It’s one thing to be challenged by adversity in your own country. It’s entirely another to face obstacles, such as language, in a far away land. As part of my job responsibilities at the Community College of Denver, I help our students whose primary language is not really English. Just this afternoon, I was helping a student with grammar and mechanical issues on a composition paper. She was born in Burma. She was not only having issues with things like spelling, verb tense, and run-on sentences, but she also was struggling with how to express herself. I offered her some suggestions on how she might add more details to her writing and include more perspective.
That experience made me think about adversity in terms of culture. This evening, I found an interesting narrative from digital storytelling page at the University of Houston. The video is entitled “Adapting To A New Culture” by Yukiko Nishimura. For this video, I chose to focus on the following attributes:
- STORY: Nishimura creates a simple story, through the use of narration, photos and images, about her learning experiences in Japan as well as in the United States. Sometimes it’s difficult for students to express themselves fully in a language they are still learning, but in this context, she tells the story well.
- MEDIA APPLICATION: Nishimura effectively utilizes the visual elements to simulate feelings of anxiety, sadness, joy, and hope. She overdoes the movement of the photos (sometimes called the “Ken Burns” effect) a little bit. A little music at a low volume would have been nice too hear as well.
- CITATIONS: All the photographs and images have been properly cited. Much of the content has been licensed for use under Creative Commons and Nishimura includes small, but legible text at the bottom. At times, it’s hard to clearly read the text because the moment of the content.
Nishimura does a very good job at expressing her cultural challenges and accomplishments in the American culture. I think many students who practice English as a second language might benefit from using digital storytelling as a learning tool.