she said.
SMK Desa Cemerlang Form Four student Kelly Dianarose said that one of her favourite things about the NiE sessions is that it encourages discussion.
“The activities often prompts us to discuss the questions and the answers together. This improves the relationship between teacher and students as NiE activities are not rigid and stressful. They can be quite humourous sometimes! Furthermore, I like that we are also challenged to be creative with NiE.”
“NiE makes me more interested in English and I am keen to look up words I don’t understand in the dictionary. I have definitely improved on my reading and writing skills. We learn English in a fun way, which makes learning English easy with endless excitement,” she added.
Schoolmate Tan Jing Xian finds that the NiE pullout features interesting topics. “The content is informative. After my friends and I read the news, we often discuss our ideas together.”
“Besides, group work also helps me develop a host of skills that are increasingly important in the professional world. During group work, we learn how to communicate with each other and exchange our ideas. We also learn teamwork as we help each others answer questions,” he said.