It's All Greek To Me!

Photo by: infrogmation
As a future ESL teacher, I would use my story, "It's All Greek to Me," as an example of a time when I had to adjust to living in a new place and culture. My students will most likely be from other places and cultures, and may have gone through similar experiences when they moved to the United States. It would be an opportunity for me, as a teacher, to relate to my students and have them, in turn, relate to me. I would also have them create digital stories of their own, describing the differences between their native country and the United States. I would have my students present their stories to the class. By presenting their experiences of adjusting to a new culture, as well as listening to the experiences of their peers, students will feel a sense of solidarity when confronted with the challenges of learning a new language and living in a new place. My objectives for this lesson would be:
1. Students will use bookr to write digital narratives
2. Students will orally present their digital narratives to the class
3. Students will listen to the presentations of their peers
4. Students will take part in a class discussion on culture shock

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Photo by: Rosana Prada

The site,  “The Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling,” defines digital storytelling as, “the practice of using computer-based tools to tell stories.” Through digital storytelling, teachers and students can add images, audio, and video to create a story about virtually everything. L2 Teachers can use digital storytelling to provide their students with the comprehensible input necessary for their students to understand particular concepts in any of the content areas. For example, ESL teachers can create a digital story as part of a social studies content lesson on the Civil War. By adding photographs of the Battle of Gettysburg and audio recordings of former slaves describing their lives, ESL teachers can use digital stories to bring the Civil War to life for their students. Due to the limitless number of possibilities that digital story telling brings to the L2 classroom, it is important that L2 instructors provide their students with specific criteria and explicit instructions regarding the creation of their stories.