International students in Nanaimo will try to tell stories in their second language

“Exploring Identity Through Creative Writing: How International Students in Nanaimo are Telling Their Stories in a Second Language”

It can take a lot of courage to stand in front of a crowd and tell a story.

And doing that for the first time, in a foreign language and in a foreign country, takes even more, says Cindy Shantz, board member of the Around Town Tellers collective.

Through the Nanaimo Rotary Club, two teenage exchange students will do just that through the monthly meetings of the Storytellers Collective in Unitarian Hall.

“None of them have been on stage before or written a story and told it in life. I’m just overwhelmed with admiration,” Shantz said, adding that the group had never involved teenagers in the sessions.

18-year-old Wellington Secondary School student Veera Lahdensuo, from Lapua, Finland, said her story will center on an incident that happened on a trip to Disneyland last year.

“I’ve never been involved in anything like this before. So it’s very exciting to have a new experience yourself,” she said.

Lahdensuo had previously attended a Stories on Friday session and said she enjoyed learning about others’ perspectives and hopes audiences will learn something from her.

“English isn’t my first language, so going up there and telling a whole story is pretty scary. And I hope to be a better storyteller and not afraid to do it in the future,” she said.

Luzia Oberndorfer, a 16-year-old student at Nanaimo District Secondary School, from a small village outside of Salzburg, Austria, said she will share a story from her childhood, set in a schoolyard.

“I think the biggest fight for me will be standing with nothing in hand and just talking. I’ve never done that before,” she said. “I hope people just find it funny and humorous. There’s no morality…I just hope it makes them feel better.”

Oberndorfer said she hopes the experience will not only help her express herself better, but also improve her writing as she hopes to become a children’s book author one day.

“When they learn that, they gain confidence, they develop skills in the language, they learn to be specific, to use imagery, to be persuasive. But they also learn to edit each other and critique each other constructively,” Shantz said. “And that they don’t have to be perfect. That’s big.”

Lahdensuo and Oberndorfer will appear on Friday, February 10 at 7:30 p.m. at Unitarian Hall for the Around Town Tellers story session “Love and Other Misadventures”.

READ MORE: The Nanaimo Storytelling Group Celebrates Season 15 and Returns to In-Person Sessions