Twenty-one students in a multi-level intermediate/advanced ESL Speaking and Listening class at Bellevue College, spring quarter, 2011 completed a short, multi-media movie project. Students wrote scripts that told a story about a mentor in their lives. They recorded voiceovers, chose accompanying photos, planned movies on a storyboard, and mixed the movies in Movie Maker 2.6 on PCs.
In preparation for the project, students studied about Maya Angelou's mentor from the "Who Mentored You" website developed by Harvard University. Next they wrote scripts. These scripts were a thank-you to their mentors alive or gone. Students practiced hard to speak as clearly as possible before they were recorded. Using key words from their scripts, they found photos to illustrate their movies. They used the DevEd eLab at Bellevue College to make their movies. Students encouraged and helped each other. Their English scores improved greatly by the end of the quarter because they practiced speaking and listening intensively in English.  On Movie Night, May 31, 2011, students celebrated by watching each other’s movies. It was a huge accomplishment. This movie night is part of a larger Leadership Festival celebrated across the program by many classes.
The movie CELEBRATION NIGHT is a photo montage of the process from students working in the lab to receiving their certificates of completion. Rose Zhang, our wonderful volunteer assistant, produced this movie for the class.
I want to acknowledge three people who made this project possible: Rose Zhang, the computer expert, who acted as the project manager, produced the DVD and edited all the movies; EK Park, TSEL instructor and volunteer, who tutored many of the students as they wrote scripts and while they were producing their movies during the eLab sessions ; and Ting Chen, the class assistant, who took many of the photos and tutored and encouraged students along the way. All three of these volunteers helped record the voiceovers. This project would not be possible without their tireless help and committment to student success.
Most of all, I want to thank all the students who persisted with the project and became engaged in bringing their voices to life as they made movies about their mentors.