POPULAR vs. QUALITY NEWSPAPERS

POPULAR vs. QUALITY NEWSPAPERS Students of English as a foreign language often ask teachers which newspaper to read. They naturally suppose that reading an English Newspaper will be a good way of improving their knowledge of the language. But they are frequently disappointed because they cannot understand popular newspapers and think the 'quality' newspapers will be even more difficult. In fact, the opposite is usually the case. Popular newspapers are written for people who haven't got much time for reading and who, perhaps, do not read as fast or enjoy reading as much as people who buy 'quality' newspapers. So, the editors try to attract the readers' attention with sensational headlines in big black type. The headlines do not explain the content of the news item underneath. On the contrary, they are often designed to puzzle the reader so that he will be persuaded to read the item to find out the meaning of the headline! Apart from that, they use double meanings, so a foreign reader is usually confused by them. Editors are also afraid that the readers will not be patient enough to read a long paragraph. Therefore, almost every sentence becomes a paragraph in itself, which is also a disadvantage for the student of English as a foreign language.