Student Reporters and Editors at DHSZ

Next Monday (November 8, 2021) marks the 22nd Journalists' Day in China. At Dulwich International High School Suzhou, our student journalists and editors at World News Reporting Club are committed to introducing the rapidly shifting world to their peers.

World News Reporting Club, one of DHSZ’s nearly 80 Co-Curricular Activities (CCA), was initiated three years ago by librarian Ms Qing Zhao. It has soon drawn the attention of the then Year 10 students Yvonne Y, Emily L and Irene W.  "The three of us discussed and reached consensus. Being students from Public junior schools, we were looking for CCAs that can improve our English, that’s why we joined the club", says Yvonne.

Apart from that, both Yvonne and Emily wants to improve their understanding of economics course by reading international news, while Irene was looking further ahead. "My plan is to choose Journalism as my second major at University, because I am a celebrity worshipper and I’d like to try to be an editor in the future", Irene said.

At first, Qing would assign some relatively simple news from the Newsela website for them to read and summarise during CCA time every Wednesday. " Newsela is an online news-as-literacy platform that all articles are available in five Lexile levels, easy for me to choose articles based on students’ English level. I lead this club is also because people might only learn 80% from reading, but by summarising what they read, 100% knowledge becomes their own", explained Ms Zhao.

The selected news stories cover a variety of topics such as economics, entertainment, academics and life. The young editors at the club need to read the news thoroughly and then abstract it by about 100 words. "The nature of news is concise, so it's very hard to abstract it any further. I would write down the date first and then work on the lead, it became much easier," After practising and practising, Yvonne finally finds her way to do better.

Emily and Irene found glossary is the most difficulty. Emily explains, "trying to find the exact words to summarise the news stories are tough, especially to ensure the time, place and everything are correct. But after proofread by assistant librarian Mr. Andrew Gibson, my writing was improved significantly".

Irene was a little bit lost in terminologies. "The academics section, like physics and chemistry, is full of terminologies, which impede me going on read, so I had to spend a lot of time looking up these words", Irene said.

After more than two years of practising, the three are able to complete the abstracts within one hour, and then send to Ms. Zhao or Mr. Gibson for review. Ms. Zhao uploads the final writings to a shared folder for tutor classes, where tutors could share with students in the morning. "The classmates were surprised when they found out that we had written the short news stories", Yvonne said.

When asked what they have learnt most, Yvonne said: “It's the habit of keeping reading. I know my improvement is the fruitful outcome of persistent reading.”

Emily: I chose economics, so I read a lot of articles about the economic environment and abstracted such news stories as well. It helps broadened my interest.

Irene: My understanding and my language skills have improved a lot. For example, when we restate an article we read, we must pick some key words and reorganise our language before we express, I think I’ve made great progress in this area.

Their progress was also recognised by Mr Andrew Gibson. ", it was always a pleasure to help the respectful and polite students taking part. While they were initially nervous and a little reluctant to seek help with their writing, they soon overcame this. I was surprised and delighted by how rapidly the quality of their journalistic writings improved, with just some simple guidance from me."

The efforts of the now Y12 students Yvonne Y, Emily L and Irene W have gained reputation for their club as well. This term, the World News Reporting Club welcomed six new members, three of whom are from Year 12.