Speaking of Success: Words and You – Videos to Inspire and Motivate Students

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Vanier College is pleased to announce the launch of a series of videos aimed at motivating students in their college studies. In particular, the series entitled Speaking of Success: Words and You promotes the importance of reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills in English for all students in all their courses, no matter what their program of study or their ambitions in life. The videos were produced by VTV, Vanier Television, in collaboration with the Pedagogical Development Office (PDO) and LCAD (Literacy and Communication Across Disciplines) Team.

In student and teacher surveys conducted in 2013 by the LCAD Team, which included Maggie McDonnell of Vanier’s English Department and Karen White of Vanier’s Psychology Department, it became apparent that the answers students submitted to questions regarding the importance of literacy skills were very different from what teachers stated.

In commenting on the results of the survey, McDonnell and White said that “Several comments by non-English teachers indicated that when they emphasize and assess writing quality, students put in more effort and their writing quality improves. Hence, if this kind of grading were consistent in all college courses, writing would improve across the board.”

Good communications skills lead to success “What we observe, is that students who gain excellent communication skills during their studies at Vanier College, are better prepared for not only entry-level jobs, but for supervisory and management positions in the future,” states Wilma Brown, Coordinator of the Pedagogical Development Office. Furthermore, Vanier now has a Student Proficiency in the Language of Instruction Policy, which includes assessment of the quality of English of students’ written and oral work, in all courses.

Stimulated by these comments, the LCAD Team and VTV decided to produce videos with students and alumni highlighting the importance of literacy for succeeding in school and in life. The hope is that the videos will show students that literacy skills are very important to success.

Video profiles to inspire students So far, VTV has produced three video profiles of people in different walks of life and will release them in the coming months. The videos highlight the importance of reading, writing, listening, and speaking English well in order to succeed in school and in other areas of life.

The videos feature World Champion female wrestler and Vanier Science graduate Dorothy Yeats; Alan DeSousa, Vanier Commerce graduate and Mayor of St-Laurent; and Talia Dorsey a young Montreal architect. Other videos will be produced in the future aimed at informing and inspiring students across Montreal, Quebec and Canada.

“Vanier is a very important educational institution and helped prepare me for my future career. I think the Speaking of Success: Words and You videos are an excellent initiative and can be used to re-enforce the importance of literacy skills for students of today and for future generations,” said Alan DeSousa.

“Vanier Television is extremely proud of this video series. Part of VTV’s mandate is to promote student success and produce content that will inspire and inform the young men and women who are studying at Vanier. This initiative is a wonderful example of how VTV can work with Faculty members to promote interesting ideas while engaging the student population at Vanier as well as outside of the college,” said Darren Becker, Director of Communications and Corporate Affairs at Vanier.

See the Dorothy Yeats video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNsjdRN0RvI&feature=youtu.be