Access Program Students in Akhaltsikhe Discuss Television Series "Connect with English"
On November 22, December 3, and December 20, Access Program in Akhaltsikhe devoted two hour sessions to watching and discussing television series Connect with English.
Through the story of Rebecca, an aspiring singer on a journey across America, Connect with English touches on life's important issues: leaving home, parenting, education, work, love, success, and loss. All of the characters use meaningful, natural language that students can put to work immediately in their own lives. Each episode features dialogue that is slightly slowed down and subtly simplified. Key lines are repeated, idioms paraphrased, and important events retold.
Throughout the three two hour sessions students:
Learned everyday expressions: While watching, students made notes on unknown expressions and or phrases they heard. By the end of the movie piece, they wrote the new phrases on the flipchart and guessed their meanings with the help of teacher’s hints.
Listed sub topics and titles for each video piece they watched: Students listed the topics while watching the movie piece and compared them with their classmates through discussion. Each part of the movie was replayed to allow students to make subtitles for each part. Chosen titles were later discussed in the class and students had to argue for their choice.
Held discussion panels: After watching a 15-minute episode, students were given time to reflect in groups and ask questions to one another. Then, representatives from each group sat in front of the class and held a discussion panel (similar to the way it is done in the video).
Described main characters: Students worked in groups to brainstorm on the main characters of a given episode. When finished, they wrote the descriptions they came up with on the flipcharts (one for each character) placed on the walls of the classroom. At the end of the activity, complied characteristics were read aloud and further discussed.
Did story mapping: after each episode, students wrote a short summary paragraph on a piece of paper and hung it up on the wall in the order that events took place. First, the class brainstormed the major events that took place in the episode; then, they dictated the summary paragraph to the teacher who wrote it on flipchart paper.
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 Dianne Zhambakhidze was once a shy and silent student, but that was before she enrolled in Access. It took her nearly a year to find her voice, but now she is one of the most helpful and friendly members of the group. Peers admire her diligence and hard work and always pay extra attention to what she has to say in class when she answers questions and gives advice on homework problems. > More Second rotation of the Access program in Adjara region of Georgia started with its own set of challenges. After consultations with PH, “Changes without Borders” the implementing partner of the Access program decided to cast the participatory net wider to the outer and more remote locations of Adjara. The level of education and achievement among youth, in those remote locations, is lower than that in the Batumi public schools. Although over 200 applications were received, general starting level of language competencies among the selected 25 Access students was dramatically low. The majority of students could hardly read in English > More  |
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