Using film when teaching culture in EFL
Focus area descriptions
Background
The area of teaching film and culture has a particular great interest to me, since learning to understand and use culture in our interaction with other people, is one of the skills that has been most predominantly call for within the last 10 years or so.
With the buzz words Globalization and internationalization, communicating with people from other cultures is something every person can do from a smart phone or computer.
At the same time the Danish society no longer can afford to act like a closed party, where only ethnical Danes are invited to participate. Private companies alongside with public institutions (including schools) are calling out for a new generation that can balance being a Dane with also being a world citizen in thoughts, language, understanding and tolerance. This is one of the reasons that the National Common objectives for English mentions culture several times as one of the main objectives in the curriculum.
Personally I believe that one of the best ways to emerge into a new culture with both legs, (if you can’t have the pleasure of visiting the place) is to study movies that are made about cultural aspects, within the country that you want to study. This is because many people use the senses of sight and sound to understand and feel impressions, modes and
Research question
· What are essential principles for teaching culture in the EFL classroom?
· Why is film as a text type particularly suited for teaching culture in EFL classroom?
