Who can enter?

• Learners of English as a second or foreign language aged 6-8
• Learners of English as a second or foreign language aged 9-12
• English, bilingual or multilingual children aged 6-8
• English, bilingual or multilingual children aged 9-12

You can enter on your own or with a friend. There is a first prize for each of the catgories above as well as prizes for runners up. We also have lots of goody bags to give away.

How will the winners be chosen?

A panel of judges from What's Your News? and the British Council will choose 4 winners: one from each category. The panel will judge your entry on:

• original ideas when choosing the subject for Your News
• the imagination and creativity shown in presenting Your News
• the clarity of the English in the video (the child should be easy to understand when speaking)

How do I enter?

• Read the Instructions carefully first before making your video.
• Read the Terms and conditions before entering the competition.
• Make your video clip of Your News.
• You must have permission from your parents to enter. Ask your parent(s) to register and upload your video.

How do I upload my video?

Between June 24th and October 15th your parent(s) will be able to upload your video. Make sure your camera settings are for a minimum video size of 640x360 (widescreen 16:9) or 640x480 (normal 4:3). You can also upload the following file formats: avi .dv .mov .qt .mpg .mpg2 .mpeg2 .mpeg4 .mp4 .3gp .3g2 .asf .wmv .flv. If you are using a mobile phone make sure you film in landscape.

I'm a teacher - how can I get my students involved?

See the Lesson plan for ideas on using the competition with your class. Unfortunately, we can't accept whole class entries and all entrants must have the permission of their parents. Therefore we suggest you introduce the activity in class and children film and upload their videos with their parents.

I'm a parent - how can I help my child enter?

See the Lesson plan for ideas on using the competition with your child. All entrants must have the permission of their parents and the registration form must be completed by a parent. 

1. Go to http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/kids-news/news and show the page to the class but don't start the video yet.
    
2. Talk about any other What’s your news? clips that you’ve watched. Can the students remember any of the children’s news? Can students identify the main characters from the show? (Grant is the presenter with a blue tie, Antony is the other anteater presenter, Gi Ant is the interviewer with a microphone.)
    
3. Watch the video. Ask very young learners to count how many children they see. Ask older learners to remember names and news. Encourage students to sing along with the intro song – ‘What’s your news, news, news?’.
    
4. Hand out worksheets to the students. Watch the video again and ask students to complete the worksheets.
   Click on 'Print an easy activity to do with this video for younger learners' or click on 'Print an activity to do with this video' for older students.
    
5. Tell the students that you want to know about their news. You could elicit news from students by playing the role of Gi Ant the interviewer. Use an imaginary microphone or even better – print out the one from the Interview Pack and stick it on card: 

   With younger learners focus on today’s news or familiar topics. Prompt students to give news such as The weather in my city is…., My best friend is called….., My sister/ brother / mum / dad / school / pet.... Write up some of the news on the board. You can draw simple images to represent each piece of news.

   With older students or bilingual students you could show the scrolling news on the What’s your news? website as a prompt: www.whatsyournews.com

   You could display or hand out the What’s your news? Headline Chart:
   Students can complete their real (or invented!) news for each day of the week.

6. Tell the students that they are going to practise talking about their news. Demonstrate an interview to the class with a stronger student. The teacher takes the role of the interviewer (use an imaginary one or cut out microphone from the interview pack) and the student can talk about news from his/her list or the board. Then swap roles. 

   With younger learners ask the question: “What’s your news?” and feed in language like My name’s…. and my news is that……And that’s all. You could write this language on the board for students to refer to later.

   With older students or bilingual students ask some of the questions from the competition instructions: What happened? When did it happen? Who was there? Where were you? How did you feel?

7. In pairs, students prepare and practise talking about their news. They should take turns being the interviewer. Let them write dialogues or sentences if they want. Monitor, check they are taking turns and give lots of help and encouragement. Decide in advance if you want your students to make and use the interview props from the Interview Pack.
    
8. Students take turns to perform their interviews to the class. You could hold a class vote to decide on a winner if appropriate. Encourage a round of applause after viewing.
    
9. The filming itself and the submission of entries needs to take place in the students' home as they will need their parents' permission to take part and submit a video. If appropriate for your teaching context, you could set the task as homework. As they will have practised in the class the role of the parent is to film their child and help them upload the video to the website in order to enter the film for the competition. If possible, print a leaflet to give to your students with the information about the competition and the website address. Unfortunately we can not accept entries from a whole class or from students with their only their teacher's permission as this would break data protection rules. 

Extension Activities

• Students can interview their friends and family for homework using the same question prompts.
• Students can make a What’s your news? film set.
• There are more games, activities and film clips on the What’s your news? website: www.whatsyournews.com
• This lesson plan has been written for an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classroom but you can adapt the ideas and use it with other teaching contexts. We suggest with bilingual, multilingual or English speaking children you could extend the above activities and help students create their own class newspaper with their breaking news articles. 

For Parents

1. Go to http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/kids-news/news and look at the page with your child but don't start the video yet.
    
2. Talk about any other What’s your news? clips that your child has watched either at home or at school. Can your child remember any of the children’s news? Can he or she identify the main characters from the show? (Grant is the presenter with a blue tie, Antony is the other anteater presenter, Gi Ant is the interviewer with a microphone.)
    
3. Watch the video. Ask very young children to count how many children they see in the video. Ask older children to remember names and news. The intro song has a very catchy tune. You could sing along together with the song – ‘What’s your news, news, news?’.
    
4. Complete a worksheet. There are worksheets for younger and older kids so first decide which worksheet is appropriate for your child. Click on 'Print an easy activity to do with this video for younger learners' or click on 'Print an activity to do with this video' for older kids. Watch the video again and encourage your child to complete the worksheet. The answers are at the bottom of the page. Fold over the page or cut them off to avoid temptation if you like! You can also look at the audioscript to help your child answer the questions.
    
5. Tell your child that you want to know about their news. You could play the role of Gi Ant the interviewer and ask your child What’s your news?. Use an imaginary microphone or even better – print out the one from the interview pack and stick it on card. If you have more than one child they could play together and take it in turns to be the interviewer.
    
   With a younger child, focus on today’s news or familiar topics. You could demonstrate by asking your child to interview you first. Give news such as 'The weather in my city is…., My best friend is called….., My sister/ brother/pet.' A child who is new to learning English may find it easier to talk about things happening at the moment rather than things that happened yesterday or last week. If your child has a school course book  check what he or she has done in class and revise some of the words  from the book. For example, if they have studied ‘sports’ in class you could talk about favourite sports …'I like Tae Kwando. My mum likes swimming. My dad likes….'
   
   With older or bilingual children you could watch the scrolling news on the What’s your news? website to provide some ideas. You could print the What’s your news? headline chart. Children can complete their real (or invented!) news for each day of the week.
    
6. Practise before you film. Remember that your video can only be 2 minutes long or shorter. Practise first to build confidence and to help you and your child to keep it short. 

With younger children help them practise expressions like 'My name’s…. and my news is that…' 'And that’s all'. You could write some notes to help them if you like. Remember that your child doesn’t have to produce ‘perfect’ English. A few mistakes are fine so don’t feel that it’s necessary to correct everything. The emphasis is on having fun using English.

With older students or bilingual students encourage them to include answers to some of the questions from the competition instructions in their news: What happened? When did it happen? Who was there? Where were you? How did you feel? They can make notes to help them remember what they want to say but don't read from a script. Using a few notes as a memory aids makes you sound much more natural.

Look on the competition 'Overview' page to see an example video of a bilingual child talking about her news. Then film your child. The judges want to see fun, imaginative videos where you can hear clearly what the child is saying.

Filming tips

• Think about background. Will you have a colourful wall display, a bookshelf, posters on the wall or a plain background?
• Make sure your child is clearly visible and not camouflaged by too much background activity.
• Think about lighting. Avoid filming in front of a window.
• Will your child be sitting or standing? It might be easier to keep him or her in one place if they are sitting.
• Use a tripod if you have one or put the camera on a flat surface to make sure that it doesn’t move.
• Try to find a quiet place to film.
• Smile and enjoy yourself!
• Watch your film!

When you and your child are happy with your video clip you can register and then upload the video clip.

There are lots of extra activities that your child can do alone or with your help. After (or before) filming your child can make a What’s your news? film set. There are also games, activities and film clips on the What’s your news? website.

Have fun!

Worksheet for younger learners (Login to access)

Worksheet for older learners (Login to access)

Interview pack (optional) (Login to access)

Headline chart (optional) (Login to access)

Film set (optional, extension activity) (Login to access)

Terms and Conditions

1. The What's Your News? competition is subject to the following terms and conditions. By entering this competition entrants are deemed to accept these terms and conditions.
2. The What's Your News? competition is open to learners of English as a second or foreign language or English, bilingual or multilingual children aged 6-12 (entrants must be aged at least 6 and no more than 12 on October 15th 2011 - the competition deadline), other than employees of the British Council and the TT Animations, and their relatives, family, or household members. The Competition Organiser reserves the right to require proof of eligibility.
3. All entrants require parental or guardian consent to enter the What's Your News? competition. The Organiser reserves the right to require proof of the relevant consents. By submitting the online entry form you agree to allow your child to enter.
4. Entries can be submitted by an individual or a team of up to two people. Entries by three or more people will be disqualified.
5. Entrants may submit multiple entries, but only one prize will be awarded per entrant.
6. An Entry is a video in English about Your News. This could be about an event that has happened in the entrant's life eg. falling in a hole, cooking a meal, inviting a friend over to stay. See the example video on the website and the lesson plan for extra ideas.
7. Entries should last between 1-2 minutes in length. You can also upload the following file formats: avi .dv .mov .qt .mpg .mpg2 .mpeg2 .mpeg4 .mp4 .3gp .3g2 .asf .wmv .flv. If you are using a mobile phone make sure you film in landscape.
8. Entries must be submitted online using the online entry form. Contact details and all other mandatory fields must be completed, and all entries must be submitted online by midnight UK time on 15 October, 2011.
9. Entries received after the deadline will not be considered and the British Council will not accept responsibility for any entries or files that are corrupt, damaged, lost or inaccessible.
10. Entries into the What's Your News? competition must be the original work of the person or people submitting the entry and must not contain any third party materials or content (eg video, audio, music, text, or image). The British Council will not be responsible for breach of any copyright or other third party rights by the entrants.
11. At the discretion of the Competition Organiser, entries containing defamatory, offensive, obscene, inappropriate or illegal content will not be accepted.
12. The prizes are the following: The top 4 videos, one from each category, will have the What's Your News? character, GI-ANT or another character from the What's Your News? team, superimposed onto their video. The video will be viewable on the LearnEnglishKids site. They will also win a flip camera, a What's Your News? and British Council goody bag and a competition certificate (downloadable with the confirmation message). The runners up will each receive a flip camera, a British Council goody bag and a competition certificate. 100 entrants will be chosen at random to receive a goody bag and every entrant will be able to download and print a certificate as proof of entry.
13. The winners will be chosen from all eligible entries by a panel of judges, the Judges. The Judges will include representatives from the British Council and TT Animations.
14. The winners will be selected according to the imagination and creativity shown in their video. Language learners of all levels have an equal chance of winning the competition.
15. The Judges’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
16. Winners will be notified by telephone or email and a list of prize winners will be published on the LearnEnglish Kids website. All reasonable efforts will be made to contact the winners. If the winners cannot be contacted after all reasonable efforts the Competition Organiser will select the next best entry as the winner.
17. As winning videos and other videos may be uploaded to the LearnEnglishKids website the competition organisers will not do so unless contact has been made with parents confirming their consent. TT animations will only have access to the winning videos in order to superimpose the What's Your News? characters and for no other purpose. They will not have access to or make use of any personal data. 
18. Prizes are not transferable and cannot be sold. The Competition Organisers reserve the right to substitute, in their reasonable discretion, any prize with a prize of equal value. No cash alternative will be offered for the prizes.
19. The Entrant shall retain all ownership rights in any entry to the What's Your News? competition. However, by submitting the entry the Entrant grants the Organiser a universal, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sub-licensable and transferable licence to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, adapt, reformat, translate and otherwise exploit and perform all or any portion of the Entry for any purpose whatsoever, including, without limitation, in connection with promotion of the British Council and What's your News? activities in any and all media formats and through any and all media distribution, advertising and promotional purposes without accounting, notification, credit or other obligation to the Entrant. Entrants further agree that the Competition Organisers may edit and manipulate the content of the Entry for operational and editorial reasons provided this is not to the detriment of the Entrant’s character or reputation.
20. By entering, any subsequent prize winners agree to allow, and consent to, British Council and What's Your News? use of, and right to publish, entrant’s name, photographs, images, all personal and other information (including general locations) for purposes of British Council and What's Your News? publicity, promotional and news purposes (including use in printed publications, editorial and PR activities, on websites) related to this competition.
21. The Organiser of the What's Your News? competition is the British Council, a body incorporated by Royal Charter and registered as a charity in England & Wales (charity number 209131) and in Scotland (charity number SC037733), whose principal office is at 10 Spring Gardens, London SW1A 2BN.
22. The What's Your News? competition is governed by the laws of England, where the competition is hosted.
23. The British Council reserves the right to cancel or amend these terms and conditions without prior notice in the event that unforeseen circumstances make this unavoidable. Any amendments will be published on www.learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org 

How can I upload my video?

You must have permission from your parents to enter. Your parent(s) need to register and can upload your video here.

What file format can I upload?

We accept the following common file formats: avi .dv .mov .qt .mpg .mpg2 .mpeg2 .mpeg4 .mp4 .3gp .3g2 .asf .wmv .flv.

What resolution should my video be?

The minimum recommended resolution is 640x360 (widescreen 16:9) or 640x480 (normal 4:3). You can upload video with lower resolutions e.g. video from a mobile phone but the quality won't be as good.

Is there a maximum file size?

There is a 30MB file size limit.