The Pedagogical Applications of Focus-on-form in Teaching English through Movies

• Published in: Journal of English Teaching through Movies and Media Vol. 11; no. 2; pp. 3 - 22
• Main Authors: Byeong Cheon Lee, Kang Dong-Ho
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 영상영어교육학회 01.09.2010
• Subjects: 영어와문학
• ISSN: 1598-1002; 2765-7078
• DOI: 10.16875/stem.2010.11.2.3

While the professional literature abounds with the values of movies in L2 instructions, little research delivered the role of the grammatical competence in teaching movies. Focus on form instructions deserve attention to develop grammatical knowledge in using movies. Focus on form can be achieved by directing learners' attention to the target linguistic features or grammatical rules through input-based, explicit instructions, output-based instruction or negative feedback in real contexts. This paper aims to develop pedagogical applications and provide suggestions in teaching movies in the framework of focus on form. The researchers applied the focus-on-form instructions in teaching movies by demonstrating the examples of lesson plan, procedures, specific activities etc., using the movie, It's a wonderful life (1946). The pedagogical implications were discussed at the end of the paper. provides students with opportunities students can provide feedback in pairs or self-review their own errors or mistakes. The self-review or peer review is pedagogical more desirable than the teacher comments or feedback, since students can become more autonomous and take their own responsibility of learning. Finally, the second part of the output-based instruction was further divided into pre-communicative and communicative activities. The pre-communicative activity was designed to practice the communication using the contexts from the movie script for the purpose of the real-time authentic communication preparation. This activity was called pseudo-communicative since the activity itself resembled real authentic communication but the questions and answers in the communication were pre-determined. When students are ready for real communication through pre-communicative activity, the final target task is developed for students to make communications in real contexts (Kumaravadivelu,2009). The sample lesson helped students develop language use in the contexts of CMC (computer-mediated communication) (Kern &Warschauer, 2000; Pellettieri, 2000). This activity helps students talk about real contents of their own personal stories in authentic contexts. The pre-service or in-service teachers can encourage meaning-oriented communication through internet-relay chat, but they can also provide feedback on language forms as well as contents of the conversation in class by asking their students to bring the conversations to class for the whole class discussion. However, teachers should be cautious when they apply the instructional options in the contexts of using movies. The instructional choices of focus on form should depend on the linguistic difficulty of the target structure and L2 learner perspectives etc (Kang, 2003). For example, Ellis (1998) reviewed the focus-on-form studies. According to the review, most studies in input-based instruction were performed with beginners or low-level learners (VanPatten & Cadierno, 1993a, 1993b),while the subjects in output-based studies were more proficient with regard to the target structures than the subjects in other input studies (DeKeyser & Sokalski, 1996; Ellis, 1998). So the output-based instruction might be more effective for the high level learners, while theinput-based instruction might be more useful for the low level learners in teaching movies. Another possible consideration in the use of focus on form in teaching movies could be L2 learners' inside factors such as instructional preferences (Schulz, 1996; Williams, 2009). Most of the learners in Kang (2003) preferred the output-based instruction to the input-based one. As Long and Robinson (1998) pointed out, the learner's internal mental state was a more important sense of focus on form than the teacher's intended result. KCI Citation Count: 4