Using popular culture in teachinh video for english major students at thang long university

Kỷ yếu cơng trình khoa học 2015 - Phần II USING POPULAR CULTURE IN TEACHING VIDEO FOR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT THANG LONG UNIVERSITY Le Thi Tuyen (M.A) English Department, Thang Long University Email: letuyen2210@gmail.com Abstract: In the field of language teaching, one of the major targets is to prepare students for real-life situations which they may encounter on an everyday basis Every English teacher aspires to provide their students with essential language skills that they can use in their future lives and careers A traditional English class mostly contains presentation and practice of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation Although it is undeniable that these fundamental elements are of great importance, without which hardly any students can go very far, there is a need to provide students with more complex information and experience that enable students to interact with native English speakers and in native English environment It is vital for non-native students to be aware of how real native speakers of English use the language and how they incorporate it in their lives Therefore, this article aims to discuss the necessity of using videos of popular culture as a source of teaching material in order to create a more engaging and realistic learning environment It will first provide an overview of popular culture and video teaching as well as their key components Then it will discuss some practical experiences of bringing pop culture videos to the classroom of the author, its effectiveness as well as the students’ feedback Key words: Pop Culture, teaching video, ESL class, teaching material Introduction A common feedback that English teachers receive nowadays is that their lessons contain too much practice of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation and lack of real usage of native speakers of English (Nguyen, 2014) In addition, in the time where students have more access to media, especially social media, and also opportunities to travel, the criticism of the conventional English lesson has become tougher than ever since students notice that there are huge differences between what they learn in their textbooks and what they see on TV or gain from their reading experience (Ronayne, Shayne & Nguyen, 2012) Hence, there is an increasing demand of incorporation of forms of culture within classroom time in order to provide students with more real sources of English This makes popular culture an ideal source and material for the EFL classroom, as it not only allows students to listen to standard language but also provides examples of colloquial language in more authentic, less artificial situations than a textbook Understanding these changes and demands in the field of teaching foreign languages in general and English in particular, English Department has used videos in teaching English since 2006 Each week, English major students have two-hour lecture of video for four consecutive semesters from English to English 6, using two video series New Headway and Lifetime composed by Oxford University Press It is noted that Thang Long University is the only university who offers such kind of video lessons in English major curriculum Thus, both teachers and students found it very innovative, interesting and motivating with video lessons However, the problem is that these books are now rather out of date since they were published Trường Đại học Thăng Long 155 Kỷ yếu cơng trình khoa học 2015 - Phần II in 1998 Being a video teacher for years, the author has noticed that students have shown less enthusiasm and engagement in these video books in the last four and five years It is not difficult for us to understand this fact since the widespread of YouTube and other worldwide reality shows and programs give students so many chances to get access to interesting and popular videos Therefore, the author deeply understands that if she kept teaching the only or 5-minute video in a 2- hour- lecture, students would lose their enjoyment and soon fall asleep After doing a lot of reading and search, videos of popular culture comes to the author as a new approach to tackle the problem Literature Review Definition of popular culture The term ‘popular culture’ was coined in the 19th century Back to that time, popular culture was associated with poor education and the lower classes, as opposed to the ‘official culture’ and higher education of the upper classes (Storey, 2006) However, with the widespread of industrialization in the 20th century and the technology age in the 21st century, ‘popular culture’ has been widely used in every walk of life According to Milestone and Meyer (2012), popular culture is an “amorphous concept” (2012, p.1) and the term “popular culture” has been defined in numerous ways Mukerji and Schudson view popular culture as “the beliefs and practices, and the objects through which they are organized, that are widely shared among a population This includes folk beliefs, practices and objects rooted in local traditions, and mass beliefs, practices and objects generated in political and commercial centers.” (Mukerji &Schudson, 1991, p.3) This can be understood that popular culture is something related directly to the mainstream society Sharing the same ideas, but Bates and Ferri provide an easy-understanding definition of popular culture: “Popular culture is the television we watch, the movies we see, the fast food, or slow food, we eat, the clothes we wear, the music we sing and hear, the things we spend our money on, our attitude toward life It is the whole society we live in, that which may or may not be distributed by the mass media It is virtually our whole world” (Bates & Ferri, 2010, p.3) Storey (2006) defines popular culture as “mass culture”, which is mass-produced for mass consumption It is “the culture that is left over after we have decided what high culture is” (p.5) Popular culture, therefore, can be seen as a residual category, which consists of practices that fail to meet the required standards to qualify as high culture However, Ray B Browne, a famous theorist of popular culture, asserts that “it is a grave mistake to assume that all creators of the popular arts achieve no worthwhile standards” (Browne, 2006, p.79) According to him, any form of popular culture is valuable because it represents the voice of the people, their likes and dislikes, the lifeblood of daily existence, their way of life, and only by conducting research into popular culture products in an objective and non-judgmental manner, can we understand and appreciate the value of popular culture (p.76) 2.2 The benefits of using popular culture videos as a source of language teaching The benefits of using authentic material coming from songs, TV shows and movies in the EFL classroom have been widely researched A number of researches have revealed that Trường Đại học Thăng Long 156 Kỷ yếu công trình khoa học 2015 - Phần II these sources of teaching material appear to be effective tools for language learners (McKinnon, 2010; James, 2011; Huang, 2005; Vélez, 2004; Washburn, 2001) MacKinnon (2010) describes popular culture videos as a “valuable classroom tool” (p.10) because the content that is called “viral” spreads faster than the flu Pop culture videos have a great deal of appeal since they are funny, even downright hilarious sometimes and their special feature is shareability With just a click of a mouse you can share an image or video with all of your contacts They, in turn, share it with theirs and so the content spreads Moreover, these viral, funny or popular videos never fail to engage students, especially young learners and teenagers There is no doubt that once teachers can engage their students in the learning activities, the students must be eager and enthusiastic to learn (Weedon, 2010) The natural style of language usage occurred in movies and television may be more useful for communicative learning than fictitious texts that appear in several textbooks (Quaglio, 2008) According to Carter and McCarthy (1995), in order to effectively foster speaking skills, it is essential that the material should focus on spoken, instead of written, English, and there is a huge gap between real life conversations and textbook dialogs In addition, Vietnamese learners, for instance, are not always exposed to spoken English outside of the classroom; therefore, a dependence on textbook English may not sufficiently prepare learners for understanding in real life conversations Therefore, there is a need for instructors to bring television dialogs into the classroom as a viable alternative because these dialogs are a rich source of authentic material and thus particularly valuable for pragmatic teaching and learning (Washburn, 2001) As Katchen (2003) revealed these dialogs are “made to sound natural to native speakers” so in this respect, they represent authentic language One may argue that the language used in all these popular culture products is scripted, so they may appear not truly authentic However, in comparison to the stagnant written language found in textbooks, the language usage in these cultural products offer much better sense of real conversations Furthermore, particularly in the context of Vietnam where low motivation often poses a challenge to the language classrooms, using popular culture videos as a source of teaching material may motivate students because of its entertaining features Once students can engage themselves with the material, it may encourage them to study better A considerable amount of research has shown that “positive attitude and motivation are closely related to success in learning a second language” (Bai, 2008, p 12) In addition, the usage of popular culture videos in the language classrooms can provide Vietnamese learners with a window to look into societies of different English speaking countries The situations portrayed in movies, TV shows and the language used in them give students a way into understanding cultural phenomena of other countries One may argue that these cultural products reveal several features of a foreign culture, but this cultural understanding may not be apparent to non-native speaker who are not familiar with the language or the culture However, thanks to globalization as well as the friendly setting and the global features presented in these products, a non-native learner can easily compare and relate to their personal experience Winning strategies in ESL video lessons Trường Đại học Thăng Long 157 Kỷ yếu cơng trình khoa học 2015 - Phần II As stated in the previous part of the article, video lessons give ESL students a wealth of learning opportunities However, since there are now incredibly rich sources of different videos available on the Internet, it has posed a question of choosing the most ‘suitable’ one for your students To answer this question, the author wants to share her own experiences in her video class Tip 1: Understand your students As a teacher, you should understand your students’ language level, background, age and liking because it helps you to choose the video of appropriate level of language and interesting topics For example, last semester the author taught first year English major students who mostly at the age of 18 years old and their language level is pre-intermediate After the quick questionnaire in the class, the author found out that her students really like the videos of the following topics: • • • • • • • • Music Fashion Hobby Love Friendship Beauty Food and Drink Travelling Tip 2: What’s you teaching goal? To really tap into the potential of video lessons, the teaching activities must be targeted to your goals There are two layers to video lessons One is related to your teaching goals Will you show your students a video for listening, vocabulary, grammar practice or just an ice-breaking activity? What is the language element you want them to learn? Tip 3: Well-preparation The second layer of a video lesson is the structure of the lesson itself Even if you are sure you want to show a video to improve listening comprehension, it is not as simple as just pressing “play” button Each video lesson must be accompanied by its own lesson plan, and the lesson plan must be targeted to meet your teaching goals Each video lesson plan must include three basic components as follows: • Pre-viewing activities: The pre-viewing activities would be like the warm-up exercise that we usually have for other types of activities • Viewing activities: Viewing activities consist of tasks that students must complete while watching the video • Post-viewing activities: Post-viewing activities are a nice way to wrap-up the video lesson and a great opportunity to consolidate everything your students have learned in a production or performance activity (See Appendix A for an example of a video lesson that the author has applied in her class) Trường Đại học Thăng Long 158 Kỷ yếu công trình khoa học 2015 - Phần II Tip 4: varies the class activities As young learners are more likely to get bored easily if they are asked to same kind of activities everyday, teachers should vary the class activities in all pre-viewing, viewing and post-viewing step Ferlazzo (2012) shares that designing different class activities in different stages of the lesson not only make students motivated but also make them learn in different ways In some cases, student’s personal taste can make them less interest in one activity, but find themselves eager in other activities The author will share her own experiences in designing different class activities with pop culture videos in the next part of the article How to use pop culture video in your classroom There are many things teachers can with these videos Hereby the author would like to demonstrate the most effective and easy-applied activities that she has used in the her video class 4.1 Split viewing Some students see and hear a sequence; others only hear it A variety of activities can then follow based on an information-gap procedure For example, those students who see and hear the clip from the movie Pearl Harbour are eyewitnesses to the dramatic event; the others are journalists working for a radio station who have to conduct a live interview This is particularly good for past tenses and pre-intermediate levels above Another version of split viewing is ‘Back to the Screen’ The teacher picks a short engaging clip from a movie and then divides the class into pairs, with one group facing the TV and the other with their back to it Then, after turning off the sound, the teacher begins playing the movie The person who can see the screen tells the other person what is happening Then, after a minute or a few minutes (depending upon the length of the video), the students switch places Afterward, the pairs write a chronological sequence of what happened, which is shared with another group and discussed as a class Finally, everyone watches the clip, with sound, together 4.2 Vision on/ Sound off Students view a scene with the sound turned off They then predict the content of the scene, write their own script and perform it while standing next to the television After the performances students watch the scene with the sound on and decide which group was the funniest or the nearest to the original This activity is very graphic with plenty of gestures to stimulate the imagination 4.3 Observe and write Students view a scene (this always works better if there is a lot happening) then write a newspaper article on what they have witnessed Another application of this kind of activity is watching a movie and write a review about the film, but watching film is a time-consuming activity, so it is advisable to assign this activity as a homework 4.4 Video dictogloss This follows the dictogloss method of dictation and can easily be adapted to video Students watch the scene a few times and write the main words and short phrases that a Trường Đại học Thăng Long 159 Kỷ yếu cơng trình khoa học 2015 - Phần II particular character says Each group is given a character and is encouraged to listen and exchange information This usually works better if there are two characters in the scene Working with someone from a different group, they then write the script for the scene, incorporating both characters As they will not have managed to write down the whole script from the listening exercises they will have to use their imagination and fill in the gaps This gives them an excellent opportunity to work on grammar 4.5 Watch and observe This is a good lesson for lower levels because students only have to focus on a minimum of spoken dialogue Students watch a scene from a film which has lots of things that they can see and therefore write in their vocabulary books You can teach and test your students’ vocabulary by asking a series of true/ false questions and asking them to put a series of events in order 4.6 Video as a tool to practice conversations Video as a listening tool can enhance the listening experience for our students We very rarely hear a disembodied voice in real life but as teachers we constantly ask our students to work with recorded conversations of people they never see This is often necessary in the limited confines of the language school and sometimes justifiable, for example, when we give students telephone practice However, we can add a whole new dimension to aural practice in the classroom by using video The setting, action, emotions, gestures, etc, that our students can observe in a video clip, provide an important visual stimulus for language production and practice This exercise involves working with a conversation as a jumbled text first then using the movie to check Conversations normally have a logical order and movies are a great source There is a role-play which encourages students to practise conversational English 4.7 Watch and Questions Another way to use video to generate student thinking involves students watching a short video clip and then writing questions about the clip Students divide into pairs, exchange their papers, and answer their partner's questions We can also develop this activity to the whole class ranging from easy to difficult questions This kind of activity can help students develop critical thinking (See the Appendix B for useful website for popular culture video) Conclusion In a nutshell, researches have revealed that popular culture videos can be used as an excellent vehicle for teaching in the EFL classroom because they provide a more authentic language resource when compared with textbook instruction, and perhaps most importantly it increases students’ motivation and engagement into the learning process Once students feel they can engage themselves with the learning material, it will increase their willingness to study They are more likely to benefit not only from the process of studying but such kind of English class also provides them with multiple layers of cultural and social phenomena Indeed, the feedbacks on a course questionnaire completed at the end of the semester were extremely positive Comments have included: “I look forward to coming to class every week because the video is a great fun and I learn a lot about the world”, “I really think my listening has improved after listening to different English accents.” The author was especially Trường Đại học Thăng Long 160 Kỷ yếu cơng trình khoa học 2015 - Phần II impressed, happy and motivated with the comment from one student that “I like the way you use videos with us you get us moving, talking, writing and speaking The problem is you make us think too much." REFERENCES [1] Bates, S & Ferri, A.J (2010) What's Entertainment? Notes Toward a Definition in Wilcox, R V., College, G (eds.) Studies in Popular Culture, 33(1), pp.1-21 [2] Burke, D (1998) Without slang and idioms, students are in the dark! ESL Magazine, September/October Available from http://ingles.inguchile.cl/otros/downloads/Without%20Slang%20and%20Idioms.pdf Carter, R., & McCarthy, M.(1995) Grammar and spoken language Applied Linguistics 16, pp.141-158 Ferlazzo, L (2012) Eight ways to use video with English language learners Available from: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/ell-engagement-using-video-larry-ferlazzo-katie-hullsypnieski Huang, C (2005) Effective EFL education through popular authentic materials ELT Journal, 7, pp 90-101 James, C (2011) How to teach English as a foreign language (EFL), using DVDs of TV shows and movies Available from: http://voices.yahoo.com/how-teach-english-as-foreign- language-efl-using8084786.html Katchen, J E (2003) Teaching a listening and speaking course with DVD films: can it be done? In H C Liou, J E Katchen, & H Wang (Eds.), Lingua Tsing Hua, pp 221236 Taipei: Crane Maltby, R., & Craven, I (1995) Hollywood cinema: An introduction Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Mckinnon, M (2010) Teaching technologies: teaching English using video Available from: http://www.onestopenglish.com/support/methodology/teaching-technologies/teachingtechnologies-teaching-english-using-video/146527.article 10 Milestone, K & Meyer, A (2012) Gender and Popular Culture Polity Press 11 Mukerji, Chandra & Schudson (eds.) (1991) Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies Berkeley: University of California 12 Quaglio, P (2008) Television dialogue and natural conversation: Linguistic similarities and functional differences In A Ädel & R Reppin (Eds.), Corpora and discourse: The challenges of different settings (Studies in corpus linguistics, 31, pp 189-210 Amsterdam: John Benjamins 13 Ronayne, M., Shayne, J & Nguyen, J (2012) Meeting in the middle: making use of popular culture in the classroom Pedagogy and the Human Sciences, 1, no.2, pp 22- 32 14 Storey, J (2006) Cultural Theory and Popular Culture Pearson Education ISBN 978-0-13-1970687 15 Vélez, R (2004) From couch potatoes to critical learners: A theoretical Trường Đại học Thăng Long 161 Kỷ yếu cơng trình khoa học 2015 - Phần II framework for television use in EFL/ESL classrooms Available from: http://elpatronhimself.net/resources/Mora%202004%20-%20NCTEAR.pdf 16 Washburn, G (2001) Using situation comedies for pragmatic language teaching and learning TESOL Journal, 10, pp 21-26 17 Weedon, T (2010) Exploring popular culture in education Available from: http://www.developmenteducation.ie/teachers-and-educators/exploring-popularculture-in-education/ 18 Widdowson, H.G (1990) Aspects of language teaching Oxford: Oxford University Press Tóm tắt: Trong lĩnh vực giảng dạy ngôn ngữ, mục tiêu quan trọng hàng đầu phải chuẩn bị cho sinh viên tình thực tiễn mà em gặp phải sống hàng ngày Giáo viên tiếng Anh mong muốn cung cấp cho sinh viên kỹ ngơn ngữ cần thiết để em sử dụng sống công việc tương lai Tuy nhiên lớp học tiếng Anh truyền thống chủ yếu giáo viên giới thiệu kiến thức sau cho sinh viên luyện tập ngữ pháp, từ vựng phát âm Mặc dù không cần phải bàn cãi nội dung vô quan trọng, thiếu nội dung này, có sinh viên tiến xa việc sử dụng ngoại ngữ, lớp học cần cung cấp cho sinh viên thông tin trải nghiệm phức tạp để giúp em sinh viên giao tiếp tương tác với người ngữ môi trường ngữ Đối với sinh viên này, việc nắm bắt cách sử dụng tiếng Anh người nói tiếng Anh ngữ vơ quan trọng Vì thế, mục tiêu viết thảo luận tầm quan trọng việc sử dụng video mang nội dung văn hoá đại chúng làm tài liệu giảng dạy để tạo mơi trường học tập có tính gắn kết thực tiễn Trước hết, viết đưa tổng quan văn hoá đại chúng, việc dạy video thành phần chúng Trong phần tiếp theo, viết thảo luận kinh nghiệm thực tiễn việc lồng ghép video văn hoá đại chúng vào lớp học tác giả viết, tính hiệu phản hồi từ sinh viên Trường Đại học Thăng Long 162 Kỷ yếu cơng trình khoa học 2015 - Phần II APPENDIX A Trường Đại học Thăng Long 163 Kỷ yếu cơng trình khoa học 2015 - Phần II APPENDIX B Useful website for popular culture videos Trường Đại học Thăng Long 164 Kỷ yếu cơng trình khoa học 2015 - Phần II Beside the use of YouTube, let’s try the following links Educational websites http://www.edutopia.org http://www.real-english.com/ https://en.islcollective.com http://busyteacher.org/ Famous TV shows http://www.ellentv.com/ http://abc.go.com/shows/jimmy-kimmel-live https://www.ted.com/talks http://www.animalplanet.com/tv-shows/bad-dog/ Music and films http://www.isabelperez.com/ http://www.nbc.com/the-voice http://www.filmsshort.com/ https://vimeo.com/ https://www.youtube.com/user/jubileeProject Trường Đại học Thăng Long 165