News Quiz 2024

Traditional end-of-year news quiz for your first lesson of the new year

By ibex73 via Wikimedia Commons [CC BY 4.0]

It’s that time of year again – News Quiz 2024 is here! Continuing the tradition that started with this blog, this annual quiz is back to help you kick off the new year in your classroom with an engaging, language-rich activity.

This year’s quiz follows the same (post-Covid) multiple-choice format, designed to let you quickly cover the questions while leaving time to dive into discussions about the stories and explore new language.

As always, the quiz is full of common lexical chunks and vocabulary your students can learn, practice, and reuse. 

Revisiting Super Size Me

Super Size Me movie poster [Fair use]

Freshly updated video-activity based on a classic fast food exposé

The news of Morgan Spurlock's death at the age of 53 prompted me to revisit this video activity we created some 15 years ago with a former British Council colleague, Charlotte Brander. I thought it was also appropriate to update the activity for the 20th anniversary of one of the most successful documentaries of all time. Additionally, the film has finally been uploaded to YouTube - legally - by the production company. Now, 20 years since its release, has it held up well? 

News Quiz 2023: follow up

Activities for reviewing and recycling the language from News Quiz 2023

Image credits: Isaac Mayne/DCMS, Steve Swayne [Public Domain];
 Les Zg [CC BY-SA 4.0], Geoffrey Chandler [CC BY 2.0]

Welcome back, fellow EFL/ESL educators! I hope that the recent installment of the News Quiz did not only engage your students but also offered some valuable learning opportunities. Now, let's delve into a variety of language-focused follow-up activities. 

As in the past few years, these activities come in various formats. You'll find interactive drag'n'drop exercises on LearningApps, a matching activity on WordWall (Advanced level), interactive quiz on Quizizz (Intermediate level) and good old fashioned worksheets in editable Google Docs.