Abstract:

In our paper we will present the recently launched JISC OpenLives Project and discuss some of the methodological issues and potential pedagogical applications that are emerging from it.
The OpenLIVES project has at its core a rich corpus of primary data consisting of 24 life history interviews recorded among Spanish migrants and exiles who left Spain during the Franco regime, including 5 interviews by former evacuee children to Britain, France, the USA and the USSR. This material was collected in the course of a previous project funded by the University of Southampton under the Adventures in Research scheme: Tales of Return – The memories and experiences of Spanish returnee migrants from France and Great Britain (1959-1992).

The OARs (Open access resources) teaching materials that the OpenLives team is in the process of developing are mostly aimed at facilitating an understanding of the subject of migration and related socio-cultural and socio-linguistic issues emerging from the life stories of migrants. Through working with the project data from both a linguistic and specific content perspective in a pedagogical dimension we envisage opening different avenues in which the integration of language and content units can be enhanced in Modern Languages programs.

We hope to achieve the following outcomes:
• to develop and consolidate critical and analytical skills to enhance the students’ potential to succeed in both content and language course work.
• to embed employability skills through student involvement in the generation of learning and teaching material, e.g. translation and transcription skills, handling of oral data, presentation and editorial skills, participation in online forums.
• to increase students’ awareness of different ways of documenting and disseminating information among different audiences and genres

Keywords:

Life histories, Spanish migration, testimonies, exile, language teaching.