Use of Film in Hong Kong English Language Classrooms

1
Use of Film in Hong Kong English Language
Classrooms

• Dr Andy Curtis
• Director, ELT Unit, CUHK
• Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, CUHK

2
Thank You

• Prof. George Braine
• Prof. Liying Cheng
• HAAL
• HKPolyU
• CUHK
• ELT Unit

3
Back to the Future

• Curtis, A., Bailey, K. Nunan, D
• May 1997
• Workshop for Language Teachers Language teacher
  classroom research
• Hong Kong Polytechnic University
• Hong Kong Association for Applied Linguistics

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Please raise your hand if

• You consider yourself to be
• An Applied Linguist
• A Language Teacher
• Both
• Neither
• Have you used film in your classroom before?
• If so, when, with whom, and to teach what?

5
Outline Connecting T P

• Part One
• Background and framework
• Slides first, then questions
• Part Two
• Working with one or two short film clips
• An applied linguistics approach to the use of
  film in the English language classroom

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Connections to Recent Work

• Color, Race and English Language Teaching Shades
  of Meaning
• Editors Andy Curtis Mary Romney
• LEA, 2006
• Chapter One A Brief Introduction to Critical
  Race Theory, Narrative Inquiry and Educational
  Research (pp.1-10)

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NI ER

• Narrative Inquiry and Educational Research
• Michael Connelly, Jean Clandinin
• Teachers as Curriculum Planners Narratives of
  experience, 1988
• Narrative Inquiry Experience and story in
  qualitative research, 2000

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Articulation in Different Forms

• The process of making meaning of our curriculum,
  that is, of the narratives of our experience, is
  both difficult and rewarding. It, too, has a
  narrative in that narratives of experience may be
  studies, reflected on, and articulated in written
  form (1988, p.11).
• Film Articulation in visual form

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Education as Narrative

• Margaret Olson
• 2000
• Study of Canadian curriculum development
• the pivotal role that teachers narrative
  knowledge plays in how curriculum is lived in
  classrooms (p.169)

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The One Common Factor

• The only thing that we know about all human
  civilizations at all times in human history is
  that every civilization told stories
• We are, as a species, hard-wired for narrative
• Curtis, March 2007, TESOL Convention
• Seattle, WA

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The VIVO Model

• Vivo Mid-18th Century
• Latin Vivus (eg vivid)
• In a lively and energetic manner (music)
• Animated, Vivacious
• Intense, Brilliant
• In Vivo Occurring within a living organism or a
  natural setting

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VIVO

• Visual Input to Promote Verbal Output
• Not a new concept!
• May be a new approach?
• These students dont like to read even in
  their first language, let alone in a second
• So, then, what are they doing in their free time?

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Visual Literacy

• Films as visual texts
• Not enough time to show a movie in class
• Utilization Ratios
• 11 1 min of movie 1 min of ELT
• 15, 110, 115, 120
• Up to 130

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Repetition as a Good Thing

• Negative Connotations
• The Audio-Lingual Method
• Listen and Repeat
• Drill and Kill
• Boredom
• Ron Carter. Plenary. TESOL 2007. WA
• Repetition and Creativity

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Language, Culture Film

• Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of
  knowledge, experience, beliefs, values,
  attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion,
  notions of time, roles, spatial relations,
  concepts of the universe, and material objects
  and possessions acquired by a group of people in
  the course of generations through individual and
  group striving (Texas A M)

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Cultures in Collision

• The Last Samurai
• East Vs West
• New Vs Old
• My Big Fat Greek Wedding
• Use of humour/comedy to make serious points
• Age, Gender, Marital Status

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HKU SPACE

• Using Films in the English Language Classroom
• 18 Hong Kong school teachers
• Wide range of experience contexts
• February and March 2007
• Five, three-hour, late night sessions
• Lower Intermediate, Teenage Ss

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Teaching with Technology

• Technology is
• Educational Technology is
• Main challenge or difficulty with using ET in
  their context
• Main benefit or advantage of using ET in their
  context
• English levels Costs Preparation

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Student Preferences

• In general my students would rather
• Watch a CH movie than read a CH book
• Watch a EN movie than read a EN book
• Watch a CH movie than read a EN book
• Watch a EN movie than read a CH book
• EN English
• CH Chinese

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Linguistic Aspects of Film

• Awareness Raising Oral/Aural
• Heightened sensitivity to form function
• Critical Thinking Questioning
• Critical Viewing Noticing (SLA)
• Intelligent Consumers Pop Culture
• Ability to recognize (and reproduce) implicit
  aspects of interaction

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Text Extract One

• Verbal Humour
• Irony
• Cause-and-Effect
• Emphatic Markers
• 5 statements
• 5 conversational turns
• 22 words

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Text Extract Two

• Giving Directions
• Q-and-A
• Possessive forms
• Partial repetition with tone change
• Sequence of adjectives in English
• 6 statements, 4 conversational turns
• 34 words

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Text Extract Three

• Giving directions
• Question-formation using the answer
• Self-correction
• Apology
• NNSE Italian accent/pronunciation
• 7 statements, 5 conversational turns
• 54 words

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Text Extract Four

• Ambivalence
• Propriety
• Feigned Indifference
• Checking
• Verbal humour
• 7 statements, 3 conversational turns
• 60 words

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Text Extract Five

• Making Small Talk
• Rhetorical Question
• Conversational (In)appropriateness
• Self-correction
• Offering possible reasons
• 10 statements, 4 conversational turns
• 54 words

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Text Extract Six

• Making Demographic Small Talk
• One-Word Tonal Contours
• F Oh, when did you move back? (R)
• R After the divorce
• F Oh (F)
• 5 statements, 5 conversational turns
• 37 words

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Text Extract Seven

• NNSE Behaviours
• Numbers
• Counting
• Circumlocution
• Im born Vs Im from
• Asking for permission to ask a question
• 7 statements, 4 turns, 33 words

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Text Extract Eight

• Demographic Small Talk
• Tonal changes
• One-word turns
• Surprise
• Disbelief
• Confirmation
• 9 statements, 6 turns, 49 words

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Related Work

• Making the most of movies in the ESL classroom
• TESL Ontario, Conference proceedings
• Summer 2003
• Vol 29, No. 3, p.29-32
• http//www.teslontario.org/new/publ/contact/summer
  2003issue.pdf

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In Press

• The Language Teacher Series
• Language Teacher Research in the Americas
• TESOL Association
• 2007
• Film in the ESL Classroom Hearing the Students
  Voice

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VIVO

• Visual Input to Promote Verbal Output
• Not a new concept!
• May be a new approach?
• ELT Practice meets Film Theory
• Tremendously rich medium
• Enormous potential
• 25 years just scratched the surface

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Use of Film in Hong Kong English Language
Classrooms

• Dr Andy Curtis
• Director, ELT Unit, CUHK
• Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, CUHK