The Filmic text in the EFL classroom: Contributing to the students’ language and culture

• Autor(a) principal: Couceiro, Inês Ribeiro Garcia de Paiva
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/148779
• topic: Texto fílmico; Aula de inglês como língua estrangeira; Cultura; Língua; Filmic text; EFL classroom; Culture; Language; Domínio/Área Científica::Humanidades::Línguas e Literaturas; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Ciências da Educação

This report analyses how an approach centred on the filmic text in the EFL classroom contributes to the learners’ linguistic and cultural knowledge. The action-research project was carried out in a private Catholic school in Sintra, during the 2021/2022 school year. For three months, two classes – one 8th and one 10th grade – were observed and then taught for five months. The unit plans were designed using films which dealt with the topics. Each lesson worked on different skills, with a wide range of activities that aimed at developing students’ language and culture. At the end of every single unit plan, focus groups were conducted and written assignments were submitted, allowing, in the first case, the continuous development of the lesson plans, catering to the learners’ needs, and in the second, displaying the linguistic learning potential (e.g., increase in the use of varied vocabulary and decrease in error repetition). A comparison between learners’ rate of participation at the beginning of the observation stage and at the end of the filmic lesson plans reveal a higher level of engagement in the latter activities. Results show that their participation in class increased both in quantity and in quality, as their discussions became more detail-oriented, including film analysis vocabulary and cultural meaning construction, thus revealing a growing cultural awareness when linking or contrasting the different cultures shown on screen with their own. All in all, the use of film in these EFL classrooms contributed to the learners’ linguistic and cultural learning process.