Amman- May 23, 2016
On the 23rd May 2016 first year MA DaF and BA Design students presented their results of a joint semester project between the MA DaF seminar Culture II and the BA Design course Realization of T.V. Production.
„This was a successful experiment”, says Assistant Professor Nicola Huson about this class project. The idea had been on Huson’s mind for quite some time. “She had asked me several times, but I was waiting for the new film studio and equipment to be set up” explains Servet Golbol, a film director himself and an Industrial Professor at the GJU-School of Design and Visual Communication. The film studio was granted by the DAAD and BMBF.
So what the two professors call an experiment was a cooperation between to faculties of the German Jordanian University in bringing students together to work on a real life project.
The project required MA DaF students to reflect on the expression Heimat (Homeland) and to write a story on what so ever they associate with the word. The outcome was 11 stories – all of them very interesting, with totally different views on the topic.
The supervising team Servet Golbol, Nicola Huson, and Geske Taubitz (lecturer at the German Language Center) spent a whole afternoon on deciding which of the stories were to be turned into a 3 minute film for each of the genres: comedy, portrait, drama, and report. Four ideas were chosen according to originality, feasibility, and realization.
In a next step the MA students were provided with a real film-crew – the GJU-film students of Servet Golbol. The MA DaF students met with the BA Design students and formed teams. The responsibilities of film director, executive producer and screenwriter were decided for students of the MA DaF and the technical responsibilities of 1st assistant director, camera, sound, and editing distributed to the BA students.
Students were then asked to independently produce their films. “Film is a team building moment – everyone in the group has to take responsibility for his or her action and each one needs to care about what is going on”, explains Servet Golbol and Nicola Huson adds “In my opinion, it is very important for our future German language teachers in the MA DaF program to experience different approaches to teaching – in this case teaching culture through reflective and creative projects”.
After an adventurous semester with ups and downs the outcomes in the form of the four films were finally presented with great success last Monday in an open screening with approx. 30 participants. The films are on display at the School of Applied Humanities and Languages booth at Opening Exhibition “Made @ GJU” on Wednesday, 1st June and available on the SAHL website.
(Material provided by MA DaF students & Dana Ritzmann)