James Taylor

Fake news – a lesson plan

Fake news, post-truth, and alternative facts are three buzz terms that seem to sum up this strange time we live in. It’s something that fascinates me, and as a language teacher I feel that I’m in a position where I can not only discuss this with my students of all ages, but also help them to become more critical in how they interact with the news that comes their way.

This is essentially what I have been arguing in my talk English Teaching in the Post-Truth Era which so far I have done at conferences in Brazil, the UK and Belgium. In order to support the talk I have prepared a lesson plan to be used with teen and adult students, as well as many of the resources and articles I mention in the talk. The lesson is designed to introduce students to the notion of fake news and teach them some strategies to become better, more critical readers. It is adapted from a lesson plan by the Anti-Defamation League (link) with elements taken from here.

Fake news – lesson plan

Fake news – lesson powerpoint

Note: I haven’t included any explicit language activities as the plan is designed to be used with a variety of ages and levels. I think there are numerous opportunities to include language points in the lesson depending on the needs of your learners. My suggestions are introducing relevant news and internet related vocabulary at the beginning; functional language to discuss advantages and disadvantages (before slide 4); more specific lexis related to websites (links, hyperlinks, gifs, menus etc) (before slide 6); any interesting or difficult vocabulary that emerges from the video, or that you think needs to be pre-taught for lower levels.

Useful links

I will attempt to keep this list up to date. If you would like to recommend a resource or let me know that a link is broken, leave a comment below.

Posted by:

James Taylor

James Taylor is a DELTA qualified EFL teacher, teacher trainer, materials writer and podcast producer based in Brasília, Brazil. He has written the Our Languages coursebook series for FTD Educaçao, is a founder of the Raise Up! project and was nominated for an ELTON Award for the TEFL Commute podcast. He is the Project manager at Active English and a committee member of IATEFL TDSIG and BRAZ-TESOL Brasília.

21 responses to “Fake news – a lesson plan”

André Hedlund

May 30, 2017

Great talk and a wonderful resource, James! Thank you for sharing.

Reply
1. James Taylor
  
  May 30, 2017
  
  Thanks André!
  
  Reply
Tom Beeboss

May 30, 2017

Why did you only post left wing “fact checkers?”

Curious…

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1. James Taylor
  
  May 31, 2017
  
  Well, I wouldn’t describe them as left wing, as I think facts are apolitical, but I posted these fact-checkers as these are the only reliable ones I am aware of. If you have some others you think I have missed, feel free to send them over.
  
  Reply
Sandy Millin

June 11, 2017

BBC have a couple of places dedicated to clarifying the facts behind the news:
Reality Check: particularly for election related claims http://www.bbc.com/news/topics/267ada11-b730-4344-b404-63067c032c65/reality-check
More or less: a podcast looking into statistics used in everyday life, often debunking them
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qshd
Hope it all went well!
Sandy

Reply
1. James Taylor
  
  June 18, 2017
  
  Thanks Sandy! I thought of including More Or Less, it’s one of my favourite podcasts.
  
  Reply
Critical Readers in the Misinformation Age – EFL Magazine

July 14, 2017

[…] you’re interested in this topic, James Taylor has also published a lesson plan. Additionally, for more references to readings and useful resources, please download this […]

Reply
Anuj Agarwal

August 27, 2017

Hi James,

My name is Anuj Agarwal. I’m Founder of Feedspot.

I would like to personally congratulate you as your blog The Teacher James has been selected by our panelist as one of the Top 50 TEFL Blogs on the web.

http://blog.feedspot.com/tefl_blogs/

I personally give you a high-five and want to thank you for your contribution to this world. This is the most comprehensive list of Top 50 TEFL Blogs on the internet and I’m honored to have you as part of this!

Also, you have the honor of displaying the badge on your blog.

Best,
Anuj

Reply
englisah

September 4, 2017

Thanks James. I feel luck found this because I was looking for some resources concerning how to figure out hoax

Reply
IATEFL 2018: English teaching in the post-truth era – James Taylor – Lizzie Pinard

April 12, 2018

[…] are lots of resources to help with this. I suggest you look through James’s blog post for […]

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My tree octopus fake news fail | ELT planning

October 16, 2018

[…] news. There are a lot of lesson plans online for using this site – James himself has a good one (click here). Anyhow, I love the site itself and can certainly see how it would benefit learners to explore it […]

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Marek Kiczkowiak

November 8, 2018

That’s a brilliant lesson plan, James. I used it today with students who study media and communication, and it went down extremely well. They particularly liked exploring the octopus website. And I heard some quietly murmuring wondering whether tree octopuses actually exist 😉
You might be interested in these examples of fake and real news. They worked really well in this class:
• Fake: https://www.burrardstreetjournal.com/city-that-never-stops-complaining-about-rain-desperate-for-rain/
• Fake: https://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/remote-irish-island-seeks-americans-fleeing-donald-trump-presidency
• True: http://fortune.com/2018/01/15/artificial-intelligence-ai-china-alibaba-reading-comprehension-stanford/
• Fake: http://archive.is/earRt
• True: mantis shrimp strike so quickly that they set the surrounding water boiling: https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/shrimp-packs-punch

Keep up the good work!

Reply
1. James Taylor
  
  November 8, 2018
  
  Thank you Marek, I’m really pleased that the lesson worked so well and that your students enjoyed it – especially the tree octopus!
  
  Reply
21st Century Fox: Media Literacy – Lesson Plan – James Egerton

December 1, 2018

[…] **Another useful lesson plan by my IATEFL colleague James Taylor, available here. […]

Reply
Critical readers in the (mis)information age | 4C in ELT TYSON SEBURN4C in ELT TYSON SEBURN

September 29, 2019

[…] If you’re interested in this topic, James Taylor has also published a lesson plan. […]

Reply
tefl online pro

December 17, 2019

An excellent lesson plan.

Thanks for sharing!

Paul.

Reply
1. James Taylor
  
  December 17, 2019
  
  Thanks!
  
  Reply
Louise Hart

June 26, 2020

Hi James, this is a brilliant resource! Thank you! Ran it with my ECDL adult Ls today and it worked really well. Great discussions, particularly around Tree Octopuses! Thanks for sharing. Keep up the good work

Reply
1. James Taylor
  
  June 28, 2020
  
  Thank you Louise, much appreciated!
  
  Reply
Fake news and critical thinking in ELT | Adaptive Learning in ELT

October 16, 2020

[…] (free) material available for dealing with fake news in the ELT classroom. Examples include work by James Taylor, Chia Suan Chong and Tyson Seburn. Material of this kind may result in lively, interesting, […]

Reply
Reflections On… Fake News – The Teacher James

January 18, 2021

[…] of the posts I have written during the life of my blog, and at the time of writing this, my post Fake news – a lesson plan is by far and away the most popular post I have ever published. And as it happens, this was one of […]

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