10 Ways Language Teachers Can Save Time and Encourage Independent Learning With Newsdle

Time is a limited resource. No matter how successful or productive we are, we still only have 24 hours in a day. Teaching professionals in particular find themselves under pressure from constant demands: there is lesson preparation, assignment marking and grading, attending meetings, preparing students for exams, not to mention the administrative tasks that are a dull but necessary part of the profession. Therefore, anything that can relieve some of these pressures is potentially a lifesaver for overburdened teachers.

As a language teacher, how should you manage your  time and attention effectively when there is only one of you, and up to dozens of students depending on you to teach them a language? How does one teacher provide everyone with equal opportunities to practise the language, and ensure students are progressing at the ideal rate?

There is a strong case for encouraging independence and autonomy in language learning, not only to relieve the dependency on the teacher, but also to increase learner motivation and self-confidence. In this day and age, online technologies are a major asset in boosting efficiency in language classrooms. So in this article, we explore some ways in which Newsdle graded news platform can encourage independent learning as well as save teachers valuable time.

Time-saving tips for teachers using Newsdle

What are some of the most time-consuming tasks for language teachers, and how can Newsdle help? Let’s take a look…

1.   Finding quality materials

Language learners need a lot of exposure to comprehensible input (reading and listening material) in order to internalise language patterns and improve their comprehension skills. There is already an abundance of French and Spanish material out there on the internet, in books, and elsewhere – but how much of it is high-quality and leveled appropriately for your students?

With Newsdle, teachers don’t have to spend ages identifying and developing learning materials that are adapted to the students’ level; Newsdle is a reliable and continually-updated source of topical news stories in French and Spanish, graded in six different levels. Compared to other online leveled texts such as Newsela, Newsdle has a bunch of additional built-in activities that cut down on preparation time, too. Newsdle articles can be accessed via the user’s homepage, or teachers can download a printable PDF lesson to distribute to students.

(Further reading: Newsela vs Newsdle for Teaching Spanish Reading)

Newsdle graded news is updated daily and available in six levels – Beginner to Advanced Higher.

2.   Preparing listening and reading tasks

After finding suitable material, teachers often have to create activities to maximise the educational value of the material. Although most teachers love to create, let’s be honest – making activities for reading and listening comprehension can take a lot of time. Newsdle again helps teachers out, with built-in reading and listening quizzes accompanying every article. The activities are tailored to each level and they test the learner’s understanding in a variety of ways: vocabulary matching, fill the blanks, sentence chronology, grammar practice, and more.

Every Newsdle article comes with exercises to test reading and listening comprehension. Multiple-choice questions are one type of activity included in Newsdle quizzes.

3.   Grading and marking assignments

Developing learning materials is one time-consuming task that teachers face. How about grading and marking, which is another significant burden on busy teachers? This is where Newsdle’s automated scoring system offers a huge advantage: students receive an instant score for their reading and listening assignments, with a more detailed breakdown of their performance also available in the dashboard. Students benefit from instantaneous feedback which shows what they did well and where they still need to improve.

Students get an instant score when they complete an assignment. The reports show the time spent on each section, the number of attempts, and how the user interacted with the vocabulary.

4.   Assessing students’ progress

After students have interacted with Newsdle articles and/or completed assignments, teachers have access to a wide range of insights related to student performance. There is data on articles viewed, assignment scores, incomplete assignments, words looked up and saved, and more.

A view from the Newsdle teacher dashboard showing how students interacted with assigned articles.

5.   Creating extension activities

What about when you want to try a different type of activity with your students – or, what if it’s not practical for students to log into the Newsdle website during class time? There are other ways to get additional value out of Newsdle articles, such as:

• Dictation: While ensuring students don’t see the text, the teacher can slowly read a paragraph or portion of the text aloud, and have the students transcribe exactly what they hear. This is a good exercise in accurate listening and writing.
• Spelling test: The teacher can select a number of words from a Newsdle article, or use the vocabulary list provided, and instruct students to learn the words in preparation for a spelling test in the following lesson.
• Writing practice: After reading a Newsdle article, students could be guided to produce a piece of writing, such as: summarise what they have read and understood in the text, write an opinion piece on the topic, or write a diary from the perspective of one of the individuals mentioned in the article (just a few examples).
• Speaking practice: Use news articles as the basis for class discussion, debate, role-play, pronunciation practice, and other types of oral activities. Some teachers ask their students to select one Newsdle article each week and bring it to class for discussion. (Find more ideas here: 13 French Conversation Practice Exercises Based on French News Articles)

How to encourage independent learning in the classroom (and beyond)

We’ve seen how Newsdle can save teachers time, but another advantage is that it encourages independent learning. Here are some of the benefits.

1.   Built-in vocabulary and grammar tools

Lack of vocabulary is a major barrier to reading comprehension and enjoyment. Even 10% of unknown words in a text can seriously impede comprehension, and having to pause to look up words in a dictionary interrupts the natural flow of reading and listening.

Newsdle solves this problem: there is a vocabulary list right below the article (as well as idioms and proper nouns that appear in the text), and individual words/phrases can also be clicked to get an instant translation. This makes reading and listening a much smoother experience, and reduces reliance on external resources such as dictionaries, other reference books, and the teacher! Additionally, new vocabulary can be saved to the user’s word bank to review later.

Vocabulary is the foundation of language, but grammar matters too. Seeing grammar in use is a meaningful way to learn grammatical points. That’s why Newsdle provides clear grammar explanations alongside vocabulary lists, and detailed verb conjugation tables are available every time you click on a verb in the text.

On the left, a sample list of keywords from an advanced-level Newsdle article. On the right: verb conjugation tables can be accessed by clicking on any verb in the text.

2.   Built-in audio

One highly-rated feature amongst Newsdle users is the inclusion of native speaker audio with every article. Listening and reading at the same time helps learners make connections between written words and pronunciation, while repeatedly exposing the listener to common sounds and stress patterns in the language. Audio playback in Newsdle is controlled by the user, so they can play, pause, listen and re-listen as many times as they like.

3.   Select topics of interest

Learning happens so much faster and better when students are personally interested in the subject matter. When practical, the teacher should guide students towards self-selecting study material and pursuing their own interests in the target language.

Newsdle makes this possible for all learners, even at beginner level, as the texts are graded appropriately and the material is guaranteed to be from a quality and trustworthy source. Students learn the positive habit of independent reading and listening in the target language, which will set them up for success as life-long language learners.

As noted above, some teachers let students choose their own Newsdle articles to bring to class as a conversation starter. This is a great way to keep the discussion topics fresh and engaging.

4.   Continuity outside the classroom

Effective language-learning is not confined to a particular classroom, a teacher’s instructions, or a specific slot in the weekly timetable. The most successful language learners make the target language a part of their life and daily routine. Though not every learner has that high level of motivation, the least you can do as a teacher is use Newsdle to provide supplemental reading outside of lessons: it’s easy to assign reading and listening tasks as homework, or instruct students to pre-read a particular article to prepare for the next lesson.

Spanish teacher Sabrina Laroussi, who teaches conversation and culture classes at a US military college, has successfully used Newsdle articles to prepare students for a new topic. Before showing the Disney movie Encanto to her class, she found an article about it on Newsdle, and set it as an assignment for her students. “I asked students to read the article and answer the questions first to prepare them for the movie,” she recalls. “So they came really prepared, and they knew quite a lot about Colombia before coming to class, and then we watched the film. I thought that was perfect – it was a great introduction to the movie.” 

Assignments can be set up and distributed to students from the Newsdle teacher dashboard.

When using Newsdle at home, students have the opportunity to browse other articles and strengthen their independent reading habits. They can also opt to undertake additional comprehension quizzes which are not part of a formal assignment.

Newsdle Use Case: 

Spanish teacher Sabrina Laroussi, who teaches conversation and culture classes at a US military college, has successfully used Newsdle articles to prepare students for a new topic. Before showing the Disney movie Encanto to her class, she found an article about it on Newsdle, and set it as an assignment for her students. “I asked students to read the article and answer the questions first to prepare them for the movie,” she recalls. “So they came really prepared, and they knew quite a lot about Colombia before coming to class, and then we watched the film. I thought that was perfect – it was a great introduction to the movie.” 

Newsdle Spanish reading lesson about a popular Disney movie about Colombia “Encanto”.

5.   Design student-led activities

Student-led activities are an important part of any language classroom, not only because they help to balance out teacher-led instruction, but also because they encourage independent learning and strengthen relationships with peers. There are many ways to incorporate student-led activities based on Newsdle material, and these are just a few:

• Project work: Alone or in groups, students can work on a project that is connected to a theme identified within a Newsdle article (or set of articles grouped around a theme). The project could include independent research, creative work, and/or a presentation to the class at the end.
• Pair or group work: Newsdle articles can be used for a variety of student-led speaking activities, where the teacher plays only a guiding role (provided that the students have a reasonable level of competency in the language). One option is to put students in pairs and assign a different Newsdle article to each student in the pair. After reading their article, Student A has to tell Student B about what they have read, and vice versa. (There are other ideas for speaking activities here: 13 French Conversation Practice Exercises Based on French News Articles)
• Students teach each other: Many students love to experiment with playing the role of “teacher”, especially as they become more advanced in the language. Why not take advantage of this, by assigning each student (or group of students) a topic or a set of vocabulary to teach? For example, students could be given some keywords from a Newsdle article and instructed to teach their vocabulary to the class in whichever way is most suitable: draw a picture on the board, provide an explanation in the target language, create a PowerPoint slide, etc.

Summary

Learner-centred online platforms like Newsdle help to promote greater independence, effective study habits and engagement among students, which sets them up for long-term success in language learning. Digital tools really can be a win-win for language teachers and students.

For time-pressed language teachers, Newsdle makes it easy and convenient to develop learning materials, issue assignments, design extension activities, and reduce the administrative burden. With a little creativity and forward planning, it’s simple to create innovative educational activities based on Newsdle articles and other authentic materials.

Author

Daisy Ward is an experienced online English teacher, writer and content creator with a passion for foreign languages and cultures. Her expertise in effective language-learning strategies is derived from many years in language classrooms, both as a teacher and as a student. Fluent in French and competent in Mandarin Chinese, she attributes much of her success in learning languages to the use of apps and other online tools.