How Newspapers Can Help to Improve Your English

By John Moran, Callan Method teacher at ABC School of English. There are several free newspapers available on the streets of London. The Metro in the morning and the Evening Standard (available from about 4:30 pm) are two of the most popular. It is a good idea for students to make use of these to practise their language. Both the Metro and the Standard use a comparatively informal style and are concerned with the political and economic news of the day, sports and human interest stories. They use idioms, common phrases and expressions and present their articles in a readily digestible form. To use these papers effectively as language resources it is not sufficient to simply read for understanding, students should read critically underlining new vocabulary and complex grammatical structures. The student should then read the article again and try to work out the meaning of new vocabulary from the context which it is used. Having done this, the student should check they have understood the new vocabulary correctly by looking the word up in a dictionary. Complex grammatical structures generally involve the use of auxiliaries or modals. Students should try to understand why these structures are being used in the article. Reading this way is very useful in getting practice in the use of perfect tenses, passive voices, etc.