The Rustaq Student Film Festival was one of those wonderful ideas that I dreamt up during a momentary lapse of reason commonly known as course design. Reality has a nasty habit of getting in the way of the best-laid plans of mice, men and English teachers, but my students and I have persevered. The first ever Rustaq Student Film Festival debuts tomorrow. I am sincerely hoping that the method in this madness will be the highlight of the Language Through Arts course for final year teaching students.
The Language Through Arts course arrived on my desk as a skeletal outline of very practical arts activities from the Ministry, along with a very theoretical and utterly unrelated, if fascinating, reading list. Fortunately I have had freedom in implementing the course, except for the edict from on high that there must be a final written examination. Along with the theoretical component, which I found thrilling and my students found dull, we have explored different arts activities that can support language learning each week. Rather than a string of unrelated projects, I planned to encourage students to put all their work together in a summative “gesamtkunstwerk” (the term is attributed to opera composer Richard Wagner): a spectrum of art forms combined in a performance. Ambitiously (and perhaps foolishly!) I suggested that this be done in a short educational film, although students may opt for a live performance. Naturally, they all chose film, taxing the college’s already overloaded tech resources the limit.
This is a massive project, which is why I announced it three months ago, held ongoing planning and scriptwriting workshops and provided in-class preparation time. Naturally, most students didn’t do much before last week. I am a little grouchy about this, but the experience will teach them far more about time management than my workshop ever could. The work that students have shown me so far is extremely encouraging. I have checked their screenplays for viability and language accuracy, and some work is truly excellent. Several groups have thrown themselves into the project. Some invited me to their hostel rooms to see their meticulous preparation of scenery, props and puppets, while others have trained younger actors to bring their ideas to life. One classroom is filled with palm tree props and I have seen students abstractedly muttering their lines around campus. Any language teacher is thrilled to see students taking their learning beyond the classroom walls… if students are also being creative and enjoying themselves, I am simply over the moon.
A hefty part of students’ grades depends on this project, but more importantly, a hefty part of their learning does, too. I would like to give my students some recognition beyond the numbers, and will have certificates ready for non-evaluative categories: most humorous, most educational, most resourceful, most tech-savvy and so on, and of course, a People’s Choice Award, voted for by the students themselves. It is important to break away from the numbers game: once they are teaching, my protégés will find that sustained quality is not about the grades.
Since these students are about to graduate, I also hope to compile all their films on a commemorative DVD, a copy of which can be distributed to other colleges, and a few of the big cheeses at the college and Ministry, as well as, of course, my film crews themselves. Hopefully the students will agree to distribution of their work for educational purposes. These are our first English Degree Programme graduates, and it would be wonderful to help them make their mark. Although I can’t distribute their work online, I do hold the rights to the short film I made as an example. Mine is exceedingly amateurish, although it does meet the demands of the brief: a short film illustrating the use of a language point. With a film crew of one and a deadline that was early in the semester, I make no apologies for the film’s weaknesses, though I certainly admit them. (Of the rest is too excruciating, the last 100 seconds are well worth it.) If it is any consolation, I am sure the students will far exceed their teacher
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This is flippin brilliant - if I had a learning process like this when I was at school, I would have loved school. Instead I ended up hating my school years because I was bored and frustrated.
...ah, and all your teachers would have gone grey prematurely :). The students have delivered some astounding work, and for a project of this magnitude, just having completed it is an achievement. Classes have been pandemonium, though, and several groups have delivered their work hot off the CD burner. It is obviously a learning curve for me, too! Although sleep-deprived, the girls are beaming with pride. Justifiably so: I am incredibly proud of them, too. Education is going some very interesting places...
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