Teaching culture(s) via movie scenes

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Teaching culture(s) via movie scenes selected
activities for German movies

• Mag. Kerstin Istvanits
• Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
• FLTA conference 2010

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Agenda

• The challenge of teaching culture
• Audio-visual material as a key to culture
• Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) ?
  activity!
• Benefits of using movie scenes

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The challenge of teaching culture

• What is culture?
• Students personal definitions of culture

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Audio-visual material (AV) key to culture

• AV material authentic productions ? authentic
  language culture
• Classification of AV material
• Movies, video-clips, movie scenes

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Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others)

• Set in 1984 in East Germany
• DDR (GDR)
• Stasi
• Step1 movie night
• Step2 work with movie scenes in class

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Das Leben der Anderen - activity

• Aim to raise the students awareness of the
  senses
• Movie scene Die Sonate vom guten Menschen
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vLhTQn2dbMaY

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Benefits of using movie scenes

• Short, but
• a rich resource (content, language)
• Authentic
• Easily accessible
• Entertaining
• Stimulate foreign language learning
• Give insight into culture(s)
• ? Better cross-cultural understanding

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Additional Literature

• Chavez, Monica (2005). Variation in the Beliefs
  of College Students of German about the Teaching
  of Culture. Die Unterrichtspraxis, 38 (1), 31-43.
• Mittler, Alexandra (2010). Good Bye Lenin, Hello
  Movie Industry! Eine Unterrichtseinheit zur DDR.
  Die Unterrichtspraxis, 43(1), 41-48.
• Sathe, Nikhil (2005). "Der Deutschlehrer des
  Grauens!" Using Film Titles to Practice the
  Genitive Case. Die Unterrichtspraxis, 38(2),
  198-199.