{"id":4499,"date":"2018-10-15T14:08:24","date_gmt":"2018-10-15T18:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=4499"},"modified":"2023-01-09T11:26:36","modified_gmt":"2023-01-09T16:26:36","slug":"bringing-the-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/bringing-the-drama\/","title":{"rendered":"Bringing the Drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

One morning, private investigator Jimmy\u00a0Fortune, the main character in the\u00a0groundbreaking web series Fortune<\/em>, receives\u00a0a desperate phone call from his former best friend,\u00a0Daniel Tait\u2014Tait\u2019s wife has been kidnapped.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the series\u2019 six episodes, you learn the truth about Fortune\u2019s and Tait\u2019s pasts, and, if you\u2019re an English language learner (ELL), a bit about present perfect tense.<\/p>\n

Fortune<\/em> is the brainchild of Scott Granville \u201901 and his company Chasing Time English, which produces original drama series for ELLs. The company\u2019s roots were planted years ago, when Granville, a standout soccer player from New Zealand, came to Monmouth University to major in English.<\/p>\n

\u201cMonmouth fit the bill in terms of the size that I was looking for,\u201d says Granville of his decision to come to New Jersey. \u201cAnd, since most people in New Zealand live close to the water, being near the shore was a massive draw for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Granville says he felt welcome at Monmouth\u2014there were other international students on campus, and the Global Education Office helped him feel included with activities like Thanksgiving dinners. But Granville also had opportunities to go beyond his comfort zone, like the feature writing class that pushed him to write\u2014something he had always wanted to pursue.<\/p>\n

\u201cPursuing your interests is an important part of growing as a person,\u201d says Granville. \u201cIf you engage with activities outside your comfort zone, you learn, even in failure, more about yourself, and that should always be looked at as a positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Granville was also interested in filmmaking, but, as with writing, always found himself otherwise occupied. But when he returned to New Zealand and reconnected with high school friend Ben Woollen, who was producing a low-budget feature, the two decided to join forces to create Chasing Time Productions.<\/p>\n

While their films received some acclaim, they were having trouble monetizing their creativity. So Granville and Woollen decided to tackle a niche they felt didn\u2019t exist\u2014providing original, quality narrative dramas for ELLs through Chasing Time English. Granville had worked in language education in South Korea and New Zealand for several years after graduating from Monmouth, and he knew the challenges of finding engaging content for ELLs. He says popular shows like Friends<\/em> are useful but not designed for teach- ing English, and videos that do provide a strong language focus don\u2019t connect with viewers.<\/p>\n

But Chasing Time English productions are created with the help of teachers to fit into a tailored syllabus. Each episode includes teaching materials and is written with the audience\u2019s desire for entertainment in mind. \u201cWe want to give our audience a story they can enjoy so the learning materials aren\u2019t such a chore,\u201d says Granville. \u201cWe\u2019re not saying this is going to teach you English comprehensively. But you\u2019ll learn a lot about the use of the language. We\u2019ve found that to be a good strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chasing Time English was recently nominated for a PIEoneer Award, which recognizes achievements in international education. Now that they\u2019re receiving global recognition, Granville hopes to have a global impact. One of the organization\u2019s goals from the be- ginning has been to provide accessible learning opportunities to people anywhere in the world regardless of socioeconomic back- ground. Chasing Time English has made price points affordable, and wherever possible, works with nonprofits (currently in New Zealand, India, and Central Africa) that can provide materials to learners who can\u2019t access them otherwise.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exciting to be able to provide something that has tangible benefits for learning a language,\u201d says Granville. \u201cThe creation of an original idea from the ground up and the recognition for the team\u2019s hard work have been hugely rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott Granville creates entertaining shows for English language learners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":4562,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"{\"x\":53,\"y\":34}","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-back"],"thumbnail":"\"\"","catString":"The Back","issue":"Fall 2018","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4499"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4731,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4499\/revisions\/4731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}