This sounds like a great idea. I have just started teaching, literally this week and have been given extra classes. Hopefully my studnets will be as keen as yours to do something like this.

We tried this at our rural elementary school this semester. Midway through we were given an after-school class of 5th and 6th graders that wanted to learn more English. Originally we were going to read a fun book together and learn new words and grammar but seeing that we had some students that still didn't know the alphabet that well we decided to create a newspaper.

We didn't have as much success in dividing up the roles. Everyone wanted to draw or do something that required a minimum amount of English. So we had to assign some roles. Unfortunately some students stopped coming half-way through so we ended up with just a couple interviews, one review, a few English games, a good drawing, and a comic. Because we could only meet for 30 minutes a week and the overall English level was low, we decided just 1 issue for the first semester would be good.

We used newer versions of Microsoft Word to create the newspaper. It was cheap (didn’t have to buy other software) and I found it pretty simple and fun to make. This class was just supposed to be for a little extra English learning and be there to give the students some more experience. We intended to give the newspaper to all the students and faculty as a fun gift at the end of the semester but it turned into a bigger deal than we thought when we presented a rough draft to the principal. (We didn’t think it was necessary to ask permission beforehand to do it.) It was a pleasant surprise for him so he took charge of the final touches on the project. We ended up making A3 (large size) color copies and sending the newspaper to the county education office and other schools. I really didn’t think it was much as far as content, but it was good to show off to others.

Though the newspaper club lacked a lot, overall I was impressed with the results. I think the students in the newspaper club are happy with their work. I think now that all the students have a copy they will gain a greater desire to learn English by seeing how fun it can be.

I’d like to hear from y’all about any ideas on how to divvy up the work better so that all the students are working around the same amount despite their English ability levels. Telling my students that they can write their reports in Korean and get help translating from better students or me and my co-teacher didn’t seem to motivate them much to write a story. And the photographers just took a couple pictures one day and never really came again thinking they were done. Anyone else doing this project, what successes and what downfalls did you find?

Since March I've been teaching a class after school that consists of grade 3 through 6.  It was deemed a speaking class, and for the first 6 months we worked through different activities that would attempt to hold the attention of students of infinitely various levels.  In the past week, I've asked permission and then transformed that class from a random speaking class into a newspaper club. 

On the first day we elected a club president as well as an editor-in-chief.  After that, the students were told the different roles in a newspaper and were allowed to pick which role they wanted to take.  Surprisingly, little interference needed to take place as the students distributed pretty evenly through the roles.

Of course at an elementary school some of the English levels are rather low.  That's why I've included roles such as photographer and illustrator.  In these roles, students can take a photograph or draw a picture, and then write a few English sentences about their work.  The high level students naturally took the more English heavy roles like reporter and editor. 

I've attached a powerpoint with Korean translations for those of you who are interested in attempting this project as well.  It will be nice for the class to have specific direction and I think the kids will be excited to read and share the paper with their friends and family once it's finished.  I'm hoping to do one issue a month.  I told my students that if they do not know the English words for what they want to say, to go ahead and write that part in Korean and we will translate it together later.  This way the students will get working instead of waiting until the last minute to say, "Teacher I don't know English!"

Here is a list of features I plan to include in the paper:

-Current events at school
-Spotlight interviews with students/teachers/family
-Reviews (games, food, movies, etc)
-Student accomplishments in extra curricular activities
-English cartoons
-Student surveys
-Crossword puzzles / wordsearch / etc
-Birthdays for the month
-etc.

All of these will be created by the students and my students have been surprisingly excited about creating the newspaper.  Everyone seems to be on board with the project.


Is anyone currently managing a school newspaper club?  What software do you use to create it?  I'm considering InDesign.  Any tips or experiences would be appreciated.


Check out the powerpoint for more specific ideas.

Hi, I'm doing your idea of the newspaper club. I was wondering if you can post the final product of the newspaper to see the example. Also, if you can post a template? Please email me at misspham@icloud.com Thank you! love you ppt.