Film in the foreign languages classroom Dr Shirley Lawes Institute of Education University of London

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Film in the foreign languages classroomDr
Shirley LawesInstitute of Education University
of London
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What is distinctive about film?

• Places language in context in a unique way
• Culture
• Accurate representation of language in use
• Access to a cultural form

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• Modern foreign language curricula already
  acknowledge that the target culture cannot be
  understood without learning about their moving
  image media. Films are not just a way of
  listening to the spoken language they also offer
  opportunities to understand a countrys cultural
  history and social attitudes
• BFI (1999) p.36

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Culture

• Ethno culture
• Enrichment culture
• Popular culture

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Learning to viewViewing to learn
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RATIONALE (Broady 1997)

• Provides learners with, or invites learners to
  find, a context for interpretation of linguistic
  in-put, thus focus their comprehension

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OBecause of the interpretation
gap (sound-only or pictures-only versions of a
film are necessarily ambiguous) learners have a
motivation to communicate with each other and
their teacher
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• When they come to bi-modal viewing, they have
  a purpose for viewing, i.e. they need to compare
  their predictions with the original audio-visual
  message. In this way, the task encourages
  learners to practise their comprehension sills in
  a focused, and arguably more natural way.

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In so doing, it promotes
comprehension strategies, that of using visual
information more accessible than linguistic
input to guess at what is being said or, in
the case of interpreting aural llinguistic
information only, that of visualising a
communicative situation in which linguistic input
makes sense
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Presentation

• 1. Switch down the sound
• 2a Show the extract and ask pupils to guess what
  is happening - or to predict what might happen
• or
• 2b Show some key words from the extract and
  relate them to the pictures

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Listening skills

• Gap filling
• multiple choice questions
• true/false questions and statements
• Proof marking
• hands up when you hear
• re-arranging texts
• select words from grids
• keyword context questions
• recall of key phrases

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Speaking skillsduring viewing

• Learners report phrases with or without help of
  teacher/sub-title e.g. on poster or OHT
• Predictive speech - teacher stops film what is
  he going to say/do
• Learner originated questions
• Descriptions and summaries while the film is
  running (no sound)

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Speaking skillsafter viewing

• Mime-cues - someone mimes a section that is then
  described by class
• Information gap activities and role play
• Storyboard - continuing the story, alternative
  endings