Every picture tells a story:

raising global-glocal awareness

in a language-oriented writing

course with photographyLee Arnold

Seigakuin UniversityJALT Learner Development SIG 2015

Creating Community: Learning Together 2

Issues for learner writing• Most writing assignments typically task-based or

require engagement with literary sources

• Tasks may often be vague and decontextualized

• Literary sources meaningful yet challenging for learners for consolidating ideas

• Some may require alternative tasks and content

Photography

• Imagery may allow learners to imagine and construct stories

• Photography ideal to stimulate compositional organization in learner writing

• Photography fixed in visual and recognizable

• Character of photo-journalistic imagery suited for L2 writing composition and exposition

Background• Photographic elicitation in

mental health interviewing (John Collier Jr., U.S.)

• Research in visual semiotics (Groupe μ (Mu), Belgium)

• Antecedents in Saussurean semiology (France) and in Peircean sign theory (U.S.)

John Collier, Jr.

Groupe μ (Mu)

English at Seigakuin University

• English Communication Arts (ECA) unified program

• Predominantly language-oriented with pre-post test schema in speaking and reading classes

• ECA units required for all majors

• Recent moves to bring about greater content into program curricula with global-glocal themes

Global-glocal content & photography for learner writing

• Chose images of refugees and their situations for global-glocal writing assignment

• Sought to elicit and stimulate learner imagination and empathy through such images

Methodology

Presented three photographs of refugees and asked learners to imagine one of two situations

• They are any one of the refugees depicted and they are on their way to Japan for resettlement

• They are working for an NGO in Japan dealing with refugee issues and are enumerating needs they will have upon arrival

Learners tasked to first write a paragraph on the image of their choice then develop further into a multi-paragraph short composition

Learners then told that their work would be gathered into a collection of learner writing on refugee issues called Leaving Home, Going Home

Gathering of writing assignment into publishable collection follows Matsuda’s (2014) dictum of contextualizing learner writing into space that learners can write for

Leaving Home, Going Home

excerptsI am in the hospital now. Because I undergo an examination to go to Japan. Not only me but also my family undergo it. In other words, my family and I are doing to move Japan. My family is my father, mother and one sister. Only I haven’t finished an examination yet. I’m afraid of an injection. I wish I’m not injected.

Moving to Japan is sad. Because we are leaving our hometown soon. Also I must make my farewells to my friends. I don’t know when we can meet again. I received letters and pictures from my friends yesterday. They are my important treasures. Although leaving my hometown is sad very much, I am looking forward to living Japan. I think Japan is a beautiful country, I want to learn Japanese culture and I’m interested in Japanese. Japan seems a fun country. However I have a question. “Is Japan a beautiful country?” I have been told about Japan from my parents. “Wars aren’t happened in Japan. Japanese environment is good and Japan is a developed country. But there are some troubles even Japan. They are relations to other countries, political problems, homeless and so on.” Although it’s difficult for me to understand them, I’ll learn about them.

I think that the answers of questions are so many, so in this paper, I will list four factors which seem to be needed for refugees. First of all, they would need the information to live in Japan. For example, how to find the houses to live, buy foods, wash their clothes and count the money in Japan.

The second they would need is the companies to advise each other. In the group, they can talk about any alert and learn how to live comfortably, and be relaxed. The third one would be the language skill of Japanese. It let them live in Japan without too much care that NGO cannot do and make their lives easier. But I think teaching Japanese is out of work of NGO because teaching acquires the high level of knowledge and skill of plane expression. If I were the worker in the NGO office, I would look for the group teaching Japanese voluntary. The fourth ones are important for refugees to continue living in Japan. Those are supports to make them get jobs and let their children go to school.

Now, I wrote about what refugees need for their lives. But there is more important factor. It is for Japanese. Japanese who live with them would need some help to have communication with refugees. So it must be needed that spreading information about refugees to Japanese to get rid of alert that Japanese has. Those Japanese must be afraid of new comers from foreign countries. 

At last, to do all these factors, NGO workers have to try and connect with other diverse communities in Japan like local-governmental bodies, schools, plants or offices, voluntary groups and so on. To support refugees' lives is not only for work of NGO but all of our communities, groups and organizations in Japan. 

. 

I’m 76 years old now. That story is when I was 40 years old. My wife is gone, because my wife was dead by war. I’m so sad and I can’t live without the wife. But I have to live. So I escaped my country seven years ago. I saving money now, because I’m hoping to go to Japan, and I want to have private business. I have two children, who is one boy and one girl. My job is making traditional things. So I want to know a lot of people that what kind of my job and what is the traditional things. My country’s traditional things are textile and ceramic ware. It is my pride to make traditional things. I go to unknown country called Japan and want to spread this traditional quality.When I was 40 years old, I got a visa to go to Japan at last. Children were delight with me, but we were full of uneasiness. We tanked people who were taken care of so far and on the day to go to Japan, went to the airport. We boarded an airplane. When we arrived at Japan at the first time, it was very cold and it snowed in winter. We were so surprised because we saw snow for the first time. There was our house in the place called Azabu. There was the town which was quiet and seemed to be safe. When we opened the shop, Japanese people were interested in and they saw it. Article and we. Five years later, I thought Japanese people is so kind but introverted and so negative. Some people is positive but almost negative. But now, we are used to life in Japan and live happily. We love Japan. My job and life is success!!

As a staff working with refugees, I think helping refugees is not just a matter of just help them buy an airline ticket. They need almost everything when they came to Japan. First, they need a house to live. Our refugee agency is sending stoves, fuel, blankets and warm clothing to them. We will help refugees pay rent and pre-fabricated shelters are also being considered for all of them. But we just want to say it has huge concerns for the estimated at least 1 million people displaced inside their own country – many without food or shelter. Our aid agencies are managing to try our best to help them. We expect that figure to double to 700,000 by the end of this year. Most of those fleeing arrive with nothing more than their clothes, many are young children, and now winter is coming. Winter is the hardest season for refugees.

It is awful to be a refugee, it's awful to live in a tent, imagine if you have to live in a tent when it's freezing and windy and cold and wet outside, so we want to make sure that at least the situation is livable for people who have no other choice. Survival is their only option. Our agency are also sending medical supplies, equipment and basic emergency supplies, water, sanitation, and education for refugees to help them live better in Japan. We have also fed more refugees in Japan. Their hope is to provide food assistance to 6 and a half million by the end of the year. You can help us achieve this goal with an online donation and thank you for supporting our work, by calling the number on our website. It’s our moral duty to help them to start a new life in Japan. They are homeless and often with just the clothes on their backs. Giving a helping hand to people in need is encouraged and welcomed in our society all the time.  

I feel very depressed at this moment on the boat. I usually don't get sea-sick, but I feel like I'm about to throw up. Too many people on one boat. I see some girls crying, grabbing mother’s sleeves. Some adults are singing the national anthem for not to forget our mother country. I didn't want to leave my country. I asked my girlfriend, well, my 'ex' girlfriend to come with me, but she said "no". Here I am. Standing on the boat with my pals, sharing our least moist cigarettes.

Few of my pals are very pumped up and excited to go to Japan, but I'm not. Is it because of my ex, or my anti-fish? I don't know. I guess I'd have to start very slowly to get used to new cultures. I'm feeling melancholic. I don't care how my life's going to be. I don't mind living in the city or country. I don't mind living with ten other people in one tiny room. My only wish is only her. Oh boy... I can't swim.

I am Joel. I was live in South America. I am a boy of a big “family.” I don’t want to say that word, but this is the real. We were refugee. There were more than 10 families live in a big simple house. The house and the furniture were simple than the Amish people. Our things were all simple. We didn’t have right in this area of our country. If we want to have freedom, we had to immigrate. Although we had never starved, our foods were simple, too. Almost everyday, we had the same meal. But that time, I was so young that I had never thought the life was bad. I thought that I have a big house to live, a big meal to eat, a big family I have. I was satisfied. But the adults didn’t think so. They prepare to immigrate to freedom world everyday. They went out to find a big boat that maybe can transport five of our big families.

The destined day came. We left our country without being noticed. We took the boat and the boat went forward. Went forward to an unknown place. I was sentimental because I left my hometown. But there were a hopeful eye appeared on other people. I couldn't understand why, until I grew up. 

I didn't know how many days and nights we had gone through. We arrived at a whole new place. Only one thing I know that the place was very far from my hometown. They called the place Japan. And the beginning of our life was not so easy. Because we were foreigner, the things we could only do was the part-time job. And we couldn't speak Japanese at that time, so we could just do the job which the salary was very cheap. But my parents worked hard to earn tuition fee to let me go school because they wanted to give me good future in Japan. I didn't know why but very strange. I studied Japanese hard and now I am a university student. After I graduate the university successfully, it is my turn to give my parents happiness life. 

Contextualization

Analysis• When characterizing from scenarios in images

learners could write with enthusiasm and empathy

• More factual content from NGO viewpoints tended to be well-organized and enumerated points with both detail and appeal to moral obligation

• Writing tended overall to be longer and extended by way of contextualization into writing collection

Conclusion

• Photographic imagery can enrich writing on areas such as global/glocal to both higher analytical and visceral sense

• Contextualizing such assignments give additional motivational vigor to learner writing

• Merging imagery and composition through contextualization presents learner writing in accomplished form

Thank you for

listening!