Do you have a favorite PSA?

Have you come across any good PSAs lately? I have a couple of favorite ones on TV, and I like the ones on this blog post! Here's one of them on being nice to the new guy in class. This was created by a group of students in the current Listening and Speaking course.

Public Service Announcements (PSAs) are ads or TV/radio commercials that aim to teach citizens lessons about certain concepts or ways to act or look at the world. If you watch TV, listen to the radio or podcasts, surf online, or ride public transit, there's a huge chance you've come across some PSAs here and there. They teach us to be kind, to be positive, to care for the environment, to respect each other, etc. Here's another one created by another group in the same class on showing respect and consideration toward our neighbors.

PSA on Respecting others

After watching and listening to a few samples of PSAs, the students were put in groups and instructed to agree on a topic, decide on the type of PSA they wanted to create and how to create it. Here's what the third group came up with. This one is on littering and appeals to listeners to respect their environment.

PSA on littering


If you were asked to create a PSA, what would you do it on? Feel free to let us know in the comments below.

Take care,

Joe, ESL instructor

PSAs in the NYLC classroom

This is just one of several PSAs you'll find on NYC subway trains these days. They are messages from the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) to get riders to behave and respect fellow passengers. Have you seen these ads? Do you think they are effective? 

PSA stands for Public Service Announcement. These are advertisements that are meant to educate or give useful information to the public. Good ones make you take notice and are effective in making you think and act differently.

PSAs are found everywhere. They are on TV, on train cars and subway stations, on billboards; they are also on the radio, on the Web, in newspapers and magazines and sometimes, in the ESL classroom!

The following PSAs were created by students in Ryan's Lab class. Listen to what some NYLC students think New Yorkers should pay attention to to make life in the city more pleasant.