Page 32 - ELG1801 Jan Issue 453

INTERVIEW .
REVIEWS & RESOURCES
Drama without the drama

Kiwi-based Chasing Time Productions tell Claudia Civinini how they created an
exciting and useful television series for English language teachers

hasing Time Productions wanted to
create a TV drama you can use in
your classroom, with characters that
Cdon’t speak at 1,000 words per minute Chasing Time Productions
and don’t suddenly drop a perfectly articulated
swearword in front of your fiftheen year olds.
After collecting some international awards
with their short movies, Scott Granville and
Ben Woollen saw a gap in the market for quality
dramatic narrative for EL classrooms.
They decided to bring in Jonathon Ryan,
an applied linguistics PhD with a penchant for
pragmatics and conversation analysis. He graded
and benchmarked content and developed
teaching and material to match every episode.
Fortune is a six-episode drama for English
language learners about private detective Jimmy
Fortune investigating the disappearance of his
ex-wife Jenny.
The Gazette spoke to Granville and Ryan
about what Fortune can offer to language
teachers.
n How did the idea come along?
‘We started Chasing Time in 2008’, explained
Granville. ‘I had been in language education for
the best part of a decade and always found it
slightly disconcerting that there was no quality
dramatic narrative for English language learners.
We were also looking at ways to reach a
different audience, so we thought: “how do we
bring language education into film making?”’
‘We wanted first of all to create an engaging Actor Nick Wilkinson in the role
series with characters that our audience would of Jimmy Fortune
feel connected to. Then, we stepped back and
thought: “within these episodes, what can we ‘We looked at ways in which the script could ‘This deals with, for example, how people
focus on for language learners? How do we be simplified, in reference to the syllabus for the answer the phone or order coffee in real life,
teach learners and give teachers some materials A2 and B2 levels of the CEFR’, explained Ryan. which is different from what we see on TV.’
to work with?”’ ‘We didn’t have time to trial the first series with ‘We wanted Fortune to be a real film, but we
learners, but we are planning to trial season two. also wanted to be able to teach how certain
n The web-series is offered in two However, we have a team of 25 teachers in interactions happen in real life.
versions: blue, for elementary-level different countries across the world who are So we shot a whole series of supplementary
learners, and gold, for intermediate level. testing these materials in their classroom and we videos and provided other material, based on
How did you diversify and benchmark the are getting their feedback.’ the work on conversation analysis that has
content? been done by researchers like Jean Wong and
‘The series’ linguistic features are n How can teachers use the web-series in Emanuel Schegloff, for teachers that want to
benchmarked against the CEFR [Common the classroom? show that contrast.’
European Framework for Languages], because ‘The ideal way in my opinion would be one
it’s something that’s established and recognisable episode a week – there are probably three hours n What’s on the cards for the future?
for teachers and can bring us trust from our of teaching materials per episode. However, we ‘We are developing an additional season of
audience – it’s also a selling point for us, to be wanted it to be flexible, so there is no part of the Fortune for A2 and B2 levels.
honest’, said Granville. lesson that is indispensable and if a part of the The majority of students fit into those
‘I wrote the six episodes and realised that it teaching or learning material can’t be used it can categories – but we are investigating C1 as an
would be the dialogue that would need to be be skipped,’ explained Ryan. option,’ says Granville.
focused on for the linguistics features. Blue and
gold follow the same narrative, but we chose n What is the main feature of the teaching n And talking about the future, are Jenny
specific scenes in each episode and shot them material? and Jimmy getting back together in series
twice, once with an A2-level dialogue and ‘There is one particular area that deals with two?
another time with a B2-level dialogue. Also, the functional interactions, and it’s for classroom ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves!’ said
teaching and learning material and the language teachers – not for independent learners’, Granville. And then he asked: ‘Do you think
focus is different across the two levels.’ explained Ryan. they should get back together?’
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