Breaking News English is one of the biggest resources available to tutors. Once you’ve clicked on the Breaking News English link, via Volunteer Tutors then Tutor Resources on the Literacy Network Homepage, you’ll find over 1,800 lessons and counting on anything and everything. From’Twitter in Turkey Court’ (April 5, 2014) to a ‘Toilet Theme Park in South Korea’ (November 11, 2012), politics, natural disasters, celebrities, forks which can apparently help people lose weight, Nobel prize winners to Academy Award recipients, sporting triumphs and debacles, royalty and romance, bullying in classrooms and cyberspace – the range of topics is enormous.
The most recent lessons are on the Breaking News English homepage: to scroll through the other 1,800 plus topics, click on the SEE ALL option to view more titles. If those don’t grab your attention as something that will interest your student, scroll down to the list of months and years (going all the way back to 2004) and keep clicking, month by month, for hours of enjoyable reading while you find something to inspire your student.
Lessons are graded ‘Easier’ and ‘Harder’, each comes with a two page MINI lesson download as well as a 26 page PDF, audio downloads (for MP3 players), and extra reading, grammar and spelling exercises (for which you’d ideally need the use of a computer/ipad during lessons, although you can print some of the extra grammar exercises straight from your computer screen). The 26 page PDF download includes the reading passage plus a variety of exercises: Phrase Match, Synonyms, Listening exercises (gap fills), Comprehension questions (with either multiple choice answers, full sentence answers, or both), Spelling, Punctuation and Guided Writing/Free Writing.
Breaking News English is a very handy resource, well worth the time you’ll take exploring it and all its topics.