Introduction to Topical Talk
Everything you need to have informed, open-minded and inspiring discussions about the news with your students.
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What is Topical Talk?
All our weekly lessons include:
What is Topical Talk?
Topical Talk is a programme of free weekly lessons about stories in the news. It gets your students thinking critically and communicating effectively about the biggest issues of our time. You can trust the resources to give you accurate, informed and inspiring activities, which are devised by experienced teachers at The Economist Educational Foundation with support from journalists at The Economist.
Topical Talk is perfect if you want:
- free weekly lessons on different news stories, supporting resources, competitions, live lessons and teacher training
- your students to have open-minded discussions about current events so that they can engage critically with the ever-changing world
- to consistently build essential critical-thinking and communication skills through the Skills Builder Framework
Why teach Topical Talk?
Topical Talk is designed by teachers for teachers. As such, it's primed to solve some of your biggest classroom challenges.
Engaging with the news is hard
Topical Talk throws open your classroom doors to the wider world. It puts your students in the centre of the discussion and makes the biggest global issues relevant to their lives. All activities help to connect them and their classroom learning to international events.
Students lack media literacy skills
Topical Talk equips students with the skills to decode the news.
Lessons are specifically designed to develop critical-thinking and the technical skills needed to identify misinformation. In fact, Topical Talk was recognised with a UNESCO Global Media and Information Literacy Award in 2022, and 90% of participating teachers noted an improvement in their students' media literacy. At the same time, each lesson links to one of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.
Finding curriculum-aligned content takes time
Topical Talk provides ready-made lesson that seamlessly fit England's Key Stage 2 and 3 English curriculum.
For Key Stage 2, lessons boost vocabulary, reading comprehension and the ability to connect current events with other learning areas. In Key Stage 3, it fosters confident speaking, listening, and critical-thinking through discussion and debate, which prepares students for argumentative writing in Key Stage 4.
Skill development is sporadic
Topical Talk offers practical, consistent ways to develop critical-thinking and communication skills over time.
All lessons align with the Skills Builder Universal Framework and focus on listening, speaking, problem-solving and creativity. Each lesson targets a specific skill, which allows you to track progress over time in a familiar, robust framework. The results are clear – students who participate in regular lessons can make up to 7x the progress of their peers in these vital skills.
Impactful oracy activities take effort
You'll discover tried and tested ideas to improve speaking and listening with Topical Talk.
Lessons facilitate student-led discussions on relevant topics that encourage students to form opinions, debate, and listen empathetically. Topical Talk incorporates opportunities for negotiation, shared understanding and appreciating diverse perspectives, which makes it the perfect tool to improve oracy. We've done the hard work for you – you can trust these activities work!
To learn more about all these areas, visit the Why teach Topical Talk page on our Economist Educational Foundation website. To explore the impact of our programmes, read our impact reports.
Supporting resources
Our Topical Toolkit resources give you additional support. Whether it's the skills poster you're looking for to help you track progress, or some ideas to make the lessons inclusive for all learners, head to the Toolkit for our extra top tips. Find them in our resource library
Bring Topical Talk into your classroom
Explore our resource library to find lessons to fit your curriculum