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Q: Have you ever tried this idea?
In my classes I try to focus on the positives in life. With Chinese students sometimes, that can be a chore as they are programmed to site positive views on China while leaving the rest of the world virtually untouched. So in an effort to overturn this, and without forcing anything down their throats, I challenge them to tackle a term project complete with an accompanying video outlining their findings. The video is to show cultural differences and how people may interact when traveling. My findings have been enlightening and pleasantly surprising. I give the students 3 months to research, on their own time, and put together a 15 minute video showing exactly they think would happen if they raveled to 3 different countries and had to solve a problem dealing with everyday life. All problems must have a positive outcome but how they arrive at the result is entirely up to them. Remember, this project is first and foremost about English. Their problem solving ability in not on stage here. (trust me, some of the problems and solutions are downright hilarious)
They email the videos to me for a look upon completion and I will then consult with them before they submit their final draft for grading.
I promise you this: You will be pleased with the creativity and amount of research they do in an attempt to get it just right. Many of the groups (of yes, they do it on groups of 5 or 6) include music and subtitles as well. Costumes and accents are a hoot but it sure makes for a fun night at the movies for me.
No, I didn't do something like that. I'm not sure if all of my students would have had access to a camera. However, I did have them do a project where they had to make up their own country. A lot of them didn't do very well because they waited until the last second, but some of them were pretty good.
derek:
Mine didn't either. That was part of the challenge. Just about all of them had iPhones however. That worked.
Jnusb416:
True. Just the sheer laziness of my students would have made most of them painful to watch, if their country presentations were any indication.
This is a great idea!!! I will definitely copy it from you though I may do some modifications. Thanks Derek!
I have this exercise which has been popular especially among the boys in the past.
What I do is I show them a short clip from The movie "Quest for Fire " (the scene which shows the Neanderthals and the Homo Sapiens together) and then Charlton Heston's "Planet of The Apes", (specifically the scene where the astronauts crash and their ship sinks, ending it when they walk into the desert. ). The premise being that they have crashed in a Primitive world filled with dangerous Paleolithic and Neolitic denizens. No ship, few supplies, etc.
The assignment is that they are the astronauts and they have to give a presentation of how they would survive.
The students are divided into groups of three (Astronauts and Stooges tend to travel in threes...
). How they give the presentation is up to them. Some have used powerpoint, some have used acting/role-play. Some have left it for the last moment and just stand in front of the class scratching.
The worst group i had were these three girls who instead recited the story "The Giving Tree" and then complained when I gave them 0%
Anyway, some of the solutions have been quite clever (like gradually civilizing them) while others have been laughable (teach them Chinese, then science and engineering. Have them build a factory, then build them a new ship....).
