Drama series makes learning fun
Daniel Tait arrives home to find his wife has disappeared.
He makes a call to the one person he knows who can help: his former best friend and private investigator Jimmy Fortune.
This is the plot for the first season of Fortune, a drama series created specifically for adult English language teachers and their students.
As the story unravels through each episode, the audience finds out Tait has been trading secrets and his wife has been kidnapped because of it.
Co-creators Ben Woollen and Scott Granville came up with the idea while driving to the airport one day.
Granville has a background in English language education and after doing some brainstorming, the idea came together.
‘‘We wanted to create something a native English speaker would be really interested in watching, but at the same time it could be used for learning and teaching,’’ Granville said.
‘‘When people try to deliver English language content, it always falls into a really strange place. It gets to a point where it becomes almost unwatchable and then you switch off.
‘‘We wanted to give our audience a story they could follow and enjoy so the learning materials weren’t such a chore.’’
Fortune is a six-episode series written and modified to meet two language proficiency levels.
Viewers are given the option with each new episode to choose the level of English language that best suits their learning needs.
English as a Second Language and English as a Foreign Language professionals have worked alongside the scriptwriters to make the story accessible as well as purposeful in an educational context.
Each episode in season one will run for five to seven minutes.
Afterwards, there will be a range of teaching and learning materials available – either for use in the classroom or for individual learners.
The first season will be delivered at the A2 and B2 levels of proficiency based on the Common European Framework.
‘‘We’re confident there’s nothing that exists like it,’’ Granville said.
The plan is to target large English language learner markets, like Asia, South America and the Middle East, he said.
‘‘We’ve been very careful with our content. While it is dramatic, there’s nothing that would be sensitive to a potential audience.’’
All of the filming is being shot in locations around the Waikato.
Last week, the crew was filming at Hamilton bar Wonder Horse.
‘‘Aside from this being my favourite bar in Hamilton, there’s a kind of mood to these particular scenes where we are slowly uncovering some secrets and the interior and lighting matches what we are trying to achieve.’’
If the first season goes well, there are plans to get into season two pretty quickly, Granville said.
The first episode of season one is planned to be released in October.
When it is launched, viewers will be able to watch for free, but will have to purchase the learning materials.