Migrant stories

The activity includes reading as well as listening and viewing skills and your students will need to have access to an internet connected computer, so you could either do the activity in a computer lab, if you have one in your school or set it as homework if your students have web access at home. Your students will need to be intermediate level or higher. The activity explores themes developed in the British Council OPENCities project.

The site has links to information about the lives of four different people.
Antonia
http://www.theage.com.au/interactive/2008/national/migrants/antonia.html
Krystyna
http://www.theage.com.au/interactive/2008/national/migrants/krystyna.html
Gionvanni
http://www.theage.com.au/interactive/2008/national/migrants/giovanni.html
Canh
http://www.theage.com.au/interactive/2008/national/migrants/canh.html


Preparation
Download the fact finding sheet and make a copy for each student. Decide which person each student will research.

Research worksheet (pdf)

Procedure

• Ask your students what they know about Australia. Ask them if they would like to go there.
• Tell the students they are going to find about about some people who went to live in Australia
• Either set the activity for homework or get the students on to computers to find out about the person they should research.
• Once they have had time to make their notes put them in groups of 4. Make sure that each student in the group has studied a different person. Ask them to compare their notes and tell each other about the person they researched and try to decide which person had:

• the best life
• the hardest life
• the most interesting story

• When the students have finished talking get them to report back to you about their decisions and why they made them.

The research task is very challenging and different students will discover different information, so don't worry too much about checking and correcting answers.

A nice follow up to this story is to ask the students to research one of their own grand parents and see how much they can find out about them, then come to class and share their information.