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.

21 thoughts on “Fake news – a lesson plan”

André Hedlund says:

May 30, 2017 at 8:41 am

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

Reply
1. James Taylor says:
  
  May 30, 2017 at 11:06 am
  
  Thanks André!
  
  Reply
Tom Beeboss says:

May 30, 2017 at 12:18 pm

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

Curious…

Reply
1. James Taylor says:
  
  May 31, 2017 at 7:12 am
  
  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 says:

June 11, 2017 at 10:19 am

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 says:
  
  June 18, 2017 at 12:06 pm
  
  Thanks Sandy! I thought of including More Or Less, it’s one of my favourite podcasts.
  
  Reply
Pingback: Critical Readers in the Misinformation Age - EFL Magazine
Anuj Agarwal says:

August 27, 2017 at 10:37 pm

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 says:

September 4, 2017 at 9:48 am

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

Reply
Pingback: IATEFL 2018: English teaching in the post-truth era – James Taylor – Lizzie Pinard
Pingback: My tree octopus fake news fail | ELT planning
Marek Kiczkowiak says:

November 8, 2018 at 6:35 am

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 says:
  
  November 8, 2018 at 8:41 pm
  
  Thank you Marek, I’m really pleased that the lesson worked so well and that your students enjoyed it – especially the tree octopus!
  
  Reply
Pingback: 21st Century Fox: Media Literacy – Lesson Plan – James Egerton
Pingback: Critical readers in the (mis)information age | 4C in ELT TYSON SEBURN4C in ELT TYSON SEBURN
tefl online pro says:

December 17, 2019 at 1:03 am

An excellent lesson plan.

Thanks for sharing!

Paul.

Reply
1. James Taylor says:
  
  December 17, 2019 at 4:24 pm
  
  Thanks!
  
  Reply
Louise Hart says:

June 26, 2020 at 7:56 am

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 says:
  
  June 28, 2020 at 1:38 pm
  
  Thank you Louise, much appreciated!
  
  Reply
Pingback: Fake news and critical thinking in ELT | Adaptive Learning in ELT
Pingback: Reflections On… Fake News – The Teacher James