This unit contains activities aimed at developing your students’ independent thinking as well as critical attitudes and behaviours. The materials and exercises provided have been specifically designed to provide learners in secondary education (ages 13-18) with the tools needed to engage critically with the information spread by the mass media (newspapers, websites, social networks, etc.). In fact, the media which students use in their daily lives may disseminate fake news deliberately created to look very similar to real news. This phenomenon makes the development of critical thinking and reading very important, as it is not always easy to realise that what we are reading does not correspond to reality. In addition, you will find activities that give your students the opportunity to actively work with their languages, with the aim of raising their awareness of the importance of multilingualism as a learning resource. The target audience are 10- to 18-year-olds.
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Learning Objectives
- Attitudes n.9: Stimulate students to think critically about what they read in newspapers or on the Internet.
Attitudes n.9
As a teacher, I want to stimulate my learners to think critically about global issues. - Values n.9: Raise students’ awareness of the importance of developing critical attitudes and behaviours.
Values n.9
As a teacher, I believe in the importance of teaching my learners critical attitudes and behaviours. - Attitudes n.8: Work actively with students’ linguistic resources.
Attitudes n.8
As a teacher, I want to actively work with my learners’ linguistic resources.
Learning Outcomes
- Skills n.1: Use their critical and independent thinking when analysing what they read in newspapers or on the Internet.
Skills n.1
As a teacher, I am able to promote students’ critical and independent thinking. - Skills n.2: Have the proper tools, strategies and resources to engage critically with mass media and become aware of its influence on people’s thinking and attitudes.
Skills n.2
As a teacher, I am able to help students become aware of representation in media, in particular the voices and positioning of certain social groups. - Skills n.10: Understand how important it is from an educational point of view to use their different languages as resources.
Skills n.10
As a teacher, I am able to teach students how to use their different languages as resources.
Teaching materials
Download the teaching materials as a Word or PDF document.
Handouts
Download the handouts as a Word or PDF document.
Domain specific teaching materials
To allow teachers of all subjects to incorporate our materials into their teaching, we have adapted several activities to include exercises that are also suitable for subjects other than English, such as biology or geography. The following documents include domain specific activities for all five units of this project. Download the domain specific teaching materials as a Word or PDF document.