SADC MEDIA TRAINERS' TIPS
A compendium of wisdom from the region
      concept: Guy Berger, September 2001, editor: Angela Jakins

1. Know Your Learning Style & Minute Papers
Analysis of the four main learning styles to help you maximise the way you learn and also to help you plan your lectures / training courses to accommodate a variety of learners.
Minute papers help you to regularly assess how your teaching is affecting your students.

by Liezel Vermeulen
Dept. of Journalism & Media Studies
Rhodes University
Grahamstown, South Africa.
+27 (0) 46 6038 71
l.vermeulen@ru.ac.za

2. Five Questions
A useful exercise to carry out during training for group feedback and to clarify group relationships. It also provides a means of establishing the different skills needed for different tasks.

by Ransford Antwi
Technikon SA
+27 (0) 82 366 9672
Johannesburg, South Africa.
rantwi@tsa.ac.za

3. Interviewing as a technique for Effective Communication
A practical demonstration of the kind of information a student / trainee can learn from interviewing another person, how to achieve rapport with the interviewee, and also how to communicate the information gathered to a group.

by James Ng'ombe
Malawi Institute of Journalism (MIJ)
Blantyre, Malawi.
+265 675087
j3ngombe@yahoo.co.uk

4. Your Information is as Good as the Questions You Ask
How students / trainees can practice interviewing skills and questioning techniques by participating in a real-life press conference.

by Pedro Diederichs
Department of Journalism
Technikon Pretoria
Pretoria, South Africa.
+27 (0) 12 3185839
diederp@techpa.ac.za

5. Creating Atmosphere & Mastering the Interview
How students can establish "context" by brainstorming newsworthiness in groups, before interviewing each other in pairs and learning how to extract the most newsworthy information before presenting it to an audience.

by Emily M. Brown
Polytechnic of Namibia
Windhoek, Namibia.
+264 61 2072451
emilybrown@polytechnic.edu.na

6. Critical Thinking in Journalism -- a training technique
A group brainstorming activity, using real-life objects, to enable students of journalism to see a multitude of interrelated and relevant aspects to particular issues or products --
so that they are better placed to write insightful and more complete stories.

Eva Solomon Msangi
Tanzania School of Journalism
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
+255 (0) 22 2700236/7
evamsangi@yahoo.co.in

7. Two Baskets
An object exercise designed to identify journalists' thinking and bias about sensitive / controversial subjects -- with the view to letting go of prejudices and judgements on issues involved -- so that they can write more constructively.

Nicole Johnston
Institute for the Advancement of Journalism (IAJ)
Johannesburg, South Africa.
+27 (0) 11 484 1765
nicole@iaj.org.za

8. Using Media to Teach Media
Teaching journalists how to generate original angles to news stories through the use of a short, untitled film.

by Edem Djokotoe
Zambia Institute of Mass Communication (ZAMCOM)
Lusaka, Zambia.
+260 1 254826
edjokotoe@yahoo.com

9. How to teach News Values
A training activity based on students' own eyewitness accounts of an event or situation, after which they provide feedback in groups, in the form of written introductions and oral accounts.

by Edward Chitsulo
University of Malawi Polytechnic
Blantyre, Malawi.
+265 677724
echitsulo@poly.sdnp.org.mw

10.Writing from Published Documents
How re-writing published stories or from press releases can be used to assess a student / journalist's news sense and teach the writing of concise news leads.

by Tim Nyahunzvi
Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA- Zimbabwe)
Harare, Zimbabwe.
+263 4 735441/2
misa@mweb.co.zw

11. Testing the Ethics of News Stories
Group assessments of ethically questionable published news articles, geared towards generating lively and critical debate.

by Maxwell Mthembu
University of Swaziland
Kwaluseni, Swaziland.
+268 51 84545
mmthembu@hotmail.com

12. Gender & Class Awareness in Community Broadcasting Formats
A checklist for broadcasters / broadcasting students on gender and representation in programming and planning.

by John van Zyl
ABC Ulwazi
Johannesburg, South Africa.
+27 (0011 408 5080
john@classicfm.co.za

13. Tools for Assessing Web Credibility
Group evaluation exercise to test the credibility of various websites (based on traditional criteria used to determine credibility of sources) to ensure that journalists / students are able to make careful choices of resources on the Internet.

Caesar Jere
Evelyn Hone College
+260 1 226047
Lusaka, Zambia.
caesar@zamnet.zm


14. PESOS Formula
A step-by-step guide for teaching technical operations (i.e. computers) to beginners.

by Leonard Kantumoya
University of Zambia
Lusaka, Zambia.
+260 1 290035
lkantumoya@yahoo.com

15. Working with a Client
A workshop plan designed to increase the freelancer / learner's capacity to communicate and strategise well with media clients.

by Trevor Davies
Southern Africa Media Services Organisation (SAMSO)
Harare, Zimbabwe.
+263 91 225637
samso@zol.co.zw

16. Juggling as a Metaphor for Life
Juggling is used as a demonstration for the need to focus, to pay attention to more than one matter at a time, and to show that practice makes for better and better performance. Here's how to introduce it into your training sessions . . .

by Tracey Naughton
Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA-Namibia)
+264 61 232 975
tracey@misa.org.na

17.The Miracle Question
A self-empowerment exercise that shows trainees how to see beyond the obstacles on the way to their development goals, based on Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT).

by Tracey Naughton
Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA-Namibia)
+264 61 232 975
tracey@misa.org.na

18. Talk About It
A fun exercise -- taking the form of a dialogue / play -- to clarify issues in a trainee's head after completing a short course / seminar before returning to the workplace.

by Professor Guy Berger
Dept. of Journalism & Media Studies
Rhodes University
Grahamstown, South Africa.
+27 (0) 46 603 833/7
g.berger@ru.ac.za

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