Katalog

Beata Jaworska
Język angielski, Różne

"Feature films and graded readers"

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Graded readers have a very important role to play in the learning of English. Reading a lot of different and interesting materials at the appropriate level of language may help students in:
  • improving spelling and remembering new words
  • introducing them to the English and American classic and modern literature and in this way teaching them the elements of history
  • widening their knowledge of the world and awareness of differences and/or similarities between their culture and customs of other countries, especially the English-speaking ones
  • developing their reading skills to become more efficient and fluent in the reading the foreign language texts
  • improving other language skills: writing, speaking, listening while working with a written material
  • recognizing slight structural and vocabulary nuances between American and British English
  • allowing to see how grammar and vocabulary are used in particular situations and in a specific context
  • improving their confidence in reading and understanding of a foreign language
  • teaching them to read on their own and for their pleasure
  • developing sensitivity towards the classical masterpieces of the English literature
  • making the students aware of higher moral values
  • facing the problems of contemporary life and being able to solve them
Graded readers are ideal for extensive reading because most series include books for every level of language competence, from beginner to advanced. A large number of them have been made into feature films or TV series or are written from the screenplay of a feature film or TV series. These films are widely available on video, sometimes they appear on TV or are kept as a part of a language library at schools, either in L1 or in the original version.

Pairing a graded reader with its film version can create a powerful resource for teaching and learning English. As well as telling a story through different media, the book and the film provide different sources of a language input.

A film will provide the learners with the unsimplified conversations or monologues while the written text presents the plot through the simplified, written language. In this way two different examples of language genres can be exploited by a teacher while talking about the same story.

Reading a book and watching a screen are two completely different experiences. Reading is active - the mind has to work and create pictures and images, watching tends to be passive unless appropriate tasks and activities are added. Good adaptations, however, can give a book a whole new realistic dimension. They also make stories where the language is complex or old-fashioned (full advanced texts) much easier for modern readers to understand.

Working on a story through two different media can help with reading and listening comprehension. First of all, the visual content of films can aid students' understanding of a text. It provides the information about the epoch, costumes, setting, places, gives a picture of a particular hero. Seeing characters on a film helps learners to recognize them in the book, build a mental representation of the world from the story and compare their imaginary creation with the director's version of the same text.

The film provides a context within which students can guess the meaning of the unknown phrases or words as seeing pictures facilitates understanding of new language forms. Learners remember them better and are aware of the fact that a specific situation calls for their usage. Students are also exposed to the examples of a social language, which makes them grasp its meaning almost subconsciously.

A film sequence together with the matching excerpt of the book reformulates the narrative and subsequently enriches students' comprehension of the plot.

Sometimes parts of conversation in the book actually appear in the film dialogue, either in a word-for-word version or in a slightly modified form. In this way students are given samples of speech in a relatively enjoyable form. They work with the same narrative presented in different ways.

It is of no importance which is first - the written form or the visual images of the same book.. If they have positive attitude towards the book, they will be glad to watch it on the screen and if the film was their first encounter with the text they will probably be willing to work with a story through a written story to find different aspects of the same narrative. The role of a teacher is very important here as it is him/her who should encourage learners to study a particular text on their own and in the classroom. He/she should make both the work with a film and the story interesting, enjoyable and active and should motivate students to the active participation in the lessons.

In film versions it is vital for the students to identify particular sounds of more difficult words and to comprehend them. The teacher should introduce to the learners the proper spelling of the new words. As the result the students are able to match the sound of the new vocabulary with its written form.

Bibliography

C.Walker, Penguin Readers Teacher's Guide to Using Film and TV, Longman. Pearson Education Limited 1999

Opracowanie: Beata Jaworska

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