Sunday, June 25, 2017

Central Voice Increases Understanding

For this week’s blog entry, I found an interesting article from thisweeksnews.com that presents ELLs at a high school who made a very powerful and effective video.  The students from Kenya, Palestine, Peru, Somalia, Syria, Thailand, and Yemen are a part of an ESL club at their school and wanted to promote an understanding of what it is like to be an ELL including their unique cultural backgrounds. 

These students always felt that by being an ELL, they have had a hard time fitting in with others or felt isolated due to their language/cultural differences with native English speakers.  So, they took action and created a 15 minute video depicting their lives, where they came from, their emotions, and aspirations to help show everyone that they are no different from their peers.  The link to their video is at the bottom here, but it is such an effective way to reach an audience of students and teachers to deliver a message.  The ELLs said they saw a noticeable difference for good in the way students and teachers interacted and spoke to them after the video’s release.  The school board president describes being brought to tears having seen the piece as it contains several personal struggles these students faced from civil war to friends being killed by militants. 

As a film fanatic myself, I have always believed in the power of videos created to tell a story and create a dialogue.  This was a highly effective example of just that.  I could certainly see other students taking advantage of this method of storytelling to help connect with others to show a little of what it is like to be in their shoes.  With training students in Digital Stories, working with editing techniques, and interviews, I feel that all ELLs could work together in different settings to accomplish a video like this of their own.  





References

Kuhlman, M. K. (2017, June 14). Central Voice members use video to increase understanding. Retrieved from http://www.thisweeknews.com/news/20170613/central-voice--members-use-video-to-increase-understanding

1 comment:

  1. James,

    Your article for this week is very interesting! As teachers and the students, they may not realize what it is like for a student to come to America not knowing the language or anyone...essentially they are thrown into a situation not being able to communicate or relate. The video clip you provided was very well done and it was sad how those students felt when they first arrived...but also interesting to hear how far they have come in all aspects (especially language). I think creating this video and awareness is a great idea and should be done more often in all educational settings. Personally, I have traveled to several countries and did not know the language-it is not the most comforting thing in the world...I felt so lost and vulnerable in that country...so I can only imagine how students feel when they first arrive.

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