Filming Shakepeare to Improve ELL Learning

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

My students are tech-dedicated and motivated. I teach 9th, 11th and 12th grades with a focus on English Language Arts & AP Lit. in a Title I school in a low-income community. The majority of my students are among our 60% English Language Learners population. We need the resources to help them on their way to become effective communicators, creative and critical thinkers, and responsible citizen.

My 12-year-teaching experience has seen the benefit of group filming project on books and plays, but an obstacle many students face is they cannot participate fully in the project. They are on free or reduced lunch program and their families cannot afford a camcorder. When I assigned a research project on a play’s background, its allegorical issues, cause and effect, impact on the society and final solution, instead of filming the finding, these students could only do written reports and oral presentations. Those who involved in the group film research project presented the findings in a more engaging and inspiring way. Filmed presentations allowed them to craft their emotions and present the synthesized findings in a creative extravaganza. They varied in forms from panel discussion, interview to a dramatic prompt to show the students’ understanding of a perplexing issue. Their film projects provided audio and visual elements, stimulated students’ interests to read, recite, write and speak, and made them resourceful as they created applicable background, stage, costumes and prompts to bring the past issues to life. Filming is a vehicle that makes learning fun.

With a class digital camcorder, all the students will have opportunity to use it in turn. My next plan is to have them recreate a scene from a Shakespeare play we are studying. They will do a group interview on the rationale of the choice of scene and produce a CD based on the previous filming. Finally the group presents the film to the class and answers the questions that arise. This student-centered experience will turn the boredom of reading to excitement because as they speak their parts in the performing, reading the drama academically will no longer be a bore. On their chosen stages either at home, school or a park, they rely on the language either Shakespearean or modern to communicate with their peers. Everyone also intuitively communicates his/her thoughts and feelings through the language with the audience. Thus students will become inspired and confident; they will mature with the characters in the play. In a soliloquy, a student may come onto the stage speaking the character’s torment and pleading for input from the audience. They can act out the humor sending the message that learning is enjoyable.

Your providing of a camcorder will make the film project possible, which, in turn, will kindle the English Language Learners’ interest in learning the language, and give them a vehicle to achieve a deeper understanding of the subject learned. Your support will make them realize how important this project is and how their creativity collaboration does make a difference.