P.I.S.E.M. Materials
Questions Immigrants Raise; Immigrant Life in Toronto; Themes for English language training of Portuguese
Publisher: Project for the Investigation of the Exploitation of Women, Toronto, Canada
Year Published: 1977
Resource Type: Slide Show
Cx Number: CX257
Audio-visual materials designed for use in small groups with immigrants to give them information about dealing with alienating elements in their environment.
Abstract:
The following audio-visuals are designed for use in small groups with immigrants to give them information about questions raised previously and/or to present elements of their situation back to them. The latter serves as a conversation starter to help them identify alienating elements in their own reality.
1) Questions Immigrants Raise
a) "My Daughter in Gym Class." 13 minute videotape. (in cooperation with District Four audio-visual specialist of the Metropolitan Separate School Board) The vidiotape takes four questions that immigrant parents of primary school children have raised about letting their daughters participate in physical education classes and lets the parents answer the questions themselves by watching gym class.
b) "My Child in Kindergarten." 44 slides, script in English or Portuguese. (in collaboration with St. Veronica's Separate School). Available with questions for small group discussioin among parents. Explains to parents how what appears as play in kindergarten is really preparation for reading and writing in Grade 1. Explains the development of large and small muscles, basic psychology of encouraging child to play at home, development of perceptual skills. Four sections: speaking, listening, reading, writing.
c) "A visit to the Dentist." 68 slides, tape in English, script in Portuguese. (in cooperation with the City of Toronto, Department of Public Health) Explains why young children should be given dental care, neighbourhood clinics for school children, and process of using the clinics. Description of cleaning, filling, and extraction processes.
2) Immigrant Life in Toronto
a) "First Steps in Canada." 92 slides. Tape in English or Portuguese. (in collaboration with the Women's Employment Centre) Four Portuguese women describe their feelings about their first years in Canada, how they got their first jobs, importance of English, their expectations of work and roles in Portugal and in Canada.
b) "When Women Unite" Slides and Portuguese/English script. Examines the movement of immigrant women from dependency on outsiders in relating to Canadian systems towards independence and joining together to provide for their own needs. Uses instance of Portugese cleaning women who united to join a union and keep their jobs.
The following resources are designed to provide material from the life context of Portuguese in Toronto. From these materials may be designed English language classes.
"Themes for English language training of Portuguese", 1975. 8 pages. Eight themes are chosen and developed in a series of three cycles that participants from beginning to advanced levels can use. Development moves from simple identification of the theme in the first cycle, to getting more information and problematizing in the second, to discussing contradictions and alternatives in the third. Note: this is in outline form only, concerns life contexts and not materials for language development, such as grammar, which the user will have to get from another source.
P.I.S.E.M. has many slides which users of the above outline may wish to use to illustrate the themes in the three cycles.
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