The news and censorship

In this Upper-Intermediate ESL lesson, students will discuss what content is censored in the media and who decides what should be censored. The lesson mostly focuses on the vocabulary used in the news.  Additionally, students will revise the use of the passive voice.

Introduction

The lesson starts with a matching exercise where the student matches the news categories with the news headlines.

Reading: In recent news…

The student reads a paragraph about the recent news, paying special attention to the passive and active voice.

Grammar: The active vs. the passive voice

The active and passive voice are contrasted and exemplified. To practice, the student reads sentences in the passive voice, finds the mistakes and corrects them. Next, they fill in the gaps with the correct form of the passive. 

Reading: Discussing news

The student reads a dialogue about different news sections and ways to stay up-to-date. New vocabulary is extracted from the dialogue for the student to fill in the gaps. (Synonyms are given in the brackets.)

They read news of the day and learn some topic-related vocabulary (spectators, forecast, intermittent, etc.).

Reading: Censorship

The student reads a text about censorship and does a multiple-choice exercise related to the text.

Video: The introduction of censorship

The student watches a video about the introduction of censorship and learns who censors material and why. Finally, they share their own opinion on censorship.