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This article, based on the experiences of students at The English Country School, describes how to set up and run a student magazine as a mini business. The idea is applicable to students in a variety of situations - in Britain or their own country, on short or long courses, children or adults. The first part looks at reasons for running a magazine. The second part looks at reasons for running it as a business. The third part explains how to do it.
In many ways a student magazine is the ideal project for language learning. There is a clearly-defined end product while there is also plenty of room for choice regarding content. The students can focus on individual interests such as sport, computers, the Environment, music, etc. - with obvious motivational benefits - while at the same time working within a clear structure to a common aim. The 'four skills' of reading, writing, listening and speaking are integrated naturally. For example in order to produce an article on music a student might:
a) Read articles in a music magazine to get ideas (reading)
b) Listen to songs and write down the lyrics (listening / writing)
c) Write survey questions and interview other students about their musical tastes / talents (writing / speaking / listening)
d) Write up the findings for the magazine and / or display the results as a chart or table (writing / academic writing)
Within the overall school context a magazine is useful in providing a focus for written work: students know that a particularly 'good' piece of writing might go into the magazine. This potential for communication with a real audience provides motivation and encourages attention to style and accuracy. Students have a chance to practise a variety of text types - articles, reviews, letters, crosswords, cartoons, graphs and tables. Decisions about content provide a forum for discussion and negotiation. Finally, in common with all project work, learner autonomy and co-operation are fostered as students try out different roles and learn to get on with their peers. To sum up, a student magazine:
With so many benefits it is a wonder that EFL classes do anything else! However there are disadvantages. First, the very fact that students are able to concentrate upon individual areas of interest means they might neglect other areas. For example, a student with artistic talent may spend some time illustrating the magazine, but not practising much English. Motivated students may end up doing all the work while less motivated students do very little.
There is also the question of cost. Even a simple publishing system such as photocopying and stapling can be expensive. In the early days of running our magazine we found a tendency for it to get bigger and bigger, until it began to resemble a children's 'bumper annual' - a huge task for the individuals who had to put it all together. The students were not really exercising discretion over what should be included and so were missing an opportunity to discuss and negotiate. What was needed was some way of emphasising quality over quantity, while providing a structure within which everyone would be doing something genuinely useful for their English.
For these reasons we at The English Country School decided to run our magazine as a mini business, with students working out costs and selling it on the course. the better the magazine, the more students would buy it; the fewer the pages, the higher the profit.
It was not just pragmatic considerations that led to this decision. In addition, the business structure would provide additional opportunities for language practice: the artistic student, for example, the one who did only illustrations before, could be brought into marketing, not just creating posters to advertise the magazine but also carrying out research to find out what kind of magazine would sell best and at what price. It was hoped, in the process, to give the students a real insight into the excitement and difficulties of running a business. Not that we were trying to create 'mini capitalists': although the project would introduce students to business terminology and procedures, the main aim was to act as a vehicle for positive educational developments.
To summarise, running a student magazine as a business:
The time scale for producing the magazine is up to you and your class. At The English Country School we have successfully produced magazines in five weeks, in three weeks and even in two weeks. Equally you could spend a term or two on the project.
Try to get teachers involved across the curriculum, helping with artwork (for magazine illustrations and promotion), mathematics (for graphs and charts), business, etc. For the sake of simplicity the procedures which follow assume that everything will be done by one teacher and should provide everything you need to get the project up and running.
1. Introduce the idea and the benefits for students: see above.
2. Use the following focus questions to raise the students' awareness of what is involved:
What kind of magazine will sell best? What costs are involved? Where will the start-up money come from? What will you call the magazine? What price should it be? How many pages will it be? How will you persuade people to buy the magazine? What 'raw materials' will you need to produce it and where will you get these? How long will it take to produce? What will you do with any profits?
3. Once they have answered the questions as best they can, ask your students to group the questions under three headings: finance, production, marketing. Then divide the students into three teams to work on the following questions:
FINANCIAL TEAM. Your aim will be to represent the financial side of the business when you raise operating capital and to keep track of money going in and out of the business. Make sure you know the meaning of the following words: capital, loan, accounts, income, expenditure, profit, loss, balance, stock. Work with the Production Team to estimate costs at each stage of production. Find out the cost of stationery materials. Work out the cost of photocopying and any postage costs. Don't forget marketing costs, wastage (eg. scrap paper) and miscellaneous items. Then estimate the cost of producing one magazine. Next, estimate how many magazines you will sell. How much money will you need to raise? How much profit do you want to make? What, therefore, will your final selling price be? Devise a suitable system for keeping track of money going in and out of the business.
MARKETING TEAM. Your aim will be to gain a thorough understanding of your likely customers and market your product so that you sell as many copies as possible. Who are your likely customers? How many are there? What are their ages and nationalities? What are their interests? How many say they will buy a magazine? What price are they prepared to pay? How, when and where will you advertise and sell the magazine?
PRODUCTION TEAM.
Your aim will be to identify what materials will be required at each stage of production, decide what jobs will be involved and establish a realistic time scale for production. What date will you actually sell the magazine? Work back from this date to identify each stage of production. Make a list. What materials will you need? (Don't forget wastage and replacement of used / lost items). Pass on details of materials needed to the Financial group so that they can work out costs. Go back to your 'stages of production' list and suggest timings / dates for each stage of production. Check this with the Marketing group (who may want to add a few things) and then produce a Production Plan to display in the classroom.
4. The three teams of students should now exchange findings and then carry out market research.
5. Raise operating capital. (ie. the money needed to set up and run the business). Exactly how much is required should already have been worked out between the Production and Finance teams. Operating capital can be a loan from the school (get the Principal to play the part of bank manager interviewing the students); a share issue (students make and sell shares, to be repaid with a dividend once the magazine has been sold); or a lottery (this is a simple, fun way of raising money, tried out successfully by ECS students in Summer '95).
6. Agree a title for the magazine (after suitable market research) and allocate roles. Possible roles are: script editors (to write out / type articles, checking for errors); Reporters (collecting stories from around the school and writing them up); Sports Correspondent; World Affairs Correspondent (extracting stories from daily newspapers and radio/TV news and finding out what other students think on the various issues); Gossip Columnist; Agony Aunt/Uncle; Crossword Compiler; Cartoonist; Entertainments Editor (jokes, puzzles, etc.); Graphic Designer (to provide illustrations).
Also decide who will be Managing Editor, Marketing Director, Financial Director, Production Manager, Quality Controller.
7. Production of the magazine. Suggested procedure for a 90 minute session: 10 minutes setting the scene and agreeing who will be doing what; 50 minutes ongoing production; 10 minutes tidying up and updating accounts; 20 minutes feedback on what (information and English) the students have learnt.
8. Hold weekly meetings to review progress. Each Director should report on his/her area of responsibility. Discuss any problems / allocate new roles. The teacher takes notes during the meeting or record it and offer feedback on pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, etc. once it is over.
9. Advertise and sell the magazine.
10. Distribution of profits. Let the students decide for themselves how they will do this. Students at The English Country School in 1995 initially planned a tuckshop feast for themselves, but then decided to send the profits instead to a children's charity in Columbia after watching a video about the conditions they lived in.
Running a student magazine as a business works, with benefits both for the students and the organisation. In questionnaires at the end of their summer course, students at The English Country School were asked what they had enjoyed most about their stay. Along with horse riding, sailing, excursions, etc, a lot of the students also mentioned their work on the magazine - proving that we had succeeded in our aim of bridging the gap between holiday and learning.
© C. Etchells, 1999
