Most people will balk at the idea of English newspapers as a tool for learning English. But English newspapers have been around in Bangladesh for a good many years and, whether you admit it or not, have helped numerous students, and teachers and other professionals, in improving their English skills, especially those of reading and writing.
Students seeking higher education at different public or private universities commonly read English dailies as a part of their admission test preparations for English. Those who want to enrol at Dhaka University through the admission test of B or D unit, for example, spend a great deal of time preparing for the English part of the test. This is because English is one of the three subjects tested in those two units, the other two being Bangla and general knowledge. This does not necessarily mean that the admission seekers read the papers daily, since it is not news that they need.
Satellite TV channels are an easier option here. These students usually buy an English newspaper once or twice a week and read it through before buying another issue a week or a half-week later. I remember doing precisely this to improve my English when I was preparing for admission to a university in 2006. I used to buy a copy of The Daily Star every Sunday, so that I could get a supplementary magazine called “Star Campus” along with it.
The fact that English newspapers are not intended for language-learning makes them authentic. The word “authentic” describes reading or listening to material which are intended to serve a purpose other than language-learning. Examples include novels, poems, short stories, and speeches. In marked contrast to these materials are books on grammar or vocabulary, which are meant to facilitate learning a second language, such as English.
Reading an English newspaper regularly for the purposes of learning English has a number of advantages. One of them is that the news reports in the papers give us readers a context, one that is closely related to our politics and society. This context helps the readers retain a lot of linguistic information, including new vocabulary entries and sentence structure. It is common knowledge that learning is facilitated when there is meaningful context.
During my stint as a copy editor for The Daily Star, my supervisor once told me: “Our job is not to teach the readers English, but to present the news as clearly as possible.” He was right. My point, however, is that the learning of English still takes place, as a by-product of the time spent reading the paper.
