Faculty of Education - Theses

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Start date: 2000 × Type: Doctorate × Subject: Aids and devices × Subject: English language × Subject: Vietnam ×

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    Film as cultural resource for tertiary learners of English in Vietnam
    Truong, Bach-Le ( 2009)
    The goal of English learning in Vietnam today is linguistic proficiency and competence in intercultural communication. Despite the consequent need for access to native-speaker cultural meanings for developing Vietnamese tertiary students of English to this standard, to date the existing instructional conditions have not accommodated this need. The problem lies largely in the use of decontextualised language learning, traditional methodology and, inappropriate textbooks. This study was designed to begin resolving this problem by examining the potential of a target language feature film, "Million Dollar Baby". The aims were to ascertain the affordances of the film for providing access to the designated learners to native-speaker meanings of language, how these might be realised, and at what cost. A theoretical framework of language and culture drawing from the work of Hymes, Halliday, and Bourdieu was established as the basis on which principles and strategies for examining and teaching the fi lm were developed. Firstly, three cultural themes were identified that were significant in the film and of likely continuing value to learners. Secondly, discourse analyses of key scenes manifesting each theme were made using published resources and the opinions of native speaker informants. Thirdly, a set of lessons were trialled with representative volunteer learners in Vietnam, in which the film was shown and the language and cultural aspects of one key scene for each theme taught through an integrated process of informed discussion, embodied experience and personal reflection. The classroom experience was videoed and also documented in teacher and student journals, supported by interviews. Analysis reveals that film can offer a diverse set of language and culture resources for teaching classroom-bound students to access the cultural base of the meanings of language in use. It suggests that a scaffolded process of both guided cognitive exploration and physical experimentation modeled on an actual scene is necessary if students are to perceive and recognise native-speaker meanings as intended. The demands on both teacher and student were not inconsiderable, but were highly rewarding and the results suggest careful exploitation of a suitable film may be a rich seam to follow for developing learners' intercultural competence far from any real social interaction in the target language.