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This guide is designed to enrich your reading of the articles in this issue. You may choose to read them on your own, taking notes or jotting down answers to the discussion questions below. Or you may use the guide to explore the articles with colleagues. 

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Reader's Guide
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The author uses her own experience starting and facilitating a book club to give advice to others interested in creating a book club in their schools or communities. 

Author: Jessica McCaughey Format: Text
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Book Clubs as a Tool for Community Building and Language Enhancement
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The author provides suggestions for English language activities that promote bonding at the beginning of a course, during a course, and at the end of a course. 
Author: Pham Huynh Phu Quy Format: Text
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Group Dynamics: Belonging in the ESL Classroom

This article presents twelve activities for teaching the pragmatics of complaining, including strategies, tasks, and specific scenarios. 

Author: Amanda Hilliard Format: Text
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Pragmatics of Complaining
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There are several aspects that teachers must consider in order to promote learner engagement. In last week’s Teacher’s Corner, we discussed the importance of building a strong classroom community. This week, we offer a strategy that targets another aspect of learner engagement: behavioral engagement (Parsons, Nuland, & Parsons, 2014). Behavioral engagement focuses on getting students actively involved in class activities. While active participation is closely related to a student’s level of comfort in the classroom, there are a number of techniques teachers can use to promote active participation in activities and lessons.
 
This week we explain how to use time as a tool to engage learners in reading tasks. Time is a great tool for fostering competition and engagement in the classroom because the stakes are relatively low but signs of progress for each learner are clear.

LEVEL

High-beginner and above

MATERIALS

  • Reading text (any text used in a previous lesson appropriate to learner level and age)
  • Clock with secondhand

PREPARATION

  • Prepare enough copies of the text if it is not in students’ books
  • Plan for students to work in pairs; make a list of students who will work together paired by reading ability. For example, put strong readers with strong readers.
  • Write these rules on the board:
  1. One student reads.
  2. One student is the timekeeper.
  3. The reader reads silently for 1 minute. The timekeeper stops the reader after one minute of reading.
  4. The reader underlines the last word he/she read.
  5. The reader reads again for 1 minute starting from the beginning of the text. The timekeeper stops the reader after one minute of reading.
  6. The reader underlines the last word they read.
  7. The reader counts the words read and writes down the number of words read the first time. The reader counts the words read the second time and writes down the number of words. The reader compares the two numbers.
  8. The timekeeper and reader switch roles. 
  9. Repeat steps 3-7

PROCEDURE

 

  1. Tell students that they are going to see how fast they can read silently.
  2. Put students in the pairs planned before class.
  3. Give students a copy of the text they will read or ask them to take out the text if it is something they have in their books or folders.
  4. Review the rules on the board with the students.
    a. Modeling this activity can be useful. 
    b. Ask the class to be the timekeeper and you are the reader. Tell students that when the secondhand hits 12, they should say “go” and when it hits 12 the second time, they should shout  “stop.”
    c. Read silently for one minute. 
    d. When the class shouts “stop,” stop reading and show them how you mark the last word. 
    e. Show students how to count the words that you read and write the number on the board. 
    f. Tell students that they will each do this 2 times.
  5. As the students engage in the activity, circulate to ensure that they are on task and completing the activity correctly.
  6. When they finish, tell them that they will do this regularly in order to track their progress in reading. 

VARIATIONS

An alternative to this activity is to have students track their progress reading aloud. The words per minute will likely be less than the words per minute for silent reading, but it also gives the students a chance to track their own progress.

REFERENCES

Parsons, S. A., Richey Nuland, L., & Ward Parsons, A. (2014). The ABCs of student engagement. Phi Delta Kappan, 95(8), 23-27.

 
 
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Week 2: Read to Beat the Clock
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Teachers help set the tone and culture of their classes. When teachers create an environment where students feel welcomed and included, students are more motivated and likely to engage (Shernoff, 2013). There are a number of techniques and strategies teachers can use to build a strong classroom community for any age or level of learner. One strategy is building stronger student to student relationships. In this week’s Teacher’s Corner, we offer three suggestions to promote student-student relationships. You can use these in your own classrooms as you work toward greater student engagement.

LEVEL

Any

MATERIALS

List of possible questions for Question of the Day (Appendix A)

PREPARATION

While lesson planning, ask yourself, “How will I support, develop, and enhance our classroom community today?”

STRATEGIES

Meet & Greet (Icebreakers)

Objective: Students will begin to develop relationships with fellow classmates and the teacher.

 

Meet & Greet activities are usually done on the first day of class as a way for the teacher and students to learn more about each other. Some teachers spend the whole class getting to know students on the first day with intricate icebreakers. These icebreakers and Meet & Greet activities get students talking and support both teacher-student relationships and student-student relationships. Supporting and developing strong teacher-student and student-student relationships are vital to creating and maintaining a strong classroom community. The more students and teachers know about each other, the more accountable they feel to the classroom community. Here’s an icebreaker that engages learners and prompts discussion.

  1. Put students into groups of 3-4. On the first day of class, simply group them according to where they sit. For example, walk to three students sitting next to one another and tell them they are now a group.
  2. Ask each student to write down a number between 1 and 10.
  3. Tell students to share the number they wrote with their group.
  4. Explain that first, students should introduce themselves by name. Then, students will use their numbers as a guide for how many things they will share about themselves with the group. For example, a student who wrote 7 will have to tell the group 7 things about himself.
  5. Give groups time to talk beyond what they share. This might mean using almost 10 minutes to complete this activity. Remember, you want students to spend time talking with one another.
       a. As the teacher, circulate and listen as a way to silently meet students. Make notes about students’ names and what they share in order to get to know them.
  6. At the end of the activity, tell the groups to exchange contact information. They can share phone numbers, email, social media names, or additional contact information.
       a. Explain that they should reach out to their classmates if they have a question about homework, want to study together, etc. This way, students support one another’s success in the classroom.
  7. After students have exchanged information, ask them to write down their name and the things they shared with their group. Students then submit this to you, so you have information about each student.
       a. Collect the information sheets.
       b. If you choose, ask each student to introduce someone in his/her group to the rest of the class. As students introduce classmates, make notes on the student information sheets so that you can use the information to learn more about your students.

Question of the Day (QOD)

Objective: Students will get to know most/all of their classmates so that they feel more comfortable working on class activities and lessons.
 
At the beginning of the school year, plan to use 2-3 minutes at the beginning of every class for a QOD activity. QOD activities are designed for students to get to know one another. These activities are simple and take very little time, but they support student engagement throughout the whole school term.
 
  1. Before class, write a question on the board that will serve as the QOD. The QOD can be funny, personal, or fun, but it should be something that generates discussion. It is best to choose something that is unrelated to class as it gives students a chance to develop personal relationships. For example, you could write a Would you rather question on the board such as: Would you rather be able to speak all human languages or speak all animal languages? See Appendix A for more suggestions.
  2. Once students arrive, ask them to find a person they have not met and discuss the QOD.
        a. As the teacher, you might need to facilitate partners. Encourage students to stand and walk to the other side of the room to find someone new. 
        b. Students introduce themselves to each other and then answer the QOD.
  3. After a few minutes, ask students to return to their seats.
  4. Check in with students and ask if anyone wants to share a response.
        a. Try to encourage but not force answers. The purpose is for students to meet each other.

Depending on how often you meet with students, you could do this short activity every day for one to four weeks. For example, if your class meets daily and is small, you may want to consider doing this activity each day for one week. Bigger classes that meet once a week might want to do this activity for one month.

Review Mingle
 
Objective: Students will collaborate to review and explain the content of a lesson.
 
The Review Mingle occurs at the end of a lesson or at the end of class and gives students an opportunity to review what they’ve learned with classmates. This activity is fairly open and often starts with a question that asks students to contemplate what they learned.
  1. Tell students that it is time to mingle. Ask everyone to stand.
  2. Ask students to walk around the room discussing the lesson just learned.
    a. Offer one open-ended question that prompts discussion such as: What was difficult about today’s lesson? What did you learn today? What is one question you still have?
    b. Encourage students to talk to one or multiple classmates.
    c. Remind students to introduce themselves if they don’t know their classmate.
    d. Explain that they must walk around the room to find someone. This encourages relationship building between students. It also gets them away from solely communicating with the classmates that sit close to them.
  3. After a few minutes, feel free to bring the group back together to share. An alternative is to allow students to review this way until class ends.
 
The activities presented this week are two ways to build relationships among students. Strong student-student relationships help foster a more inclusive classroom and engage all students. 

REFERENCES

Shernoff, David J. (2013). Optimal Learning Environments to Promote Student Engagement. Retrieved from http://www.eblib.com

APPENDIX A

Possible questions for Question of the Day

  • What do you want to be when you grow up?
  • What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?
  • If you could have any superpower, what superpower would you choose?
  • Would you rather live in a world without lies or live in a world where you have all the power?
  • Would you rather taste color or smell sound?
  • Which animal best describes you?
  • If you could choose to be any animal, what would you choose?
  • Would you rather have your grandmother sing at your high school graduation or have your grandfather rap at your wedding?
  • Tell me about one of the most important people in your life.
  • Would you rather watch your favorite sport or play your favorite sport?
  • Where would you most like to travel?
  • If you had to eat one food for the rest of your life, which would you choose?
  • If you could meet anyone, whom would you want to meet?
  • What is your favorite part of everyday? What do you do during that time?
  • What is a song that makes you happy?
  • What is your favorite holiday? 
  • Tell me about your best friend.
  • Would you rather spend the day inside while it rains or outside in the sunshine?
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Week 1: Building A Strong Classroom Community
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Level

Intermediate to Advanced

Language Focus

Reading, writing (primary focus); listening, speaking (secondary focus)

Goals

During this activity students will:

  • Practice writing news stories
  • Record a news radio program

Materials

  • Teacher: whiteboard/chalkboard, markers or chalk
  • Students: pencils or pens, notebooks or writing paper

Preparation

  1. Read all of the materials carefully before starting the activity.

Note: Idioms/slang related to newspapers and news radio have a long tradition in American culture. In news slang, to scoop (v.) means to publish information or a news story before other newspapers. Scoop can be used as a noun as well. The title of part three of this activity “Over to You” is a phrase used to transition between news stories on television or radio. For example: a news story may end with “and that is the local news today. Coming up next we have the weather with Eddie. Over to you Eddie.”

Activity Part One: The Classroom News

  1. Begin the activity by having students form small groups of 3 to 4 students. Each small group will form a news team. For the remainder of the activity, students will work in these news teams. Each news team will produce one radio broadcast.
  2. In their news teams, have the students brainstorm the types of stories they read in the news or listen to on the radio, such as international news, local news, sports, movie reviews, etc.
  3. After the news teams have brainstormed ideas, have them share their ideas with the class. As groups announce their list to the class, write them on the chalkboard.
  4. Once of all the ideas have been listed on the board, ask the news teams which of the types of news stories they find the most interesting. Inform the students that these news stories will be the ones they include in a radio broadcast. Topics could include international news, the economy, entertainment, sports, weather, etc.
    • Have each news team vote on the news stories they want to include in their radio program.

      • Note: Some topics of the news can be more challenging for students to write about than others, such as international news or business news. If these topics are too difficult for the students’ language level, the radio broadcast can be created with smaller topics. For example, instead of one story within the topic of entertainment, the radio broadcast can have two, such as movie news and music news.

  5. Once the news teams decide which topics to include in their radio broadcast, have them select a producer. The producer is responsible for organizing the radio broadcast and making sure the stories are written and submitted on time. The producer will act as the team leader for his/her news team.

Activity Part Two: What’s the scoop

  1. Once the news teams have decided which topics to include in the radio broadcast, have the news teams decide which student will write which topic.
  2. Once students know the topic they will write about, have them get out paper and a pencil or pen and begin brainstorming possible ideas for a news story. Encourage the students to write down a general idea at the top of their paper. Below this they should write down the “5 Ws and H” questions of a newspaper story: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. Each of these should be included in each story.

    3. Note: This brainstorming activity will vary depending on the topics of the radio broadcast students decided to include. Be sure to circulate around the room and help students brainstorm ideas. The news topics easiest to write will probably be local news, entertainment, sports, and weather. These topics are all common parts of American news radio broadcasts.

    • In the entertainment section, possible story ideas are a review of a new movie or music album, a local performance occurring in town, or a story about the life of a famous celebrity.

    Note: For lower-level classes, students can work in pairs to write a story together.

  3. Instruct the students to continue the story-writing exercise at home as a homework assignment. For this activity, be sure to set a longer than normal homework deadline, such as one week. After you give the homework assignment and the due date, it will be the responsibility of the news team producers to make sure students complete the homework!

Activity Part Three: Over to You

After the students have completed their homework, begin this section of the activity. In this part of the activity, the students will organize their radio broadcast, practice reading it, and record it for a homework assignment.

  1. Begin this section of the activity by having the student gather into their news teams.
  2. In their news teams, students should read the news stories written by their classmates in their news team. They should then select the order in which the stories will be read during the broadcast.
    • Remind students that they want to choose an interesting or exciting story for their lead. In American journalism, the lead is the first and most important story in a newspaper or on a radio broadcast.
  3. Once the news teams have selected their lead, have them decide the order of the remaining stories for the radio broadcast.

    4. Note: Many American radio broadcasts follow a similar pattern; they begin with local news, then international news, then weather, and conclude with sports. If teams are having trouble organizing their radio broadcast, suggest they follow that pattern.

  4. Once the news teams have decided the order of their stories, have them practice reading their stories out loud. Each student in the news team should read one news story in the radio broadcast.

    5. Note: Remind students to include transitions in their news stories. Usually, a news story will end with a transition to the next story. For example, a news story may end with, “…and that is the local news today. Coming up next we have the weather with Eddie. Over to you Eddie.”

Homework Activity: For homework, have students record their radio broadcast. If students are feeling creative, encourage them to record and edit their radio broadcast using a free audio editing tool such as Audacity.

Optional Activity: Once each news team has recorded their radio broadcast, have them share their recording with the rest of class for other students to listen to for extra listening practice.

For more information on using Audacity for recording, check out: Audacity: Audio Recording Software
For more ideas on creating audio recordings for the classroom, check out the webinar: Podcasting in the Classroom.

For more ideas on using news in the classroom, check out the March 2016 Teacher’s Corner.

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Activity 4
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This week’s Teacher’s Corner provides students with the opportunity to practice using reported speech as part of an exercise on writing a newspaper article about a celebrity interview.

Level

Intermediate to Advanced

Language Focus

Listening, writing (primary focus); speaking (secondary focus).            

Goals

During this activity students will:

  • Practice asking and answering questions as part of an interview news story.

Materials

  • Teacher: whiteboard/chalkboard, markers or chalk, computer and speakers
  • Students: pencils or pens, notebooks, or writing paper

Preparation

  1. Read through all the materials carefully.
  2. Print copies of the This Week’s Schedule worksheet in Appendix 1. Print one copy for each student.
  3. Print copies of the Reporter’s Notes worksheet in Appendix 2. Print one copy for each student.

Activity Part One: Celebrity Schedule

  1. Begin the class by asking students who their favorite famous person is. This could include athletes, movie stars, authors, politicians, or scientists.
  2. Have the students think about their answer as a think, pair, share:
    1. Think – First have the students work alone and think about their answer. (1 minute)
    2. Pair – When all students have an answer, have them pair up with a classmate and discuss their answers. Students should state who their favorite famous person is and why. (2 minutes)
    3. Share – After the students have worked in pairs, have them share their answer with the class. For added speaking and listening practice, have students share with the class the answer of their partner. (2 minutes)
  3. Next, give each student a copy of the This Week’s Schedule worksheet in Appendix 1.
  4. Have each student fill in the schedule assuming the role of the famous person they selected in the think, pair, share activity.
    1. Encourage the students to be creative and provide as many details as they can to their schedule.
  5. Once all the students have completed their schedule, move to Part 2 of the activity.

Activity Part Two: Reporter's Notes

  1. Begin this part of the activity by having the students put away the This Week’s Schedule worksheet they just completed. It will be used in Part 3 of the activity.
  2. Next, ask the class, “If you interviewed someone famous, what questions would you ask?” Have the students do another think, pair, share. 
  3. As students share their questions with the class, write the questions on the board to generate a list of interview questions.
  4. Next to these questions, write the phrase follow-up question. Ask the students if they know what this term means. 
    1. Note: The term follow-up question means a question asked in response to an answer. For example:
      Reporter: Why are you visiting New York City this week?
      Celebrity: I am here to promote my new movie.
      Reporter: A new movie? What is it about?
  5. Give each student a copy of the Reporter’s Notes worksheet in Appendix 2. Have the students write down questions they would ask a famous person. They should also brainstorm possible follow-up questions to ask during the interview.
    1. Note: Students may be unsure what follow-up questions to ask. Encourage them to think of as many as they can. They may not use them all, but that is okay. One of a reporter’s most important jobs is to be prepared. 

Activity Part Three: Celebrity Interview

  1. Begin this part of the activity by having the students form pairs. Decide which student in each pair will be student A and which student in the pair will be student B.
  2. Have student A be the celebrity and instruct them to take out the This Week’s Schedule worksheet and fill out in Part 1 of the activity.
  3. Student B in the pair will be the reporter. Instruct these students to take out their Reporter’s Notes worksheet from Part 2 of the activity. Student B should also have a pen or pencil to take notes during the interview. 
  4. Have students role play an interview with Student A (a famous person) answering the questions of Student B (the reporter). 
    1. Remind the students that they will be writing a news story for homework so the reporter should get as many details from their partner as they can!
  5. After the pairs have completed the interview, have them switch roles. Student A should now be the reporter and interview Student B.

Homework Activity:

Have the students take their Reporter’s Notes worksheet home and write up a short news story about the famous person they interviewed. Encourage students to use direct quotes and reported speech in their news story. 

Appendix 1: This Week’s Schedule

Directions: Fill out your schedule with your plan for each day. Include what you will do, when you will do it, where it will occur, and why you need to do this activity.

Monday

     What:

     When:

     Where:

     Why:

Tuesday

     What:

     When:

     Where:

     Why:

Wednesday

     What:

     When:

     Where:

     Why:

Thursday

     What:

     When:

     Where:

     Why:

Friday

     What:

     When:

     Where:

     Why:

Appendix 2: Reporter’s Notes Worksheet

Directions: A reporter’s job is to ask specific questions to get informative answers for newspaper stories. You are about to interview a famous person. What questions can you ask? What possible follow-up questions might be helpful during the interview?

Question 1:

 

                  Possible Follow-up Questions:

 

 

 

Question 2:

 

                  Possible Follow-up Questions:

 

 

 

Question 3:

 

                  Possible Follow-up Questions:

 

 

 

Question 4:

 

                  Possible Follow-up Questions:

 

 

 

Question 5:

 

                  Possible Follow-up Questions:

 

 

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Activity 3
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This webinar, "Voice of America: Current Event Activities for the English Language Classroom," explores today’s globalized world in the 24-hour news cycle, and the importance of teaching current events in the English language classroom. Viewers will learn how to use resources from Voice of America to teach current events in their English language classroom. They will also be exposed to the different educational podcasts and teaching content provided by Voice of America, as well as the strategies for incorporating these tools into their lessons.

Author: Philip Dierking Format: Text, Video
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Webinar Slides
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Additional Resource
Forum Activity: Current Events
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This week’s Teacher’s Corner prepares students to practice journalism skills. Many news stories follow a specific structure that makes writing and reading them much easier. This activity allows students to practice deconstructing, or taking apart, a news article to explore the sections of a news story. This activity can be used separately, or can build upon the ideas presented in Week 1 of this month’s Teacher’s Corner.

Level

Intermediate to Advanced

Language Focus

Reading, writing (primary focus); listening, speaking (secondary focus)                 

Goals

During this activity students will:

  • Explore a news article
  • Develop their skills in analyzing a news story

Materials

  • Teacher: whiteboard/chalkboard, markers or chalk, computer and speakers
  • Students: pencils or pens, notebooks, or writing paper

Preparation

  1. Read through all the materials carefully.
  2. Prior to class, read the story Skateboarding: A Tool for Cultural Diplomacy? The story includes a video at the top of the page as well as an audio transcript of the story. Both of these will be used in the activity.
  3. Print out the News Story Jigsaw Cards in Appendix 1. Make one copy of the materials in Appendix 1 for each team of students. Be sure to cut out the text boxes and then mix up the sections before passing them out to students.

Activity Part One: Warm-Up

  1. Begin the class activity by asking students if they skateboard. If any of the students skateboard, have them explain to the class what skateboarding is. If none of the students skateboard, then go straight to the video.
  2. Next, play the video Naftalie Williams: “Skateboarding: A Tool for Cultural Diplomacy.” At this point the students do not need to take notes. Have them watch the video to see skateboarding in action and hear some of the details that will be presented in the news article.
    1. Note: If students are familiar with skateboarding, the video can be skipped. However, if students are not familiar with skateboarding, the video provides a helpful visual aid to show them the sport.

Activity Part Two: News Story Jigsaw

  1. Begin the class activity by having the students form pairs or small groups. Each group should be between two to four students. These groups will work as a team for the entire activity.
  2. Give each team the News Story Jigsaw Cards in Appendix 1.
  3. Provide the class a few moments to read through the sections of the story.
  4. Next, play the audio version of the story.
  5. Have the teams listen to the audio version of the story. As they listen, the teams should arrange the News Story Jigsaw Cards in the correct order.
  6. After students have placed the parts of the story in order, play the audio again so students can listen and follow along.

Activity Part Three: Just the Facts

  1. Begin this section of the activity by writing the following on the board:
    a. Who?
    b. What?
    c. When?
    d. Where?
    e. Why?
    f. How?
  2. Tell the students that an effective news story includes the answers to those questions because they answer all the basic facts a reader will want to know.
  3. Next, tell the pairs/small groups to take out a sheet of paper and a pen or pencil. Working in their pair/small groups, have the students read the story again and identify the answers to the “Wh” questions and the “How” question listed above. 
    a. Note: During this first step, the pairs/small groups can keep their answers simple. For example, in response to “Who?” students can write Neftalie Williams. For “What?” they can write skateboarding.
  4. Once students have identified the basic answers to the questions listed in step 1, have them read through the story again. This time instruct them to underline parts of the story that answer the “Wh” and “How” questions listed above. 
    a. Note: The goal in this step is to get students to engage in active reading. In active reading, students do more than read and memorize the details of a story. Instead they work to understand the meaning and purpose of an article.
  5. Once the teams have completed step 4, review the answers with the entire class. Go through the “Wh” and “How” questions one-by-one and have the different pairs/small groups share their answers with the class.

Homework Activity:

For homework, have the students write a paragraph or small essay. In the assignment, have students write about their own hobby or activity they would like to share with the world like Neftalie Williams does with skateboarding.

For more on working with the “5 Ws and H” questions check out Using Journalism Skills in the Language Classroom.

Appendix 1: News Story Jigsaw

Skateboarding involves riding and performing tricks on a small oval board attached to four wheels. It can be considered a recreational activity, an art form, or a method of transportation.

Neftalie Williams says skateboarding is his passion.

“When I'm skateboarding, I feel free. It gives me the space to do what I want to do and sort of tune out the rest of the world. All I do is what feels good to me, what feels great under my feet and it lets me belong to a larger community. So I feel it all, all at the same time.”

As a young adult, Williams gained a larger view on skateboarding.

“Right when I got to be about 20 years old, that's when I decided that not only was skateboarding important, but it's something that I should really, really be involved in --- not just working on being an amateur sponsor skater, but that skateboarding meant more to more people and it was a way to sort of connect communities everywhere.

"So, for me, I started thinking about skating in a broader context. I ended up putting together my own skateboarding camp for kids in New England, because that was me wanting to give back to the sport that gave me so much life. And a lot of my good friends have now become pro skaters and they were counselors at my camp at that time. So, that was my first foray into making things bigger for skateboarding as a whole.”

 

Neftalie Williams is a researcher and lecturer with the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California (USC). He teaches a course called “Skateboarding and Action Sports in Business Media and Culture.”

Williams studied skateboarding in college and received a master’s degree in Public Diplomacy from USC. He is the first professor in the United States to teach the sport.

“I am the first professor of skateboarding and action sports here in the U.S., especially at a major university, USC. I've been looking at how skateboarding can be used as a tool for cultural diplomacy. So, when it came time to bring the class together, they knew that I'd been working out in the field in Cuba and Brazil and South Africa and that we were trying to find new ways to engage youth all over the world.

"So, when it came time to propose having a class that talked about it, they looked at the fact that I had the experience, that I also had all the ties within the skateboarding network to bring in great people -- leaders in the field -- and that we were really also looking at the role of sex in new sports and how to actually make inroads and communicate with our youth. They thought it was a really great idea and we went forward.”

The course has proven to be popular among students. But Williams has kept the class size small, permitting just 25 students to officially register for the course.

 

 

Examining skating as a tool for cultural diplomacy worldwide, Williams joined forces with the U.S. State Department, becoming the first skateboarding and academic sports envoy in U.S. history.

“One of the things I'm the most proud of is being the first skateboarding envoy for the U.S. government. We worked with the embassy in the Netherlands to engage the Syrian refugees who'd been granted asylum in the Netherlands. It was an amazing project. And, not only was it engaging the Syrian refugees, but it was also engaging the youth of the Netherlands. Both of those groups are going to be the future of the Netherlands populace.

"So, by having them both together they got to know one another, be totally engaged with each other and to spend time knowing what the future of the Netherlands was going to look like. And it wasn't just, 'this is a project for those kids' or 'this is just something for the elite.' For some of those kids it was the first time they ever got to see skateboarding up close. And they all became immediate parts of the skateboarding community.”

Because the skateboarding diplomacy project was so successful in the Netherlands, the State Department has asked for Williams’s help in creating skateboarding projects in other countries.

“So we're creating a plan right now to take skateboarding globally as an envoy. Some of the other countries that the U.S. government would like to engage using skateboarding as a tool for cultural diplomacy are Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Cambodia and Ethiopia.”

 

 

In addition to his work empowering and uniting skateboarding communities, Neftalie Williams is chairman of Cuba Skate, designed to create people-to-people exchange between communities in Cuba and the U.S.

“Cuba Skate is our nonprofit that's based in D.C. and here in L.A. and what we do is we bring boards back and forth to the kids that are in Cuba and we also promote educational exchange between the skaters that are here, skaters globally and the skaters that are in Cuba.

"So one of the main things that are important with our working with Cuba Skate is that there are no skate shops on the island. So, what we want to do is foster entrepreneurship in the youth so that they can create their own skate shops, their own cooperatives, give them a blueprint to look at how businesses are run here in skateboarding, [and] how they can run their own educational facilities there in Cuba.”

A major issue in the Cuban skateboarding community is its growing female membership.

“Cuba has a very large skate population and it's growing all the time. With skateboarding being moved to the Olympics hopefully in the future, it's nice to see that so many women are starting to take up skateboarding there and that there is no disparity between the men and women on the island.”

 

 

However, Williams says there are a few barriers Cuba Skate faces.

"The biggest obstacles that we face in Cuba skate is that we still have travel restrictions, there's still an embargo in place and that makes our work a little difficult. The good thing, though, is that we have our hearts in a light place because we know that progress is being made on both sides.”

Neftalie Williams believe skateboarding teaches self-expression, among other things.

“One of the most amazing thing that skateboarding teaches you is how to re-imagine yourself and the world around you. That’s very important because we have skaters all over the world who, particularly in Cuba, don't have access to resources. So, they've got to now look at themselves and figure out, 'how do I exist in this space?'

"[What] skateboarding also teaches you is how to persevere. Because there aren't people to teach you how to do tricks or having large teams involved in the skate, you learn how to do it on your own. The other thing is skateboarding teaches you is to build a family and to build a community. That's amazing because most sports don't do that. This is something that's just inherent in skateboarding.”

 

 

Neftalie started in skateboarding as a teenager. He says he, and other neighborhood kids, chose skateboarding because bicycles were too costly.

“Skateboarding was something that all the kids in my building started doing after we looked at how expensive it was to get bikes and so it was really something great to be involved in. So it didn’t matter what part of town you were from; skateboarding was something that everyone got into.”

Williams says the sport has given him so much. He says he hopes his work in skateboarding and the community will help ensure that the next generation of leaders is smarter and more culturally aware.

“Skateboarding to me is freedom. It's family. It’s education. It's transportation. It's really the most amazing thing in the whole wide world. It gives us the freedom to do whatever we want anywhere. And that's something that...that's the most important thing to me. That freedom and that ability to communicate globally.”

 

 

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