KKCL TV has quickly become a cornerstone of inspiration for students and teachers alike at our school, having recently featured our students creating their unique and very impressive creations with state-of-the art equipment. It has been remarkable just how quickly the children have mastered the art of filming, sound recording, and post-production editing together (the next generation of Steven Spielbergs?).
Recent work has included filming music videos using an original song by our Director of Studies Emma Lauson, who provided various versions of her own song Lights, Camera, Action to inspire creativity from the students. Various members of the general public were incorporated into the work, with students succeeding in persuading them to take part in various scenes and performances. The Activity Leaders from KKCL worked extremely well with the students to create a really inspiring final product; many of the Activity Leaders are in fact current students at top university film schools – our students really are learning from the very best.
The activities beneficially test the students’ ability to overcome problems as they arise on the ground, reflecting the unpredictable rhythm of daily professional life in the creative fields of media production. This allows their English language use to become equally creative; the real purpose of a junior language-learning setting should always be to speak, and the students have certainly been doing this a lot during their KKCL TV projects.
Learning how to film and act in a multitude of styles according to narratives/storyboards has meant KKCL students have dealt with the challenging and potentially daunting lexical field of film and media; it is fantastic to see the students thinking on their feet and performing impressively in front of what is a considerable linguistic feat.
Working with members of the public they’ve never seen before, coordinating with adult staff and Activity Leaders and quickly solving technical issues meant the students became highly accustomed to using English to solve creative problems and get to grips with a key vocabulary field of the English language.
We will continue to perfect KKCL TV as a fantastic tool for junior English language-learning, as well as inspiring creativity in and of itself for both children and adults. The beauty of the project is in its ability to unite both adult activity leaders and students as their innovative capacities are put to the test.
We have had nothing but positive feedback from those taking part in the projects.
The combination of adventures, challenges, innovation and English language learning has provided a whole new creative dimension to the English learning process, and students benefit directly from the KKCL TV work, the results of which are visible immediately. We may well see our students presenting the BBC World News in the not-so-distant future…