Last term, Post tips was really a mini-course to introduce your students to the Bangkok Post. We covered news stories, opinion, features and even the comics. This term, we will focus largely on the types of activities you can use with the various types of reading material found in our newspaper. I thought it would be a good idea, however, if we would begin with a little review of the most basic of all newspaper stories, the news stories. You might remember from last term that I suggested strongly you take advantage of the fact that news stories often continue over several days or weeks.
Students are, therefore, able to apply what they learn from one day to the next.
This week we will put this to good use with an interesting story about a monkey which had the unfortunate experience of getting its hand stuck in a coconut for almost three weeks. The activities for this lesson are explained in the students' introduction. I suggest you stress that the main purpose of news stories is to give the latest news which almost always comes at the top of the story. The first activity should make this clear. Because of their focus on the latest news, news stories are seldom chronological - telling stories in the order in which they actually happened.