Understanding the Immigrant Experience

Skills and Strategies in focus: 

1. Reading an authentic text, highlighting key points, and verbally summarizing

2. Listening: Listening to an authentic audio text; listening to an oral summary of a text

3. Speaking: Speaking about emotion using adjective clauses and relative pronouns

4. Pronunciation: 

Age & Level:  17-23 | International students at the IEC  | CEFR Levels B1/B2

Length of Lesson: 90 Minutes

Materials Needed: Copy of written text, space in classroom to organize students into two concentric circles or two lines, an internet connection, speakers, an authentic audio or video sharing an immigrant experience.

Learning Objectives 

Students will:

1. Be able to read an authentic text and summarize the article. 

2. Be able to listen to and understand a summary of the article.

3. Be able to highlight the key points of an article.

4. Be able to summarize and describe the points of an article in decreasingly limited time periods

5. Be able to listen to and understand an authentic audio story.

6. Be able to answer questions in detail about the story they heard. 

7. Be able to discuss and make connections to the story in light of their own experiences.

Audio Text: Returning to Myself, (start at 1:28)

Time: 60 minutes

Activity: Listen to an authentic audio recording by a Dreamer, Returning to Myself, by Kiara Chavez

Steps: 

1. Tell students that they’ll be listening to a story “Returning to Myself” read by an undocumented student, Kiara Chavez. Review a few key terms they may not know, such as DACA, (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). Let them know they’ll have to answer specific questions about the story after they've listened to it twice. They can take notes if they’d like. Prepare them for the fact that this is an audio only and they won’t be able to rely on written or visual cues to help them out. https://www.motustheater.org/motus-monologues-podcast.

2. Play the first half of the audio (about 4 minutes).

3. Do some comprehension checks, asking specific questions.

4. Play the second half of the audio (about 4 minutes).

5. Do some comprehension checks, asking specific questions.

6. Play the whole audio again.

7. False facts dictation: Read the text below for the first half of the audio and have students call out when they hear a statement that isn’t true. 

Kiara Chavez returned to Guatemala to visit her grandmother. She was eighteen years old when she made this journey. As an undocumented person living in the United States, she was able to travel through the Advanced Parole program, which gives DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] recipients permission to leave the country for study abroad, employment, or humanitarian reason. She was going because her grandmother was dying. She traveled by plane with other DACA recipients. Kiara was guaranteed re-entry into the United States.

Post-listening Activity

Time: 10 minutes

Activity: Personalized discussion. 

Steps: 

Pose a variety of questions to generate meaningful discussion. 

1. Have you ever made an important journey like the one Kiara made? What do you think is the most important trip you've taken?

2. How would it feel to not be able to visit a sick relative? 

3. What is the scariest journey you've ever taken?

4. What's the most inspiring place you've visited? 

5. What events in your life have helped you understand more about yourself, your family, or your culture? 

6. Have you ever been prohibited from going somewhere? How did you feel?

7. What about Kiara's experience can you identify with? 

8. What do you think the title of the story means: “Returning to Myself?

Feedback

Time: 5 minutes

Activity: Get feedback from students

1. What did you like about this activity? What did you dislike?

2. Did you find this easy or difficult?

3. What was most difficult?

4. What did you think of Kiara’s story?

References: https://www.motustheater.org/motus-monologues-podcast    

Appendix A: "How to Foster Empathy for Immigrants," by Jeremy Adam Smith, adapted and edited from https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_foster_empathy_immigrants. 

Appendix B: Returning to Myself Transcript