Khai thác hiệu quả phòng Internet để phát triển kỹ năng tổng hợp tin tức cho học viên khoa Quan hệ quốc tế Học viện Khoa học Quân sự

tingent in their developments. 
When reading news online, the learners 
can also improve their command of English in 
general and their language skills in particular 
(Motteram, 2013, p.101). Researching 
various sources of news and interpreting 
their authors’ views enhance the learners’ 
reading comprehension ability and enrich their 
vocabulary. Also, discussing what they have 
collected with their peers in the class helps them 
develop their speaking skills and, at the same 
time, consolidates the acquired language items. 
Besides, the learners’ listening ability can be 
upgraded when they work on online video news 
reports. Thus, the learners’ language intake is 
much facilitated through this intergrated skills 
practice (Hirvela, 2012).
Finally, in terms of language acquisition 
psychology, the learners’ enthusiasm for 
learning is stimulated when there is a switch 
from conventional learning environment with 
much familiar arrangements to a new one with 
different settings (Hannah, 2013). Also, the 
online material with up-to-date information and 
topics is ‘more motivating’ for the learners than 
traditional textbooks (Motteram, 2013, p.101). 
These postitive effects, thus, can make up for the 
cadets’ possible tiredness caused by working on 
news reports within the stipulated time. 
REQUIREMENTS OF A NEWS REPORT
News reports come in different forms 
depending on the assigner’s requirements. For 
example, a news report to be shared within a 
small group can be dissimilar from the one to be 
presented to a larger audience or the one to be 
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submitted to a superior. The teacher may wish to 
remind the cadets to be aware of this flexibility. 
But whatever a particular requirement might be, 
the writer suggests that a news report should do 
at least the following. 
Present accurate and credible information.
Numerous reports covering a single event 
mean a varitey of views reflecting and explaining 
it. The cadets should be taught to retell these 
reports accurately, without exaggerating or 
understating any views. Moreover, the news 
reports should be credible with identified 
sources. The cadets’ linguistic ability also plays 
an important role in interpreting the published 
news because simplistic intepretation of an 
utterance could lead to improper reflection of it. 
All these are critical, especially in the military 
context where leaders’ direction is often based 
on their inferiors’ reports.
Summarize different views on the issue.
An occurance in politics is better understood 
when it is studied from different viewpoints. It is 
the reporter’s responsibility to select and include 
most valuable positions. When news reporting 
skills are practiced in the class, it lies with the 
teacher to provide a ‘rich’ requried reading list 
for the cadets. The reading should reflect multi-
ple perspectives to make sure that coverage of a 
news story is not one-sided. 
Provide conclusions or recommendations 
from what has been reported.
In the military, news reports are made to be 
submited to superiors. Providing conclusions 
or recommendations at the end of the report is 
needed, for the superiors often base on these 
lines to give directive instructions. The cadets, 
therefore, should have the opportunity to practice 
formulating their recommendations from what 
they have collected. This part is not necessarily 
too long in a news report, but it should be clear 
and concise to meet the superiors’ needs.
TARGETED LEARNERS FOR NEWS 
REPORTING LESSONS
Most English news is written with native-
level linguistic sophistication. For this reason, 
it seems that reporting news is only suitable for 
third and fourth year cadets when their language 
skills are more proficient, and it could be an 
obstable to learners with a poorer command of 
English. Fortunately, a number of news websites, 
such as voanews.com with its Special English 
site and bbc.co.uk with its Learning English site, 
provide simpler English news reports for lower-
level language learners. Therefore, freshmen 
and sophomores can work on these special sites 
to research news. In fact, however difficult the 
language of an article is, experienced teachers 
would know how to design the reporting tasks 
to suit their cadets’ linguistic ability. This means 
easier research questions can be assigned to 
learners with lower linguistic competence 
while more difficult ones to learners with better 
command of English (Harmer, 2001, p.127). 
PROCEDURES FOR TEACHING NEWS 
REPORTING SKILLS 
Below are two workable plans that the 
teacher can follow: one with all activities done 
within a two-period lesson’s time (90 minutes) 
and the other with some researching activities 
done prior to the lesson. 
For all-in-one lessons
First of all, the teacher assigns the cadets 
research questions accompanied by a list of 
required links and articles. The cadets then 
access the Internet, reading those articles to 
answer the questions. After this, the cadets work 
in groups, discussing what they have collected. 
Each group then presents their collaborative 
work in front of the class, followed by other 
groups asking questions or voicing their views 
on their presented material. At the end of the 
lesson, the teacher can draw some conclusions 
on the researched topics, give comments on the 
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research methods used by the cadets, provide 
some language correction if necessary, etc. 
This plan is more suitable for those 
cadets with greater linguistic proficiency 
since it requires the learners to work very 
hard and possibly causes some stress due to 
the workload. In fact, international relations 
officers may sometimes have to work under 
pressure to meet the deadline of their assigned 
reports. For this reason, the 90-minute lesson 
is a good opportunity for the learners to 
prepare themselves for their future tasks.
For lessons with the cadets’ prior preparation
The teaching procedures are similar to those 
of the all-in-one lessons above except that the step 
of researching news online has already been done 
prior to the lesson. The cadets then have more 
time for discussing their gathered news. Further 
investigation into the assigned issue could be 
done right in the Internet room when necessary 
under the teacher’s instruction and observation. 
This plan is more suitable for those cadets 
with lower linguistic competence since they have 
more time for preparation. The teacher may have 
to work harder, however, giving more careful 
instruction and more detailed feedback. This 
plan can also work for the learners with better 
command of English when the teacher wishes 
to make a change in the teaching procedures 
or when the researched issues are more 
complicated, asking for discussion at great length. 
REQUIREMENTS FOR TEACHERS
A lesson conducted in the Internet room is 
different from that in a conventional classroom.
For example, the news stories can be up to the 
minute, or the learners may be distracted from 
their assignments due to other things on the 
Internet. Therefore, the teacher needs to comply 
with a number of requirements in order for the 
lesson to be fruitful.
To begin with, the teacher should make sure 
that the cadets have been familiar with working 
in groups. Such groupwork skills as sharing 
information, discussing, and assigning roles 
should have been practiced in previous lessons. 
When the cadets have already mastered those 
skills, they will spend more time on their research 
work. This way, the outcome of groupwork can 
be maximized (Ellis et al., 2005).
Second, the teacher needs to instruct the 
cadets how to research news from different 
sources, read effectively, take notes, present 
what has been collected, and, when required, 
provide recommendations on the researched 
news. These study skills should be introduced 
and practiced in the first lessons. According 
to Gettinger and Seibert (2002, p.350), the 
‘knowledge and application of study skills’ 
would help the learners to ‘acquire, organize, 
retain and use’ information efficiently; and this 
can enhance their performance and competence. 
Third, the teacher should be well-prepared, 
understanding deeply the topics assigned to the 
cadets. A list of articles and their links should be 
given to the learners so that the teacher can have 
control over what they read. For developing news 
stories, the teacher may wish to update them 
right in the class in addition to managing and 
observing the learners. As Harmer (2001, p.121) 
points out, the teacher needs to have planned 
in advance, ‘have a destination they want their 
students to reach’, and remain ‘flexible’ in the 
class. All these will contribute to the teacher’s 
effective prompts for the learners, especially in 
the news reporting skills development lesson. 
Fourth, the teacher should master the 
English language knowledge to a certain degree, 
especially vocabulary associated with the 
assigned topics. In fact, there are chances that 
some political terms, phrases, and expressions 
are out of the teacher’s awareness zone. A 
thorough study into the related language would 
help the teacher manage linguistic situations well 
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in the lesson. However, according to Harmer 
(2007, p.110), the teacher should not be be an 
all-time resource for the learners who sometimes 
need to look for the answers themselves under 
the teacher’s guidance. 
Fifth, the teacher should have good class 
management skills to deal with study problems 
in the class (Harmer, 2007, p.153-155). This 
is because rows of computers in the Internet 
room are arranged differently from desks and 
chairs are in a conventional classroom, and the 
teacher cannot see all the learners’ screens at the 
same time. Some cadets may be distracted from 
their main job by the lure of other things on the 
Internet. An experienced teacher would know 
how to encourage the cadets to focus on their 
work and bring those distracted back to their 
tasks. It is important that a set of regulations for 
working in the Internet room be introduced, and 
the teacher may wish to remind the cadets of 
those rules before each lesson if need be. 
Sixth, the teacher should master some 
techniques for researching online news 
(Dudeney and Hockly, 2007, p.29-34). There are 
a number of ways to find exactly what you are 
looking for in most cases on the Internet. Also, 
it should come to the teacher’s knowledge that 
there are those websites with reliable contents 
and those without. When the cadets are aware of 
all these, possible harm or drawbacks could be 
avoided. The teacher can introduce and let the 
cadets practice all the techniques for working 
online in the first lessons of the class. 
Finally, the teacher may want to anticipate 
what might happen technically when the class 
is in progress, and adopt appropriate solutions 
(Maher, n.d.). For example, there should be an 
alternative, which has been prepared in advance, 
when there is a sudden power cut. Similarly, when 
the Internet service breaks down or its download 
speed is too slow, the teacher should switch to 
some substitutes. Another unwanted possibility 
is that when an individual link to an important 
required article does not work, the teacher 
may provide the learners with another working 
analogue. Thus, teaching in the Internet room 
does need the teacher to make contigency plans. 
CONCLUSION
Using the Internet room to teach news 
reporting skills to cadets of International 
Relations is needed since this practice helps 
them improve their English language skills, 
build their International Relations background 
knowledge, and train their professional skills 
needed for future work. There are numerous 
things the teacher needs to do for the lesson in 
the Internet room to be successul, from preparing 
the material to adopting a workable procedure, 
anticipating unexpected technical situations, and 
meeting a series of requirements. 
Future studies on exploiting the Internet 
room can focus on development of other 
English language skills or those skills in other 
foreign languages being taught at Military 
Science Academy. 
References:
1. Dudeney, G. and Hockly, N. (2007), How 
to Teach English with Technology, Longman, 
Harlow.
2. Ellis, A. P. J., Bell, B. S., Ployhard, R. E., 
Hollenbeck, J. R., and Ilgen, D. R. (2005), “An 
Evaluation of Generic Teamwork Skills Training 
with Action Teams: Effects on Cognitive and 
SkillBased Outcomes”, Personnel Psychology, 
58 (3), 641-672.
3. Gettinger, M. and Seibert, J. K. (2002), 
“Contributions of Study Skills to Academic 
Competence”, School Psychology Review, 31 
(3), 350-365.
4. Harmer, J. (2001), How to Teach English, 
Longman, Harlow.
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EXPLOITING THE INTERNET ROOM TO TEACH NEWS REPORTING SKILLS TO 
CADETS OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - MILITARY SCIENCE ACADEMY
DO VAN TOAN
Abstract: Reporting world news is one of the important skills that cadets of International Relations 
at Military Science Academy need to practice because it is part of their future job as international 
relations officers. The Internet room of the Academy is a useful facility that can be made use of 
to help the cadets develop their news reporting skills. The lecturers of the International Relations 
Department should understand deeply the importance of teaching those skills to the cadets, adopt 
workable teaching procedures, and comply with a range of requirements in order for the lessons 
in the Internet room to be successful. 
Keywords: using the Internet, International Relations, news, news reporting skills.
5. Harmer, J. (2007), The Practice of English 
Language Teaching, Longman, Harlow.
6. Hirvela, A. (2012), “Teaching Integrated 
Skills”, The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, 
Iowa State University, Iowa.
7. Loan, F. A. (2012), “Impact of the Internet 
Surfing on Reading Practices and Choices”, 
Webology, 9 (1), retrieved on February 17, 
2017 from <
v9n1/a94.html>.
8. Maher, H. D. Jr. (n.d.), Potential Challenges 
Common to a Laboratory Teaching Assistantship 
Assignment and Some Possible Solutions, 
retrieved on February 2, 2017 from <
unomaha.edu/maher/labTAworkshop.html>.
9. Motteram, G. (2013), Innovations in 
Learning Technologies for English Language 
Teaching, British Council, London.
10. Ryan, H. (2013), The Effect of Classroom 
Environment on Student Learning, Western 
Michigan University, Michigan.