Here’s a tip for learning English.

Have a balanced diet.

Learn English with music, movies, and TV shows…

…but don’t forget to learn English for the serious stuff.

At the same time that you learn English slang, you have to make sure that you learn about what’s going on in the “real” English-speaking world.

To do that, you can learn English through the news.

Why Learn English through the News?

News programs are written clearly and directly, making them perfect for language learning. The news can be your own personal English classroom.

Also, language is about making sense of real life issues. News is called news for a reason: news is by definition fresh and current. News programs focus on issues that you care about and on how you live your life. It makes sense to learn English in the context (situation) you can actually use.

And learning English isn’t just about improving your vocabulary. It’s also about being able to connect with English speakers. When you know what’s going on in their world, then you’ll be able to speak their language better.

Here are some steps to get you started.

4 Tips for Learning English Through the News

1. Watch TV Online and Read the Newspaper at your Learning Level.

If you know a lot of English, you may be ready to read the The Wall Street Journal or to watch videos from CBS News. If you are a beginner, no problem: you can watch and read the news online at a level that works for you, then go to more difficult stories at your own speed.

The New York Times has a weekly column on its  Learning Network just for American English language learners. The stories are written in a way you can understand. After you read, take the quizzes on punctuation and word choices.

BBC offers a daily program Words in the News for British English fans. Commentators (the people who read the news) list important words then read a story that includes those words. The words can be tough (difficult), though. Don’t be surprised if you need to review the words in the quiz that comes with the program.

Voice of America creates two levels of news for English learners on its web site. You can listen to English podcasts or videos and read along with the text. The VOA Learning English Channel includes subtitles (the words at the bottom of the screen) and the commentators speak slowly and clearly, at about a third slower than regular broadcast. That gives beginning learners a chance to keep up. Plus, listening online means you can hit the pause button and read the subtitles at your own rate.

2. Watch and Read High Quality News

Lots of really mediocre (not so good) content is out on web. Go for quality.

Seek out news sources with crisp clear writing. The sentences should be short and declarative, which means they should use a subject-verb-object pattern. The writing in the story should be as easy to read as the headline or title at the top. USA Today has a lot to offer language learners because the writing style is very direct.

Try to find news sites where the staff comes from different cultures. The stories are more likely to give you more than one viewpoint (perspective) on a problem. The Guardian’s news staff fits that definition. The Guardian’sLearning English section has the crisp, clean writing style as well. Plus, with a click on a tab, you can switch to English language vocabulary and news more suited to Americans, Brits, and Aussies.

Some web sites bring together the best quality news stories the Internet has to offer. They are called aggregate (combining) sites, which means they put all the good videos in one place. Video news has a particular advantage for English learners because you can see, hear, and read all at once, but you need a good collection (group) of videos to draw from.

One service that has a very immersive collection of English videos is FluentU. FluentU gets videos from top news programs, and provides interactive captions that provide you definitions that are easy to understand. Definitions include example sentences that show you how the word is used. You can add those words to your own personal vocabulary list. That means your dictionary can grow with you as you learn.