Cable News Network (CNN) International News as authentic materials for teaching news items

As technology advances, one of the things that stands out the most with the advent of the internet is that print newspapers are now turning to online news articles. News articles are authentic materials contributing to students' English improvement and makes students more familiar with a broader variety of genres and social issues from the native speaker's country reading the newspaper. CNN International has become an icon of the globalized news world that also can be used in teaching news items. This current study investigated the suitability of CNN International news articles for teaching news items as authentic materials for senior high school students and activities in the classroom using CNN International news articles. The study used a qualitative descriptive method by analyzing six CNN news articles and interviewing one senior high school English teacher. The data were collected through the content checklist of the six articles and interview guidelines with the teacher. The findings showed that six articles are suitable for use as a resource of information to facilitate learning of news items for senior high school students based on the generic structure & language features provided in the news and multimodality. However, the readability score is one level above the Senior high level. Jigsaw reading, poster presentation, pretending to be news anchors, group discussion, and individual summary are the activities the teacher applies in the classroom for teaching news items using CNN International.