«We want to bring current affairs into the classroom»
Mrs Binder, who is Inform aimed at?
Our target group are teachers at lower secondary level who want to discuss news from politics and society with their class. Experience has shown that young people are very motivated when it comes to discussing current affairs in class, especially when it comes to issues that affect them directly, that their environment is talking about or that they have picked up on social media. However, it is time-consuming for teachers to research the relevant material and prepare it in a way that is appropriate for the level and curriculum. This is where Inform comes into play.
How does your offer work?
We provide teachers with ready-to-use reading and listening comprehension assignments on current newspaper articles or radio programmes that can be used in various school subjects. Depending on the topic, Inform offers one to two weekly lessons with task sets, word explanations, solutions, notes for further reading and a commentary that provides teachers with background knowledge. At least two new contents are added every month. All material is available in two levels of difficulty: One version goes into a little more depth, the other focusses on content that is as easy to understand as possible.
What do you attach particular importance to?
It is important for us to work with verified facts. We also try to take into account as many different sources as possible, as well as formats and text types. For example, young people learn to distinguish between an opinion piece such as a commentary and a background article. Discussing current affairs at school encourages young people to form an opinion and think about fundamental questions of living together as a community - it also promotes an understanding of other perspectives, whether local or global. Ultimately, it is important to us that the topics are relevant to young people. If we succeed in engaging them in this way, we also promote reading and text comprehension in the best case scenario.
Inform offers annual subscriptions for teachers and small, medium and large schools: www.text-inform.ch
