Because the news videos are short, sweet, and designed for children, I think that they would be great for ELL's to practice listening and writing skills. I would ask my students to listen to one news podcast from this website per week and turn in a 7-10 sentence written response summarizing and discussing what they learned. Students could ask questions about the news and write about what surprised them or what they learned. Because reading/writing and listening/speaking usually go together, I think that using these podcasts to create a listening/writing ESL and social studies exercise is a great way to change things up.
SWBAT listen to the news with the purpose of relaying current events to others.
SWBAT ask questions about current events.
SWBAT summarize what they have heard in writing.
