Language Resident: Franco Rivas Quiroz

Level: Advanced

Class theme/topic discussed: Fake News

Goal of the class:

Students will be able to:

  • Discuss the concept of Fake News, the ways it happens both in the US and in Chile 
  • Identify good ways to be informed about the news.

Class structure:

Warm up:

Think-pair-share: Students answer the questions: how do you usually get informed? How much time do you spend on that? Why do you think it’s relevant?

Activity:

-Students discuss in groups whether there is fake news in the US, how it usually happens and whether they want to share one in particular. They do that in groups and then they share to the class. 

-Students see images of news papers/ social media posts of fake news that had an impact on Chile. Some of them were true and others were false. They discuss which ones are true and which ones were false, choosing some criteria to affirm that.

-Mentiras blancas: In groups, students discuss the following questions about white lies: 

  • ¿Son buenas? ¿Pueden ser buenas a veces?
  • ¿Mienten mucho?
  • ¿Son buenos mentirosos?
  • ¿Te han descubierto alguna vez mintiendo?

-In couples, students select one piece of news that is real and they make up a fake one. They can use their phones to do that. After that, they tell both of them to the class and they have to decide which one is correct and which one is fake news.

Wrap up:

Students vote on which one was the most convincing of all. 

Resources used: Projector.

Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?

  The topic seemed engaging for students. They followed the activities and the discussion prompts well in their groups. Students got the chance to talk a lot in the groups and couples. It was fun to hear their make up news and some of them were very convincing. Maybe what didn’t work so well was that, since there were a lot of couples, it took longer for the whole class to share their news, but students would make comments on them, so it wasn’t like they weren’t participating while the groups shared. They seemed to have fun with it.