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Students will manage the following
concepts
Critical thinking: knowledge, skills
and attitudes;
facts and opinions;
beliefs, assumptions and facts;
discussion and arguments;
assessment and proofs;
accurate judgments;
reasoning;
critical thinking skills and
strategies.
Essential questions
What is the importance of understanding
what critical thinking means?
What is the contribution of critical
thinkers to a given community?
How could I become a critical thinker?
Why is the application of critical thinking
relevant to the learning process?
Can critical thinking be taught?
Skills
Students are expected to develop the
following skills:
a.- Differentiate between complaining,
criticizing and thinking critically.
b. Identify ideas and concepts involved in a
critical thinking attitude.
c. Compile and organize information to
successfully reach to conclusions on how to
solve problems.
d. Transform and apply knowledge to meet
the requirements of analysis, and or
reaching a conclusion.
e. Differentiate facts from opinions.
f. Take a critical stand to problems and
difficulties.
g. Provide accurate judgements.
h. Appreciate the contribution of critical
thinkers.
i. Spot the difference between a critical
thinking and a cynical attitude towards the
Phonological/Phonetical
components:
Weak forms, statements, connected
speech features.
Awareness of features
Unit bibliography
March 12-13 Weissberg, R. (2013) Critically Thinking about Critical Thinking. New York,
USA: Springer Science + Business Media.
March 16 - 20 Moon, J. (N.D) (2005)What is the elusive activity of Critical Thinking - We
seek it here. England: ESCalate.
McCaffre, K; Saide, A. (2014) Why is critical thinking so hard to teach? New York, USA:
Sceptic Magazine, V.19 N 2.
Cuypers, S.; Haji, I. (2006) Education for critical thinking: Can it be non-indoctrinative?
Calgary, Canada: Educational Philosophy and Theory, Vol. 6, N38.
Silva, L. and Rodrgues, H. (2011) Critical Thinking: its relevance in education in a shifting
society. Minho, Portugal: Revista de Psicologa, Vol. 29 (1).
March 23 - 27 Toy, B. and Ok, A. (2012) Incorporating Critical thinking in a pedagogical
content. Ankara, Turkey: European Journal of Teacher Education; Vol 35, N 1.
Atkinson, S. and Urban, J. (2013) Reflective Practice: a non-negotiable requirement for an
effective educator. London, UK: BPP University College.
Wang, Q., woo, H. and Zhao, J. (2009) Investigating Critical thinking and knowledge
construction in an interactive learning environment. Guangzhou, China: Routledge Taylor
and Francis Group, Vol 17, N1.
Rezaee, M. , Farahian, M. and Morad, A. (2012) Critical Thinking in Higher education.
Teheran, Iran: Broad Research in Artificial intelligence, Vol 3, N 2.
Nicholas, M., Comer, J. and Recker, D and Hathcode, D. (2013)Developing and
Implementing a Multidisciplinary approach to assess CT. Sydney, Australia: Wiley
Periodicals Inc., Vol 25, N 4
March 30 - Apr 2 Pinkney, J. and Shaughnessy, M. (2013) Teaching Critical thinking: a
modern mandate. New Mexico, Mexico. International Journal of Academic Research, Vol 5,
N3.
Masduqi, H. (2011) Critical thinking skills and meaning in language teaching. New South
Wales, Australia:TEFLN Journal, Vol 22, N 2.
Mihaila-Lica, G. (2012) Consideration on developing critical thinking skills in students of
English. Sibiu, Romania: Revista Academiei Tereste, N 2 (66)
Hsiao, W. , Chen, M. and Hu, H. (2013) Assessing online discussions: Adoption of critical
thinking as a grading criterion. Alaska, USA: The International Journal of Technology,
Knowledge and society, Vol. 9
Integrated English
III
TASK 1
1. General outline
In groups of 4 students you will decide on a National Channel and TV Program.
Choose among the following Programs: News Report, Talk Show, Soap Opera.
Each group will have to choose a different channel or program. Each member of
the group will have to watch the program for at least 3 weeks and collect objective
data (eg: The News Report Channel X at Y is called Z. It starts at .. and finishes at.
The presenters names are The types of news and the sequence of them is )
Then in your group you will share the data and make an interpretation of
the beliefs, values and/or assumptions implicit in the program. Be sure to provide
accurate judgement (concrete evidence /facts) to support your opinion.
Finally will have to make a proposal on how to improve the given program backing
your proposal with solid arguments
Then you will write a report including the following sections:
Objective description (3 - 5 pages)
Analysis and Interpretation (2 - 4 pages)
Proposal ( 1 - 1,5 pages)
Include at least two literary sources (from the ones read in class or others) in the
Analysis and Interpretation Section and two others in the Proposal Section.
Use Times New Roman 12 and 1,5 space
a) task objectives
1. Organize information.
2. Differentiate between facts and opinions: Find and judge components of
subjectivity based on beliefs or ideologies, and oppose them to concrete
facts.
3. Take a critical stand on an observed reality and provide arguments to
support opinions.
b) Dates
Submit a hard copy on Thursday, April 2nd at the beginning of the class (no
later
than 10 minutes after the time of the class)
Upload a copy to your Wordpress the latest
midnight on the same date.
e) Assessment
c) Considerations
If for any reason your have problems conforming a group with the number
of students required (4), you should approach your homeroom teacher to
request an exception. The teacher will discuss it with the rest of the team
and get back to you. Wait for the answer of your teacher before starting
your work.
You will receive a grade for your work, so the grade will be the same for
every member in the group.
If you fail to submit your work on the date and time assigned, you will
receive the minimum grade.
Do not forget that Plagiarism is a serious offence which will be severely
sanctioned. The first time work will be given a 1.0. If a second time occurs,
course suspension and program expulsion may take place (Reglamento
acadmico Ttulo VI, Art.21)
Categories
COHERENCE and TASK
ACHIEVEMENT: Concepts and
relationships expressed should
be relevant to each other and in
relation to the purpose, thus
enabling plausible inferences
about underlying meaning.
10
VOCABULARY and
SPELLING: The correct spelling
and choice of lexicon and
register (formal-informal) and its
collocations according to the
context.
LANGUAGE STRUCTURING:
The use of structures of the
language in context.
Basic language
structures and
functional words are
seldom used correctly:
phrase word order,
sentence structure,
and simple tenses.
PUNCTUATION and
CAPITALIZATION
INFLUENCE OF CONTEXT
AND ASSUMPTIONS
CRITICAL STAND
Specific position
(perspective,
thesis/hypothesis) is
stated, but is
simplistic and
obvious.
Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2011).
2
Peter Wood, The Evidence of Things Unnoticed: An Interpretive Preface to the National Association of
Scholars Report What Does Bowdoin Teach? How a Contemporary Liberal Arts College Shapes
Students (New York: National Association of Scholars, 2013), http://www.nas.org/images/documents/
What_Does_Bowdoin_Teach.pdf.
3
See, for example, Albert Keith Whitaker, Critical Thinking in the Ivory Tower, Academic Questions
16, no. 1 (Winter 200203): 5058. Also see, Critical Thinking, Wikipedia, accessed April 11, 2013,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking.
4
For a sampling of these battles, see Peter Wood, The Curriculum of Forgetting, Chronicle of Higher Education,
Innovations (blog), November 21, 2011, http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/the-curriculum-of-forgetting/
30914; AILACT Responds to Peter Wood, Rail (blog), May 3, 2012, http://railct.com/2012/05/03/ailactresponds-to-peter-wood/; and Peter Wood, Leaf-Taking, Chronicle of Higher Education, Innovations (blog),
December 4, 2011, http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/leaf-taking/31017.
Robert Weissberg is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana
Champaign, Champaign, IL 61820; rweissbe@illinois.edu. He is the author of many books, most recently
The Limits of Civic Activism: Cautionary Tales on the Use of Politics (2004), Pernicious Tolerance: How
Teaching to Accept Differences Undermines Civil Society (2008), and Bad Students, Not Bad Schools
(2010), all published by Transaction.
318
Weissberg
agrees that like apple pie and motherhood, critical thinking is an unquestionable
good and universitieseven high schoolsneed to do more to foster this
skill.
Unfortunately, calls for students to think critically almost always
sidestep the prodigious problem of transforming a high-sounding idea into
something that can be usefully interjected into lessons, let alone calibrated to
show progress (or failure). Yes, we all agree that critical thinking is an
honored element of Western thought, even traceable to Socrates, but it hardly
follows that most people, including a majority of college students, can master
this skill. Indeed, acquiring it may be impossible or largely cost-ineffective.
Worse, given all the documented deficiencies of todays college students, the
critical thinking crusade may entail unrecognized opportunity costs to the
neglect of more valuable lessons.
Skepticism acknowledged, let me offer a brief tour of the obstacles
awaiting those who want to do more than admonish fellow professors to
teach critical thinking.
Definitions of critical thinking abound, but all share certain traits, notably
an ability to use reason to move beyond the acquisition of facts to uncover
deep meaning. For illustrative purposes, heres a detailed (but quite typical)
definition offered by a website devoted to explicating the term:
It entails the examination of those structures or elements of thought
implicit in all reasoning: purpose, problem, or question-at-issue;
assumptions; concepts; empirical grounding; reasoning leading to
conclusions; implications and consequences; objections from alternative
viewpoints; and frame of reference. Critical thinkingin being
responsive to variable subject matter, issues, and purposesis
incorporated in a family of interwoven modes of thinking, among
them: scientific thinking, mathematical thinking, historical thinking,
anthropological thinking, economic thinking, moral thinking, and
philosophical thinking.
Critical thinking can be seen as having two components: 1) a set of
information and belief generating and processing skills, and 2) the habit,
based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior.
It is thus to be contrasted with: 1) the mere acquisition and retention of
319
5
Michael Scriven and Richard Paul, Critical Thinking as Defined by the National Council for
Excellence in Critical Thinking, statement presented at the Eighth Annual International Conference
on Critical Thinking and Education Reform, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CA, August
1988, available under the title, Defining Critical Thinking, at The Critical Thinking Community,
http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766.
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321
322
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323
They typically include a pledge, for example, that schools will work to
challenge students to think critically and intuitively, and to ensure that
graduates will become adept at critical, analytical, and logical
thinking. These mission statements align with the idea that educational
institutions serve to enhance students human capitalknowledge,
skills, and capacities that will be rewarded in the labor market.7
This hardly ends their catalog of benefits, but this snippet should suffice.
Alas, the entire justification rests on appeal to authority, namely other
academics who, like Arum and Roksa, lack empirical evidenceor to be a
bit kinder, evidence that is not cited or remains to be discovered. When did
imparting a knack for critical thinking become the principal aim of
undergraduate education? I entered college in 1959 and only recently
encountered this imperative. Did Derek Bok survey a random sample of
professors about spending class time on teaching critical thinking? One
can only be reminded of all the diversity champions who insist that its
self-evident virtues make scientific documentation superfluous.
A little thought suggests that American democracy and our economy
hardly rests on critical thinking. First, and speaking as one who has written
about democracy for decades, I fail to see any connection between an ability
to think critically and the survival of American democratic institutions.
Reasonably honest elections, majority rule and minority rights, the rule of
law, due process, and all the rest that defines our democratic political order
hardly requires millions of citizens who think critically. Scholars have long
supplied compendiums of democratic citizenship, but I have never seen
critical thinking on the list. If it deserves inclusion, the justification for it
must be provided, not merely asserted.
Nor, for that matter, can I see a purely logical link between critical
thinking and democracy. If anything, the voting literature abounds with data
demonstrating that the majority of voters do not choose candidates by
thinking critically. Visceral voting choices or reliance on partisan affiliation
are far more common. If a widespread ability to think critically is vital to
democratic governance, we are doomed and democracys two-century
survival in the U.S. must be judged a mystery.
Ditto for any self-evident link between critical thinking and prosperity.
Yes, a plausible case can be made that some high-level jobs might
7
Ibid., 2.
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occasionally require critical thinking, but I can think of no reason why most
positions require this ability. Id guess that less than a quarter of jobs demand
critical thinking, and even then this trait may be far subordinated to reliability,
tenacity, a penchant for cooperative behavior, and solid communication skills,
among many other attributes with a clear vocational benefit. Again, this is truth
by assertion and not a very convincing one at that.
It is equally plausible that our economy requires only a small number of
critical thinkers who are surrounded by armies lacking this skill but more
adept at other tasks. Apple and Microsoft hardly need five thousand or more
critical thinkers to flourishand remember that Bill Gates dropped out of
Harvard, so where did he acquire his knack for critical thinking? A better
case can be made that American universities would help the economy more
by inculcating a knack for painful drudgery and persistence, the famous ratio
of 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration. Even Steve Jobs confessed
to being a grind.
Moreover, if, as is claimed, critical thinking is central to the American
economy, where are the critical thinking tests to screen thousands of job
applicants? Well, to be fair, firms are not exactly ignoring this ability. Rather,
organizations that demand critical thinking have better, far cheaper, and more
accessible proxies to assess this skill. Goldman Sachs and the like hardly need a
ninety-minute exam about whether to buy crash-prone airplanes. Instead they
interview graduates from elite schools knowing full well that these applicants
possess the intellectual skills necessary to pass tough courses.
In fact, if critical thinking is as valuable economically as is claimed, the
best test of this proposition would be a five-year follow-up on those who
have mastered that skill versus those who did not, while holding constant the
prestige of the degree, major, and similar factors relevant to career success.
Technically, this is predictive validity and essential to trying to convince
undergraduates to sharpen their thinking skills. Alas, we know nothing about
this outcome, but yet again, it is happily assumed.
All this adds up to a weak case for the CLA, since its value, whether for
promoting democracy or helping students land a job, is highly speculative.
This iffy usefulness is especially relevant as universities seek to trim budgets.
Imagine a school defending its plan to test two thousand students a year on
the CLA and paying to train dozens of newly hired employees to evaluate
and score the essays? I suspect that the only motivation might be if some
journalism school ranking service (e.g., U.S. News & World Report) suddenly
included CLA scores in their ratings. But even then, with so many other
325
Lets for the moment assume that teaching critical thinking becomes the
latest educational trend. Would American education benefit?
Obviously, answers must be speculative, but Id guess that the benefits would
be minimal, while a Pandoras box of political consequences would be opened.
Lets start with the information necessary to think critically. Recall that the CLA
test provided copious information to help students devise policy recommendations.
Yes, everything provided was realistic, but what is not realistic is having ample and
freely supplied information at ones fingertips. More realistic would be to give
students a few days to collect their own data, a task that would undoubtedly
increase the range of test scores. Better students would find more information
while slackers would be satisfied with far less. This is, of course, exactly what
occurs with paper assignments.
Their lack of basic knowledge was apparent to me when I encouraged
students to think critically about U.S. elections. Judging by their puzzled
looks, it soon became apparent that many students lacked even the most
rudimentary political knowledge, things like how primary elections work.8
Many were even clueless about recent presidential elections. These facts
had to be inserted into class discussion, so what began as an exercise in
critical thinking quickly regressed into a time-consuming tutorial on
American politics.
Paucity of elementary factual information among students acknowledged,
what is a professor to do when attempting to teach critical thinking to the
poorly informed? Require students to take remedial classes in what should
have been learned in high school? Assign basic background readings at the
beginning of the semester? Unfortunately, these solutions optimistically
assume that students are motivated to catch up while simultaneously
8
The lack of factual information among college students is well-known to professors, though seldom
publicly acknowledged. Unfortunately, few academics have the stomach to delve into this embarrassing
issue. For an excellent analysis of this aversion to boring facts, see Michael J. Booker, A Roof without
Walls: Benjamin Blooms Taxonomy and the Misdirection of American Education, Academic Questions
20, no. 4 (Fall 2007): 34755. Booker makes the key point that when students do not know facts, they
survive the course by embracing the instructors opinions.
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mastering the more advanced substantive material. The only solution that I
can imagine is to limit the teaching of critical thinking to more advanced
classes (akin to high school AP classes), but this elitist approach is hardly
what fans of critical thinking demand. Most enthusiasts see critical thinking
as a trait teachable to all students.
What this lack of knowledge suggests is that a capacity for critical
thinking may be closely related to cognitive ability in general. After all,
absorbing copious amounts of information quickly, organizing it, dealing
with abstractions, and then drawing out implications is the common element
in both IQ and critical thinking. Arum and Roksas own data suggest this link
between high intelligence and skill at thinking critically: nearly half of all
students did not add to their critical thinking capacity over the first two years
of college, students at elite schools out-performed those a few notches below,
and students from racial and ethnic groups that generally lag academically
also lagged in acquiring this skill.9
To be politically incorrect, if a capacity for critical thinking mirrors IQ
(and I think it does) then efforts to foster this skill will fail just as every past
intervention to increase IQ has come up short. Worse, from the perspective of
critical thinking fans, previous interventions to boost IQ had the advantage of
beginning very early (e.g., Head Start), while efforts to develop critical
thinking target college-age students, and even then, for at most a few hours
per week. Thus understood, teaching critical thinking is redundant for the
smart and pointless for the less talented, although, conceivably, a few
middling students might pick up a thing or two.
If the past is any guide to the future, the current infatuation with critical
thinking will follow a familiar though unwelcome trajectory. That is,
egalitarians who peruse critical thinking test scores will, guaranteed, discover
troubling gaps in this talent. Yet more task forces will be appointed,
expensive recommendations will emerge, critical thinking coaches will be hired
and thousands of hours and lots of money will be spent for zero progress. And
rest assured, campus egalitarians will pour over these CLA essays to expunge
hidden racial bias from the test and scoring method. I can already see ambitious
but underemployed bureaucrats waiting for their gaps-in-critical thinking ship to
arrive so as to organize a three-day conference.
327
Conclusions
What does this pursuit tell us about the modern academy? Two lessons are
clear. First, it yet again exposes the academys vulnerability to questionable
fads, a willingness to spend lavishly despite shaky evidence of value (a
parallel is the infatuation with diversity et al.). This is not to say that critical
thinking champions are fashion-minded opportunistsalthough I suspect a
few are of the catch-the-fad and advance-ones-career variety.
Actually, getting in on the ground floor of a trend long before its demonstrated
failure is just about de rigueur in education. Todays bureaucratically infused
campus culture invites itwhy struggle with thorny research problems or spend
hours trying to teach writing when embracing fashionable nonsense is a far
superior career option? Imagine the consequences if the latest educational
panacea were a drug required to pass FDA-like scrutiny before being
implemented while advocates were liable for damages if the scheme turned
sour. The campus newspaper would overflow with ads like: Did you pay
thousands of dollars on a course that stressed critical thinking only to discover
that you learned nothing of intellectual or vocational value? Call Gonif and
Gonif and join our class action lawsuit and recover lost tuition plus punitive
damages. We have already won millions for students like you.
The second point is an irony: Champions of critical thinking have
failed to apply their own medicine. Didnt they stop to consider the net
value of this instruction given its easily foreseen tangible and intellectual
costs? How much time is to be wasted on this project that could have
been spent on substantive learning? What about yet more bureaucratic
expansion when administrative overhead increasingly devours the
universitys core mission? And what does a resource-eating critical
thinking test add when this talent can already be assessed from a verbal
SAT score that closely mirrors IQ? Might attempting to teach critical
thinking be pointless for mediocre students? How can one possibly
assert the link between critical ability and democracy when we have zero
data on this nexus? Worse, why do champions of critical thinking ignore
the absence of data on any alleged beneficial impact? Why the disdain
for science? And on and on. Obviously, we need critical thinking for
those who advocate critical thinking.
Let me end by reiterating my own commitment to critical thinking. I am
not opposed to it; rather I view it as appropriate to only the brightest, most
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Weissberg
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We seek it here
a new perspective on the elusive
activity of critical thinking:
a theoretical and practical approach
Dr Jenny Moon
University of Bournemouth/
Independent Consultant
jenny@cemp.ac.uk
Tel: 01395 276569
Contents
4
Part Two
14
Critical thinking
the beginning of the search
10
12
SHORTCUT TO ACTIVITIES
12
13
13
15
26
M
Part One
30
32
Appendix 2 - Critical thinking and other academic activities reflection and argument
34
36
38
Part One
What is the elusive activity of critical thinking?
Why the confusion about critical thinking?
Critical thinking is like a number of words in higher education that sound good
and sit comfortably in, for example, the vocabulary of the Institutional mission
statement. In mission statements vagueness may not matter, but when students
are told through the use of critical thinking they should analyse something, a
more precise definition does matter. How can they develop something if they do
not know what it is? (Meyers, 1986; Barnett, 1997) It is important, therefore, that
we can form a clear view of critical thinking that provides a fruitful basis for
pedagogical purposes(*) that can be understood by both teachers as well as
students.
This guide aims to help us create such a view and translate it to useful activities
to develop critical thinking.
*we use the term pedagogy as a generic term for teaching / learning processes - not those specifically associated with childhood learning
Footnote : By a deep approach, we imply that the learner actively relates new material of learning to current knowledge, endeavours to
understand it and will query and challenge ideas. (Marton, Hounsell and Entwistle, (1997).
Summary
From the discussion so far:
I There is a sense that we think critically in order to
reach an outcome and that outcome is usually a
decision, or a judgement.
I Ideas that are the subject matter of critical
thinking are complex.
I The process of critical thinking involves relatively
systematic consideration of ideas that we might
call evidence. This might be called a process of
evaluation of the evidence.
I There are associated notions of clarity and
precision of the thinking process, and in the
manner in which the case is represented. This
does not exclude some aspects of broader
exploratory thinking as well.
Baxter Magolda
In order to illustrate the concept of epistemological
development, we focus here on the work of Baxter
Magolda (1992). Baxter Magolda worked with college
students of both genders, identifying four domains
(stages) in her scheme. Absolute knowing is the least
developed stage in her scheme. Here knowledge is
seen as certain or absolute and formal learning is a
matter of seeking and absorbing the knowledge of
those who know experts, who might be teachers
(Baxter Magolda, 2001). This state of thinking is
described as a dualist position with the notion of
knowledge being right or wrong (Perry, 1970).
Baxter Magolda describes a second stage as
transitional knowing, in which there are doubts
about the certainty of knowledge a sense that there
is both partial certainty and partial uncertainty as well
as absolute knowledge. The third domain is
Further Studies
We start with another look at the significance of the
stages in the continuum. Kember (2001) studied the
learning of novice and expert part-time students in
Hong Kong. He simplified the model of development
of epistemological beliefs and conceived of two sets
of beliefs at two poles of a continuum, which
included factors of the students view of knowledge,
the nature of the teacher-learner relationship and
responsibility for learning. These descriptions relate
closely to the absolute and contextual knowing stages
of Baxter Magolda (1992). Kember did not consider
it necessary to identify as specific stages the
intermediate progression between these two
orientations, maintaining an open mind as to
whether there were distinct intermediate stages. He
observed that students could hold a range of beliefs
that related to both poles at the same time. His
conclusion, however, is significant
10
The development of
epistemological beliefs a
conclusion for the purposes
of pedagogy and critical
thinking
There seems to be evidence to indicate that higher
education is a process during which a students
conception of knowledge is expected to undergo a
considerable shift along a continuum that we can
broadly describe. If we work solely as researchers, we
can afford to wait for the detail of this continuum to
be elicited. However, if there is a concern for
pedagogy - for example, for a means of understanding
critical thinking, - we need to conceive of a framework
that can enable us to understand better the manner in
which students see knowledge.
From the review of the literature here and for the
pedagogical purposes of this paper, this writer
tentatively puts forward a simple model rather like
that of Kember or like the two extremes of the Baxter
Magolda scheme.
11
A final position on
critical thinking
12
13
Part Two
The practical side of critical thinking
Critical thinking, writing and pedagogy the development
of a strategy
We now have a descriptive statement about critical thinking that can guide us in
planning educational experiences for students in higher education.
We consider the practical implementation:
I
14
15
16
17
18
Teaching of philosophy or
theory of knowledge
I Philosophy used to be a usual first year subject in
higher education. It has been edged out, but it is
surprising how many academics would still wish it to
be in place. International Baccalaureate (equivalent to
A level) students study Theory of Knowledge
(TOK) in order to help them to understand the
structure of disciplines, and the differences between
them. Although they may find it hard to start with,
they are better equipped for any further study and
appreciate that. It seems reasonable to assume that
well taught TOK helps them along the continuum
from absolutist conceptions of knowledge towards
contextual conceptions. Such study would seem
particularly to support students who are covering
several disciplines, where no one teacher has the
experience to help them across their range of study.
It also provides an excellent basis for the
development of the lifelong learner. TOK may be
best used twice in the course of an undergraduate
programme once early on and then later in a more
reflective and metacognitive mode as a review of
the nature of learning.
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
Material A
The stages of thinking described by Baxter Magolda (1992)
Stage of Absolute Knowing
Independent knowing
Transitional stage
There is partial certainty and partial uncertainty.
Baxter Magolda describes the transitional knowing
stage as one in which there are doubts about the
certainty of knowledge learners accept that there is
some uncertainty. Authorities may differ in view
because there is uncertainty. Learners see
themselves as needing to understand rather than just
acquire knowledge so that they may make
judgements as to how best to apply it. Teachers are
seen as facilitating the understanding and the
application of knowledge and assessment concerns
these qualities, and not just acquisition.
Contextual knowing
Knowledge is constructed and any judgement must
be made on the basis of the evidence in that context.
This stage is one in which knowledge is understood
to be constructed, but the way in which knowledge is
constructed is understood in relation to the
consideration of the quality of knowledge claims in
the given context. Opinions must now be supported
by evidence. The view of the teacher is of a partner
in the development of appropriate knowledge.
27
Material B and C
Fictitious quotations from students at different stages of
understanding of knowledge
Absolute
Transitional
28
Material B and C
Fictitious quotations from students at different stages of
understanding of knowledge
Independent
Contextual
29
30
31
Appendix 1
Towards a final statement on the nature of
critical thinking
We can now leave behind epistemological
development and return to a few loose ends in the
descriptive statement about critical thinking.
These were:
I the meaning of a judgement
I the meaning of effective
I clarity and precision
I the involvement of creativity
I the involvement of emotion
I the metacognitive process of monitoring the
making of a judgement.
We now look at these issues in greater detail and
begin to lay the basis for the practical pedagogical
section of this paper. We start by taking a closer look
at the notion of a judgement in the context of
critical thinking. There are at least two meanings of
judgement. Firstly a judgement can be like a decision
to be made. In this case it is of one thing against
another or several others in order to identify one for
a particular reason. Alternatively the judgement may
be about the quality of something for a purpose or
for its merit (eg an idea or a work of art etc). In this
case the critical thinking involves clarification,
exploration of ideas and evaluation. Judgement
against external criteria is likely to be involved in both
of the meanings of judgement. Different disciplines
are likely to use the notion of judgement in critical
thinking in different ways.
32
33
Appendix 2
Critical thinking and other academic activities
reflection and argument
There is one more matter to consider and that is the
place of the new description of critical thinking
alongside other academic activities such as reflective
learning and argument. The writer has explored
reflection (reflective learning) and reflective writing in
detail elsewhere (Moon 1999, 2004). Reflective
learning is seen there as a form of cognitive
processing of complex issues when the material
under consideration is largely already known. The
relationship between reflective learning and writing is
similar to that between critical thinking and its written
form. It is of particular relevance to critical thinking
that the quality of reflective writing is seen as a
continuum from descriptive writing in which ideas are
displayed but not subjected to further processing,
through three more stages of deepening. In the
deepest level of reflective writing, there is conscious
taking of multiple perspectives, the engagement with
relevant prior experience, metacognition and the
taking of the broader context of the issues into
account. There is an awareness of relevant emotional
issues and the manner in which they can relate to and
influence thinking (Moon, 2004). Deep reflective
thinking / writing has qualities that are close to those
of proper critical thinking. We cannot therefore say
that critical thinking and reflective learning are
completely separate activities - however there are
shades of difference in connotation. There is a sense
34
35
Appendix 3
Learning, thinking and writing a first look
36
37
Appendix 4
Progression in critical thinking and its
representation in writing in undergraduate
education a tentative guide for the purposes
of pedagogy
This represents a tentative set of descriptors for the
progressively increasing capacity of students for
critical thinking and its representation in writing. It is
based on the literature of this paper, and particularly
on work on the developing conceptions of
knowledge. In terms of that work, the progression
covers the transition from absolutist thinking towards,
but not as far as, contextual thinking (a stage that
38
Pedagogical implications
39
Pedagogical implications
- be explosed to the idea that teachers / experts are also
learners, and can get it wrong
- see experts in their discipline in the process of disagreeing,
and there should be discussion of both content and the idea of
the disagreement of experts
- be involved in discussion about the idea of a theory, and the
idea that several theories can legitimately be held about the
same thing (illustration from own discipline but done simply)
- be exposed to uncertainty (eg as illustrated in everyday life and
in the research fields of their discipline
- be engaged in tasks in which they have to seek for evidence to
justify a claim in everyday life
- students need to be given some tasks in which they make their
own judgements and have a chance to express their own
voices about an issue probably an everyday example
- be introduced to the idea of developing conceptions of
knowledge in a manner well illustrated by everyday issues in
thinking
- exposed to general discussions about how knowledge is
produced publication, media distortion, expert agreement,
common usage, etc.
Writing tasks should be used in which there is practice:
- In being precise and clear
- In being able to draw a conclusion from the provision of
written evidence
- In being able to summarise the main points of an argument
such as introduction of the issue, the evidence, the reasoning
about evidence and the conclusion and/or judgement made
- In referencing. Students need to understand referencing as an
acknowledgement of other peoples work
General statement These ideas need to be brought together coherently in a discussion
of critical thinking and not introduced and then left as isolated ideas
40
Pedagogical implications
41
Pedagogical implications
- experience responsibility for significant actions in or out of
class
- be introduced to the manner in which knowledge is produced
and agreed in their discipline
- be involved in well-illustrated discussion about how knowledge
has come to be produced in their discipline (including notion of
peer review) and sources of distortion
Writing tasks where learners:
- improve their clarity and precision in writing
- draw conclusions effectively
- demonstrate critical thinking in written form, using
straightforward material from their discipline (probably with
given or guided seeking of evidence)
- demonstrate critical thinking in writing about an everyday issue
in which they express their own voice, and are encouraged to
be creative in seeking their own evidence
- use referencing more as a matter of course
The discussion of the nature of critical thinking needs to be
continued in an explicit manner
42
Pedagogical implications
The teaching of final year undergraduate students can be much more
research-based, dealing with uncertain situations, and areas of
disagreement in the discipline. They should be working within the
main body of knowledge of their discipline, and exposed to the
cutting edge, but not expected to work at that level
General tasks learners should:
- display competent critical thinking in the relatively familiar areas
of their discipline (ie not cutting edge)
- the opinions that they form in written or spoken work should
be subjected to challenge by peers or teachers
- they should be able to recognise and challenge assumptions
- their general attitude towards the discipline should be one of
questioning
- they should be expected to argue a case in their discipline
- be exposed to situations in which they make judgements for
which they have to take responsibility. This may be in a
placement or work experience situation
Writing tasks learners should:
- be able to judge the competence of their own writing and that
of others (peers)
- demonstrate critical thinking in a literature review, skills of
evaluation and the making of discipline-related judgements, the
writing of a conclusion to their own work
- understand referencing as a matter not only of properly
acknowledging sources, but also as a means of judging the quality
of a piece of work (how many and which references are used,
how have they been used, etc.)
General statement: The discussion of the nature of knowledge
should be revisited. By showing learners how their views of knowledge
have changed over their undergraduate education, it is possible to make
ideas around the notion of the contextual knowing stage explicit, and to
help learners to make sense of their learning journey
43
ARTICLE
Why is Critical
Thinking so Hard to
Teach?
BY KEVIN MCCAFFREE AND ANONDAH SAIDE
54
SKEPTIC MAGAZINE
8. There is a devil.
9. Psychokinesis, the movement o f objects through
psychic powers, does exist.
10. Witches do exist.
11. If you break a mirror, you will have bad luck.
12. During altered states, such as sleep or trances,
the spirit can leave the body.
13. The Loch Ness monster of Scotland exists.
14. The horoscope accurately tells a persons future.
15. I believe in God
16. A persons thoughts can influence the
movement of a physical object.
17. Through the use of form ulas and incantations,
it is possible to cast spells on persons.
18. The number 1 3 is unlucky.
19. Reincarnation does occur.
20. There is life on other planets.
21. Some psychics can accurately predict the future.
22. There is a heaven and a hell.
23. Mind reading is not possible
24. There are actual cases of witchcraft.
25. It is possible to communicate with the dead.
26. Some people have an unexplained ability to
predict the future.
Note: Item 23 is reversed for scoring.
W W W .SKEPTIC.COM
55
56
SKEPTIC MAGAZINE
REFERENCES
1.
2.
3.
101/
4.
5.
Prometheus Books.
Rice, Tom W. 2 0 0 3 . Believe It
or Not: Religious and Other Para
normal Beliefs in the United
S tates. Journal for the Scien
tific Study of Religion, 42(1).
7.
http://hom epage.univie.ac.at
/andreas.hergovich/php/C ritical
_thinking.pdf
8. See, for example, Pennycook, Gor
don, James Allan Cheyne, Paul
Seli, Derek J. Koehler, and Jona
than A. Fugelsang. 2012. "Ana
lytic Cognitive Style Predicts Reli
gious and Paranormal Belief.
Cognition 123, no. 3: 335-346.
9. Shtulman, 2 0 1 3 . Epistemic
Sim ilarities Between Students
Scientific and Supernatural Be
lie fs. Journal o f Educational
Psychology 105(1).
10. Gilovich, Thomas. 1991. How
v o lu m e 1 9
num ber 4
2014
W WW .SKEPTIC.COM
57
Copyright of Skeptic is the property of Skeptics Society and its content may not be copied or
emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written
permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
0013-1857
O
4
87
Education
riginal
2006 E.
Philosophy
Article
for
Cuypers
Philosophy
Critical
&of
Thinking
Ishtiyaque
Education
and Theory
Haji
Society of Australasia
Blackwell
Oxford,
UK
Publishing
Ltd
S E. C & I H
Institute of Philosophy, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium &
Department of Philosophy, University of Calgary, Canada
Abstract
An ideal of education is to ensure that our children develop into autonomous critical thinkers.
The indoctrination objection, however, calls into question whether education, aimed at
cultivating autonomous critical thinkers, is possible. The core of the concern is that since
the young child lacks even modest capacities for assessing reasons, the constituent components
of critical thinking have to be indoctrinated if there is to be any hope of the childs attaining
the ideal. Our primary objective is to defuse this objection. We argue, first, that even if
the indoctrination objection can be dealt with at the level of beliefs by an account that
distinguishes between beliefs instilled in the child at the non-rational stage that are
indoctrinative and those that are non-indoctrinative, there can be non-autonomous proto
critical thinkers who lack autonomy with respect to the requisite motivational components.
We then ask what must be added to the account to ensure that proto critical thinkers develop
into autonomous ones. We suggest that motivational elements, even if instilled at a stage at
which the child has insufficiently developed cognitive capacities, can be truly the childs
own only relationally: the autonomous motivational elements are ones with respect to which
the future child is self-governing.
Keywords: critical thinking, indoctrination, rationality, autonomy, authenticity,
responsibility, Harvey Siegel
1. Introduction
We agree with Harvey Siegel and others that an ideal of education is to ensure that
our children develop into critical thinkers: they should be able to assess beliefs,
desires, actions, and other connative and cognitive elements in their psychological
repertoire on the basis of appropriate evaluative standards, be disposed to such
evaluation, and be motivated by good reasons in belief-formation and action.1 We
concur, as well, with the ideal that our children blossom into autonomous critical
thinkers.2 Pertinent to this ideal, a salient dimension of being self-governing is that
the child mature into an agent who is autonomous with respect to the motivational
constituents, such as the desire to evaluate reasons, of being a critical thinker.
The so-dubbed indoctrination objection, however, calls into question whether
education, aimed at cultivating autonomous critical thinkers, is possible. The core of
2006 The Authors
Journal compilation 2006 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia
Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
See, for example, Bailin & Siegel, 2003; and Siegel, 1988, 1997, and 2003.
See, for instance, Dearden, 1972; Peters, 1963, 1973; and Cuypers, 2004.
Siegel, 1988, p. 78.
Siegel, 1988, pp. 32 42; 1997, pp. 2 4.
Siegel, 2003, p. 305.
Critical thinking theorists distinguish between two sorts of principle of reason
assessment: general or subject-neutral principles and context-bound or subject-specific
ones. There is an important debate between proponents of a generalist view and those
of a specifist view regarding whether reason assessment skills apply across a broad
range of contexts and circumstances: to what extent are assessment criteria generalizable?
(Bailin & Siegel, 2003, pp. 183186) Here, we simply note that Siegel adopts the
generalist view.
7. Siegel, 1988, p. 54. Siegel acknowledges, in Siegel, 2005, pp. 542 43, that his exact view
is that autonomy is a necessary but not sufficient condition of critical thinking. It is not a
sufficient condition of critical thinking because the reasoned appraisals of candidate
2006 The Authors
Journal compilation 2006 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
beliefs by autonomous persons might be of poor quality, and thus fail to satisfy the
epistemic quality demands of the reason assessment component. For our concerns, it
suffices that Siegel holds that autonomy is a necessary condition of critical thinking
both the reason assessment and critical spirit dimension require autonomy.
Siegel, 2003, p. 307.
Dearden, 1972, p. 70.
Peters, 1973, p. 17.
Benn, 1976, p. 123.
Mele, 1995, pp. 86101.
Mele, 1995, pp. 10211.
Mele, 1995, pp. 11227.
Some of the more important pro-attitudes and dispositions required for critical thinking
include respect for reasons and truth (commitment to having justified beliefs, values and
actions); ... an inquiring attitude (inclination to assess the support for judgements one is
asked to accept); open-mindedness ... fair-mindedness ... independent-mindedness (possession
of the intellectual honesty and courage necessary for seeking out relevant evidence and
basing ones beliefs and actions on it, despite pressures or temptations to do otherwise,
and the personal strength to stand up for ones firmly grounded beliefs); .... (Bailin
et al., 1999, pp. 294 295)
Siegel, 1988, pp. 86 87. For Peters articulation of the paradox of moral education
and his response to it, see Peters, 1963.
Snook, 1972; Spiecker & Straughan, 1991. Views of indoctrination appeal to either Xs
intention, or Xs method, or ps content, or a selection of these factors, as necessary
and/or sufficient conditions. Siegel (1991, p. 30) summarizes the three principal
analyses thus: One view of indoctrination has it that the case is one of indoctrination
if Xs aim or intention is of a certain sort: namely, that X intends to or aims at getting
Y to believe that p, independently of the epistemic status of or evidence for p. A second
view holds that indoctrination is a matter of method, so that our putative case of
indoctrination is a genuine one if Xs method of getting Y to believe that p is of a certain
sort: namely, one which tends to impart to Y a belief that p, independently of the
evidence for p, and without Ys questioning p; a method, that is, which suppresses or
discourages Ys critical consideration of the case for p. A third view regards
indoctrination as a matter of content, so that our case is a case of indoctrination if p is
false or unjustified, independently of Xs intentions and methods.
Siegel, 1988, p. 165, n. 8; 1991, p. 31.
Siegel, 1988, pp. 8283.
Siegel, 1988, p. 90.
Siegel, 1988, p. 87.
Christman, 1991.
This case is modelled after the one Mele advances in Mele, 1993, p. 275.
Development of the notions of being autonomous relative to the acquisition of a proattitude, relative to the possession of a pro-attitude, and relative to the influence of a
pro-attitude can be found in Mele, 1993, pp. 275277, and Mele, 1995, pp. 138 139.
Siegel, 1988, p. 167, n. 24.
Ever since Relativism Refuted (1987), this appeal to rationalitys self-justification is
central to Siegels work on the theory of rationality and the foundations of critical
thinking as an educational ideal; for instances of this basic transcendental argument, see
Siegel, 1988, pp. 74 76, 132; 1997, pp. 8187; 1998, pp. 30 31.
Siegel, 2003, p. 316.
Gauthier, 1986.
See, for example, Haji, 1989 and the various articles in Vallentyne, 1991.
Strawson, 1962, p. 67.
Strawson, 1962, p. 71.
References
Bailin, S., Case, R., Coombs, J. R. & Daniels, L. B. (1999) Conceptualizing Critical Thinking,
Journal of Curriculum Studies, 31:3, pp. 285302.
Bailin, S. and Siegel, H. (2003) Critical Thinking, in: N. Blake, P. Smeyers, R. Smith & P.
Standish (eds) The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Education (Oxford, Blackwell),
pp. 181193.
Benn, S. I. (1976) Freedom, Autonomy and the Concept of a Person, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, LXXVI, pp. 109 130.
Christman, J. (1991) Autonomy and Personal History, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 21, pp.
124.
Cuypers, S. E. (2004) Critical Thinking, Autonomy and Practical Reason, Journal of Philosophy
of Education, 38, pp. 75 90.
Cuypers, S. E. & Haji, I. (2004) Moral Responsibility and the Problem of Manipulation Reconsidered, International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 12, pp. 439464.
Darling, J. (1994) Child-Centred Education and Its Critics (London, Paul Chapman).
Dearden, R. F. (1972) Autonomy and Education, in: R. Dearden, P. Hirst & R. Peters (eds)
Education and the Development of Reason ( London, Routledge & Kegan Paul), pp. 5875.
Feinberg, J. (1970) Doing and Deserving (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press).
Feinberg, J. (1986) Harm to Self (New York, Oxford University Press).
Fischer, J. and Ravizza, M. (1998) Responsibility and Control: An essay on moral responsibility
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).
Gauthier, D. (1986) Morals by Agreement (Oxford, Clarendon Press).
Glover, J. (1970) Responsibility (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul).
Haji, I. (1989) The Compliance Problem, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 70, pp. 105121.
Haji, I. (1998) Moral Appraisability. Puzzles, proposals, and perplexities ( New York, Oxford
University Press).
Kane, R. (1996) The Significance of Free Will (New York, Oxford University Press).
Locke, D. (1975) Three Concepts of Free Action: I, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl.
49 pp. 95 112.
Marples, R. (1999) The Aims of Education (London, Routledge).
Mele, A. (1993) History and Personal Autonomy, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 23, pp. 271
80.
Mele, A. (1995) Autonomous Agents (New York, Oxford University Press).
Morris, H. (1976) On Guilt and Innocence (Berkeley, CA, University of California Press).
2006 The Authors
Journal compilation 2006 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia
PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of Porto. Full teacher at University of
Minho, teaches classes of cognition and learning, methodology of investigation, and methodology of construction and validation of assessment instruments. Supervises Master and PhD
programs. President of the Institute of Education. Author of several research projects in the
field of intelligence. Contact: Institute of Education, University of Minho, Campus Gualtar,
4709 Braga, Portugal; leandro@ie.uminho.pt
Master in Educational Psychology from the University of Minho. Research grant holder
working at the Investigation Center of the Institute of Education of the same university. Does
research in the field of intelligence. Contact: Universidade do Minho, Instituto de Educao,
Campus Gualtar, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal; amanda.hr.franco@gmail.com
Critical thinking: Its relevance for education in a shifting society / Almeida y Franco
in order to produce rational knowledge that can direct behavior (Carroll, 2005) and sustain daily decision making and problem solving
(Saiz & Rivas, 2010). This way, it implies a flexible and reflexive attitude, including the analysis, evaluation and correction of ones activity
and progress towards the established goal, as well as the motivation to
pursue that desired goal (Halpern, 1998). Therefore, its relevance to
school learning situations is clear: on the one hand, critical thinking
is a resource that allows the student to adopt an analytical and evaluative attitude towards his/her performance, perfecting the quality of
the learning process; on the other hand, the learning process allows
the gradual improvement of the skills characteristic of critical thinking
(Paul, 2005; Phan, 2010).
The authors suggest that, more than the potential itself, the
decisive element here is truly a proactive and motivated attitude. If
the motivational componentwhich cultivates the application of
theoretical and practical componentsis absent, a strong knowledge
about critical thinking skills and the mastery in their use will prove
to be insufficient (Facione, 2010; Halpern, 1999). Critical thinking
entails the translation of cognitive skills into behavior (Saiz & Rivas,
2010; Sternberg, 1997), which will not happen if deprived of motivation (Facione, 2010). The motivational factoremphasized by some
authors as being the essential feature for the development of skill and
success in school (e. g. Halpern, 1999; Sternberg, 1999)might help
to understand the reason why some students execution quality isnt
compatible with their cognitive potential, assessed, for instance, with
intelligence assessment tests. This explains why some students, despite
having potential, do not perform particularly well, and also why others
less promising but more motivated perform better (Facione, 2010).
At last, critical thinking stands additionally on some level of creativity, which is accountable for the appetence to anticipate possible
results, and also to produce and implement particular alternatives of
action in each situation (Bailin et al., 1999b; Facione, 2010). The
deliberation of arguments that are divergent of ones own or the analysis of an argument accordingly to multiple perspectives are visible in
180
Critical thinking: Its relevance for education in a shifting society / Almeida y Franco
181
Critical thinking: Its relevance for education in a shifting society / Almeida y Franco
Despite the difficulties inherent to its measurement, critical thinking assessment is feasible (Rivas & Saiz, 2010). Ku (2009) presents the
following critical thinking assessment instruments as the most wellknown: Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (Watson & Glaser,
1980); Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking Essay Test (Ennis & Weir, 1985);
Cornell Critical Thinking Test (Ennis, Millman & Tomko, 1985);
California Critical Thinking Skills Test (Facione, 1990); and, Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment Using Everyday Situations (Halpern,
2007). Referring to the latter, it seems to fill a gap in the available critical thinking assessment instruments scenario (Ku, 2009; Rivas & Saiz,
2010). In fact, it grasps both cognitive and motivational components,
thus offering a comprehensive multidimensional view of the construct.
To do so, it makes use of open-answer and multiple-choice questions,
concerning daily problematic situations with which the subjects can
easily relate to (Ku, 2009).
If we take a step back to the definition of critical thinking and recall
its dimensions, authors generally presume that there are three main
aspects composing this construct: knowledge base, motivation and cognitive operations. Regarding the latter facet, usually referred to as critical
thinking skills, which are associated to the strategies applied in order to
attain a goal set a priori, some difficulties are produced when wanting
to try to identify which and how many are these skills. Nevertheless, we
find Halperns (1998) suggestion more adequate, as it includes verbal
reasoning, argument analysis, hypothesis testing, probability consideration, and decision making and problem solving. In the same way,
Facione (2010) resorts to cognitive functions in order to put critical
thinking skills into practice, considering such skills to be interpretation,
analysis and evaluation, inference production, explanation and selfregulation; this enables us to assume the need for particular assessment
exercises that are prone to capture the specificities of these functions.
One of the setbacks of assessing critical thinking appears to be the
outcome of the nature of the construct itself: being this a complex type
of reasoning characteristic of higher-order thinking, it becomes intricate
to carry out a precise measurement resorting to assessment instruments
183
Critical thinking: Its relevance for education in a shifting society / Almeida y Franco
Critical thinking: Its relevance for education in a shifting society / Almeida y Franco
a particular dimension of psychological functioning, it is equally important to analyze both functional and deviant areas. In other words, while
trying to ascertain which skills are needed to become more efficient
in task accomplishment, it is additionally necessary to discover if any
cognitive errors are being made and preventing the fulfillment of ones
full potential. In reality, it seems plausible to conclude that the subject
might even be equipped with the cognitive aptitudes necessary for an
efficient performance but something is stopping him/her from appropriately directing his/her attitude and behavior in order to be successful
in the execution of personal and professional daily activity. Therefore,
by acquiring knowledge about this kind of obstacle, the subject is given
the chance to overcome it (Efklides & Sideridis, 2009).
In an initial phase, this type of thinking requires the subject to
learn the theory underlying critical thinking and its specific concepts,
which will endure the construction of a metacognitive knowledge base
to guide ones activity (Brady, 2008; Carroll, 2005). Data about what
and which are critical thinking skills is acquirednamely, comprehension, argument analysis, hypothesis testing, probability consideration,
decision making and problem solving, besides data about how and
where they should be used (Halpern, 1998; Kuhn, 1999). In fact, critical
thinking is, to some point, distinctive of the surrounding environment,
considering that knowledge and skill are employed with deliberation
and according to the specificities of contextual circumstances (Bailin et
al., 1999a; Brookfield, 1997).
Besides comprising a conceptual understanding in order to emerge,
critical thinking needs to be consolidated through training in the classroom and reinforced with examples of possible everyday situations in
which such skills can be applied (Ennis, 1993; van Gelder, 2005). The
real world must be given as a reference, as well as the decision making
that occurs in face of challenges raised on a daily basis (Allen et al.,
2004; Rivas & Saiz, 2010). Doing so, it is being made explicit how this
type of thinking and resources can become useful and how they should
be applied (Saiz & Rivas, 2010).
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Critical thinking: Its relevance for education in a shifting society / Almeida y Franco
189
Critical thinking: Its relevance for education in a shifting society / Almeida y Franco
vague concept that is put into practice only partially and through significant limitations or difficulties. Likewise, there is a diversity of skills
that are suggested as characterizing critical thinking and the attached
cognitive behaviors, which often result from the divergence of points
of view (Bailin et al., 1999b). There is lacking an in-depth study of
this area: Transformations to the definition and operationalization of
this construct are in need (Phan, 2010; Yanchar et al., 2008), as well as
additional efforts to elaborate assessment instruments that are valid and
sufficiently comprehensive (Ennis, 1993). Moreover, it is vital to build
models that relate critical thinking and learning (styles) (Colucciello,
1999), not only the one occurring in school settings, but also the one
brought up in the labor market and other situations of everyday life
(Phan, 2010).
Other topics are also insufficiently explored. One of them concerns the ideal moment to start the teaching-learning process of critical
thinking skills. Although it is considered that such skills can be precociously widened (Bailin et al., 1999b), still remains to know which
developmental stage or school level is the most appropriate to do so,
where a reasonable degree of education would correspond to maximum
learning. For instance, Ennis (1993) states that critical thinking skills
should be taught since childhood; Halpern (1999), on the other hand,
asserts that these skills can be taught precociously, but more intentionally during higher education.
Another aspect that would benefit of research concerns the promotion of critical thinking skills in the family context, more specifically
the parents role. Accepting the premise that these skills can (and must)
be developed via direct education from the teacher and a proactive attitude towards learning by the student, we can deduct that the parents
must also have a role in this equation. Remains to ascertain if merely as
mediators who help with homework and hence support the skills that
are expected to be developed through the completion of such activities,
or as an active part in the process of developing such skills, stimulating
them deliberately and according to the attainment of specific goals.
191
Even if until now we have observed the impossibility of a conceptualization that is broadly accepted by those who focus on the concept
of critical thinking, it is essential to give continuity to research and to
make efforts towards the development of knowledge in this area. There
is lacking an attempt to build an approach both wider and grounded
in valid assessment efforts, which is able to contain the diversity of
perspectives and characteristics that the myriad of authors associate to
critical thinking, as to make dialogue amongst researchers and between
these and the education system possible. Such an articulation would
be prolific: for the areas advance, for a better quality of the teachinglearning process, for a better adaptation and dynamism in the labor
market, but most of all for a life in society characterized by critical
reflection and dialogue.
References
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Recibido: 2 de febrero de 2011
Aceptado: 15 de marzo de 2011
195
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Faculty of Commerce and Tourism Education, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey; bFaculty of
Education, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey
Recent educational policies, national reports, and voluminous literature stress
that critical thinking (CT) is an essential skill in any stage of schooling for producing critical thinkers and ensuring better learning. The importance of teaching
CT has been raised in teacher education programmes because students are supposed to teach this skill in schools in the future. This study therefore assesses
the effects of a CT-based pedagogical course on student teachers content
knowledge and CT disposition. A pre-testpost-test experimental study was carried out in a vocational pre-service teacher education programme in Turkey.
Although the students who were exposed to CT-based instruction showed better
progress in both academic achievement and CT disposition than in traditional
instruction, this result was not statistically signicant according to the Mixed
Factorial ANOVA and ANCOVA results.
Keywords: critical thinking; critical thinking-based instruction; critical thinking
disposition; academic achievement; teacher education
Theoretical background
Critical thinking (CT)-based instruction, i.e. structuring a course by means of activities and strategies fostering CT, has been lauded for improving both CT skills and
effective learning. It is acknowledged that meaningful learning can be attained by
involving thinking skills in all school-level subjects (Zohar and Dori 2003) because
this approach allows students to use their skills in a meaningful context and helps
them to learn the subject matter in depth and to apply it in out-of-school settings
(Johnson 2000; Beyer 1988). Indeed, improving student thinking is important not
only for mastering given subject matter but also for coping with the challenging
demands of todays world issues (Burden 1998; Halpern 1999; McTighe and Schollenberger 1991). For this reason, teaching thinking skills has been the subject of
research, articles, and books for years (e.g. Beyer 1988; Costa 1991; Eggen and
Kauchak 2001; McGregor 2007; Moseley et al. 2005; Paul et al. 1989).
Although there are various thinking skills and strategies that can be used to structure the teaching and learning process of any subject matter, course, or programme,
CT is especially prominent because it is a comprehensive and sophisticated higherorder thinking skill. Unfortunately, on account of being complex and broad, CT is
*Corresponding author. Email: byucel@gazi.edu.tr
ISSN 0261-9768 print/ISSN 1469-5928 online
2012 Association for Teacher Education in Europe
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2011.634902
http://www.tandfonline.com
40
41
42
Method
Study context
This study was carried out in a vocational pre-service teacher education programme
at a public university in Turkey. The duration of the vocational teacher education
programmes in Turkey is four years and students are required to pass teacher
education courses, vocational subject courses, and common courses (e.g. electives,
43
history) during the programme. In this study, the Development and Learning course,
also known as educational psychology or human development in teacher education
programmes around the world, was redesigned to accommodate CT-based instruction. This three-hour course taught in the second year aims at equipping student
teachers with skills, knowledge, and attitudes in the context of child development
and learning.
Before implementation of the redesigned course, all students registered for it in
the autumn semester of the 200607 academic year were divided into four groups:
two treatment and two control groups and a prepost quasi-experimental design test
was applied. The researcher was the instructor of the course for all groups.
Procedure
In the control groups, the existing instructional methods used by the instructor for
three years were applied and henceforth, this instruction in the control groups will
be expressed as traditional instruction. Although lecturing was the basic teaching
method, the questioning technique was also used from time to time. A follow-up
test was given at the end of each session. Moreover, in the last eight weeks, the students were asked to perform group drama about learning theories in order to demonstrate how learning theories appear in social and educational contexts.
In the experimental group, the course was designed and implemented according
to the CT-based instruction. Before designing the course, a needs assessment study
was carried out in the 200506 academic year with 321 sophomore, junior, and
senior students who had already taken this course, 28 graduates, the vice-chair of
the department, an instructor of teacher education courses, and a professor experienced in teacher education. The purpose of this need analysis was to ascertain needs
and preferences in relation to the course. A needs assessment questionnaire was
applied to students and graduates and interviews were conducted with the vice-chair
of the department, the instructor, and the professor. They were asked about students accomplishment in attaining course objectives, the importance and necessity
of course content, the effectiveness of teaching-learning activities/strategies for
learning and thinking skills and their frequency of usage in the course, the effectiveness of assessment techniques and their preferences about activities/strategies
and the assessment techniques that should be used in this course for effective learning. In brief, the results of individual interviews revealed the need for teaching
practice to put theory into practice and thought-provoking learning environments.
Data gathered from the questionnaires for undergraduates and graduates elicited that
they had problems in attaining the course objectives although they generally considered these objectives important to attain. The ndings also highlighted that this
problem might have been arisen from inadequacy and the ineffectiveness of the
teaching-learning process of the course because according to the responses, the
activities specied as effective for learning and improving thinking skills had been
never, rarely, or only occasionally implemented on the course. For effective instruction, the students and graduates preferred active learning activities (i.e., drama, discussion, case studies, group work), thinking skill based activities, more interaction
and participation in the classroom. Briey, the results addressed the instructional
problems and preferences. It was supposed that CT-based instruction would remedy
these problems because it is considered important for effective instruction, teacher
education and even for contemporary life. Thus, the course was redesigned in
44
accordance with CT-based instruction by taking the abovementioned needs assessment results and CT literature into consideration.
The Inductive Model of Eggen and Kauchak (2001) for teaching thinking skills
was applied. The 35 CT strategies dened by Paul et al. (1989) were integrated into
the course content (Appendix 1). For each course topic, objectives and CT strategies
were determined, as shown in Table 1. Each topic was taught through tasks, activities, and questions encouraging the determined CT skills that were a means leading
to the intended objectives. Before tasks and activities, the application of the determined CT skills was introduced briey by the instructor. The instruction model followed for 14 weeks had ve phases:
(1) Lesson introduction. Students were notied about the objectives and CT
strategies, which would be applied in the lesson, and a brief overview of the
topic was presented. Then, tasks that they were expected to master through
given examples such as case studies, role playing, and articles were given
and what they were supposed to do was explained. How the CT strategies
would be applied was demonstrated by the instructor.
(2) The open-ended phase. By taking the CT strategies of Paul et al. (1989) into
account and using Socratic questioning, students were asked to analyse and
evaluate cases, to solve the problems given in the examples, to clarify and
analyse the meanings of concepts, to compare and contrast situations, to note
similarities and differences, to identify students and teachers behaviours
related to development stages and related to learning approaches/theories,
etc.
(3) The convergent phase. Students were stimulated to nd denitions of the
concepts, principles or characteristics of development and learning theories,
and the differences, similarities, strengths and weaknesses of the theories,
without wandering from the topic.
Table 1. An example of the instructional objectives and the CT strategies for Kohlbergs
theory of moral development topic.
Instructional objectives
The students will be able to
know moral development processes according to Kohlbergs theory
understand Kohlbergs theory of moral development
follow students moral development process
understand individual differences among students in terms of moral development
help students moral development
prepare educational environment towards improving students moral development level
Critical thinking strategies
S-11 Comparing analogous situations: transferring insights to new contexts
S-12 Developing ones perspective: creating or exploring beliefs, arguments, or theories
S-20 Analysing or evaluating actions or policies
S.24 Practicing Socratic discussion: clarifying and questioning beliefs, theories, or
perspective
S-28 Comparing and contrasting ideals with actual practice
S-29 Noting signicant similarities and differences
S-32 Making plausible inferences, predictions, or interpretations
S-35 Exploring implications and consequences
45
46
Table 2. A brief lesson example in the treatment and control groups for the Kohlbergs
theory of moral development topic.
A lesson example in treatment groups
Lesson introduction: The students were informed about the instructional objectives and
CT strategies regarding the topic. Information about what they would do in the lesson was
given. Then, the instructor gave brief information about Kohlberg and his study.
The open-ended phase. A case study, which was a story of a student in an exam, was
read. In the story, there was a student who had to work all night before exam day and
thus could not prepare properly for the exam. During the examination, the most
hardworking student in the class was seated in front of him and he could see her paper.
After reading this story, 5 volunteer students were asked to do improvisation of the story.
After their role play, the discussion question Should he cheat or not? Why? was asked to
the class and let them to think about this question. The instructor explained how to apply
the S-20, S-24, S-32 CT strategies while discussing this question and requested students
to use these strategies. Then another case was explained (Heinzs story by Kohlberg) and
the question Should he steal the medicine for the sake of his wifes life? Why or why
not? was asked. The responses were discussed (S-20, S-24, S-32). Regarding Kohlbergs
theory of moral development, the following questions were also asked to encourage
developing ones perspective: creating or exploring beliefs, arguments, or theories (S-12)
strategy: What are the differences among the responses; what are the moral beliefs and
values behind these responses; how can we classify these beliefs? etc.
The convergent phase. Students were stimulated to nd the characteristics and differences
of moral development in the stages of Kohlbergs theory through the discussions and
questions in the previous phase (S-12, S-29). Then, two cases and possible moral
responses were given and grouped according to moral development stages together with
students in the class (S-11).
Closure. In this phase, the characteristics, differences, strengths and weaknesses of
Kohlbergs theory were stated briey. The students were asked to criticise the theory in
terms of ideal and actual practice (S-28). Then, the students were asked to discuss the
educational implications of Kohlbergs theory of moral development to stimulate the
exploring implications and consequences (S-35) strategy.
The application phase. Finally, in order to apply what was learned, students were divided
into groups and two case studies (What should Dilara do? and What should Can do?)
were given to the groups. The groups were asked to select one of the cases and analyse it
in terms of moral development and ll out the graphic organiser for decision making that
was given by the instructor. In this graphic organiser, students were asked to make
possible decisions, to evaluate alternatives and implications, and to explain the reasons
lying behind their responses. The purpose was to encourage comparing analogous
situations: transferring insights to new contexts (S-11), analysing or evaluating actions or
policies (S-20) and exploring implications and consequences (S-35) strategies.
A lesson example in control groups
The students were informed about the instructional objectives regarding moral
development, and then Kohlberg and his study were explained. Heinzs case was
presented. The question what would you do if you were Heinz and why? was asked to
students. After that, the moral development stages were introduced by the instructor. The
instructor explained different cases and gave examples for each stage. By asking the
students for the characteristics of each stage, the instructor summarised the topic. At the
end of the lesson, a follow-up test was given. After they completed the test, the answers
were given and students were asked to check their own responses. The instructor
completed the lesson by explaining the points that were misunderstood or were not
understood at all.
Note. Each of the CT strategies that were implemented during the lesson was elucidated by the
instructor prior to the given tasks.
47
Results
Academic achievement of the students
In the study, a 2 (groups: treatment and control) X 3 (testing time: pre-test, posttest, and retention test) mixed factorial ANCOVA was used to test the effect of the
type of instruction on the students academic achievement when controlling CGPA.
Group status (treatment vs control) was a between-subjects factor and the time of
the repeated achievement tests (pre-test, pos-test and retention test) was a withinsubjects repeated factor. The descriptive statistics in relation to the test scores that
entered the analysis are presented in Table 3.
Table 3. Means and standard deviations of the achievement pre-test, post-test, and retention
test scores.
Time
Groups
Pre-test
Treatment
Control
Total
Treatment
Control
Total
Treatment
Control
Total
Post-test
Retention test
SD
13.04
13.86
13.48
21.49
22.28
21.92
17.64
17.52
17.57
3.29
2.83
3.07
4.39
4.79
4.61
3.85
4.41
4.14
55
65
120
55
65
120
55
65
120
48
Table 4. Mixed factorial ANCOVA results for the main and interaction effects of time,
groups and CGPA on the students achievement.
df
Partial g2
Within-subjects effects
Time
Time X CGPA
Time X groups
Error
1.85a
1.85a
1.85a
216.86 a
7.93
20.51
2.09
.00
.00
.13
.06
.15
.02
Between-subjects effects
CGPA
Groups
Error
1
1
117
75.61
.02
.00
.89
.39
.00
Source
Notes. a According to the test of sphericity, the assumption of sphericity was violated (Mauchlys W =
.92, df = 2, p = .01). Therefore, Greenhouse and Geisser corrections for F-ratio were used.
The results showed that the mean of all students test scores in the study signicantly differed according to the testing time, F(1.85, 216.86) = 7.93, p < 0.05
(Table 4). The effect size of 0.06 was at medium level. This result did not change
even when the students CGPA scores were controlled, F(1.85, 216.86) = 20.51, p <
0.05, partial g2= 0.15. The contrast test results showed, however, that there was only
a signicant difference between pre-test and post-test mean scores (F[1, 117] = 24.18,
p< 0.05, partial g2 = 0.17), but not between post-test and retention test mean scores
when CGPA was controlled. These results showed that whichever instruction the students were exposed to, their mean achievement level signicantly increased from pretest to post-test, but the loss of knowledge from post-test to retention test was not signicant when the effect of CGPA on the test scores was taken into account.
Concerning group differences, rstly it was tested whether there was a signicant
difference between traditional instruction and CT-based instruction in terms of the
students mean achievement score in all tests after controlling their CGPA. According
to the mixed factorial ANCOVA results, the average performance of the students in
the treatment group in all tests was not signicantly different from that of the students
in the control group, after controlling the effect of CGPA scores (Table 4). Next, in
order to ascertain the signicance of group differences at each test, the interaction
effect between time and groups was tested because the presence of this effect would
indicate the impact of CT-based instruction on the students scores in each test in
comparison with traditional instruction. The results showed that there was no signicant interaction effect. This result implied that the students in both groups performed
similarly in each test. In short, CT-based instruction did not cause signicant difference to the students achievement and retention compared with traditional instruction
even though the students in the treatment groups showed more progress from pre-test
to post-test and had higher mean score on retention test as shown in Figure 1.
Critical thinking dispositions of the students
In order to test whether the course instruction improved the CT dispositions of the
students, a 2 (groups: treatment and control) X 2 (testing time: pre-test and
post-test) mixed factorial ANOVA was used. The descriptive statistics regarding the
CCTDI-T scores that entered the analysis are presented in Table 5.
49
21,91
22
21,93
20
18,06
Groups
18
treatment
control
17,17
16
14
13,8
13,11
12
Pretest
Posttest
Retention Test
Figure 1. Estimated marginal mean scores in the achievement pre-test, post-test, and
retention test.
The results showed that for the students in both groups there was a signicant
difference from pre-test (Mestimated marginal = 227.12) to post-test (Mestimated marginal =
231.12), F(1, 137) = 6.53, p < 0.05 (Table 6). This signied that the tendency of
all students to use CT skills signicantly increased, on average, within a term but
with a small effect size (partial g2= 0.05). Notwithstanding this result, the pre-test
and post-test mean scores (lower than 240) in both groups showed that the CT disposition of the students was, on average, still low in accordance with the criteria
given by Kkdemir (2003): an adapted CCTDI-T score of less than 240 means low
disposition and a score higher than 300 means high disposition.
The results also revealed that the mean of the CCTDI-T pre-test and post-test
scores did not signicantly differ between groups (Table 6). In other words, there
was no signicant difference in the effect of CT-based instruction on the CT disposition of the students compared with traditional instruction. It can be inferred from
Table 5. Means and standard deviations of the CCTDI-T pre-test and post-test scores.
Pre-test
Post-test
Treatment
Control
Total
Treatment
Control
Total
SD
225.13
229.12
226.88
230.05
232.20
231.00
20.25
18.44
19.51
19.08
21.31
20.04
78
61
139
78
61
139
50
Table 6. Mixed factorial ANOVA results for the main and interaction effects of time and
groups on the CT disposition of the students.
Source
Within-subjects effects
Time
Time X groups
Error
Between-subjects effects
Groups
Error
df
Partial g2
1
1
137
6.53
.35
.01
.56
.05
.00
1
137
1.05
.31
.01
this result that the students in both groups, on average, showed a similar tendency
to use CT skills.
Finally, the signicance of progress from pre-test to post-test was compared
between groups. As can be seen from Figure 2, despite being smaller, progress from
pre-test to post-test was higher for the treatment groups when compared with that
for the control groups, but this did not cause any signicant difference between
groups. For this reason, it can be stated that CT-based instruction did not result in
any remarkable change in the students disposition from pre-test to post-test in comparison with traditional instruction.
234,00
232,20
232,00
230,05
230,00
Groups
treatment
control
229,12
228,00
226,00
225,13
224,00
Pretest
Posttest
Time
Figure 2. Estimated marginal mean scores in the CCTDI-T pre-test and post-test.
51
Discussion
The main purpose of this study was to explore whether CT-based instruction would
not only stimulate CT but also provide effective learning better than traditional
instruction. It was anticipated that as a result of being involved in active learning
and activities provoking critical thinking, interacting with peers and the instructor at
an intellectual level, students would gain content knowledge in a more meaningful
way and their disposition to think critically would increase.
And yet, in relation to the students subject knowledge in terms of learning
and retention, tests revealed that CT-based instruction affected neither content
acquisition nor retention differently from traditional instruction. The underlying
reason for the similar performance of the groups might be the use of activities
enhancing learning in both groups, as observed in Reed and Kromreys (2001)
study in which explicit teaching of Pauls CT model in a US history course
resulted in no difference between treatment and control groups in terms of content knowledge. They considered that this result derived from the use of activities
facilitating learning in both groups. This view is worth taking into account in the
current study as well. Although a variety of active learning strategies cultivating
CT skills were used in the treatment groups, drama and follow-up tests that are
deemed as effective tools for learning and retention were used in the control
groups. It is claimed that drama is of value in understanding and retaining
knowledge, placing learning in meaningful contexts, engaging in realistic problems, and developing thinking skills and metacognition (Andersen 2002; Henry
2000). Regarding weekly follow-up tests, Myers and Myers (2007) found that the
academic achievement of undergraduate students taking bi-weekly exams was
higher than that of the students taking hour-long mid-term exams. Huba and
Freed (2000) allege that the use of frequent tests allows communication between
teacher and students so that students can gain feedback about their performance
and adjust their study habits accordingly. In short, the impact of drama and follow-up tests on the enhancement of learning might have overshadowed the
impact of CT-based instruction on content acquisition.
On the one hand, CT-based instruction is advocated for enhancing subject
learning in addition to promoting CT skills; on the other hand, whether or not
teaching CT skills in the course content limits the time required for gaining content knowledge has been argued and investigated (Adey 1991; Reed and Kromrey
2001; Solon 2007). It is stated that as tasks or activities regarding thinking skills
take time, less time is left for covering course content in treatment groups.
Therefore, performing similarly in the achievement test in spite of having less
time for content is interpreted as evidence showing that incorporating thinking
skills into subject matter does not hinder content learning. From this perspective
it can be concluded that CT-based instruction in the Development and Learning
course did not cause any sacrice in terms of content learning in comparison
with traditional instruction.
In a review study by Lohman (1986) about the negative or mathemathanic
effects of interventions for teaching thinking skills, he draws attention to the question of whether previously acquired cognitive strategies assist or interfere with
attempts to acquire new ways of thinking and learning. Concerning the current
study, although the students were actively involved in the given tasks, they may not
have adapted to CT-based instruction well and they may have continued to use their
52
previous learning styles. Thus, they could have performed similarly to those in the
control groups. Whereas, if the instruction had been executed for longer than a
semester, the students might have adapted to the instruction as a result of more
practice and its impact on learning might have been observed because it is stated
that with continuous practice for a longer period of time and with hard study,
students will show higher achievement and goals will be met (Kirkwood 2000;
Lohman 1986).
This study also aimed to stimulate the students CT disposition in the treatment
groups because if students are not inclined to use CT skills, teaching these skills
will be pointless (Halpern 1999). The CCTDI-T results showed that the students
disposition toward CT in both groups increased signicantly over a semester, but
the progress in the treatment groups was not different from the control groups as
regards the mean scores in the pre-test and post-test. Similarly, Reed and Kromrey
(2001) did not nd any difference in the CCTDI scores between treatment and control groups as a result of explicit teaching of CT. Nevertheless, they did not observe
signicant progress between the CCTDI pre- and post-test mean scores of the students in the treatment group, either. CT skill is a complex skill that cannot be
gained quickly so it entails time, effort, and practice (Van Gelder 2005). For this
reason, one academic semester would not have been adequate for the students to
attain CT skills and dispositions so as to create a signicant difference between the
two groups.
Despite the improvement of the students CT disposition in both groups from
pre-test to post-test, it should be noted that the CCTDI-T mean score of the students
was still low (less than 240) according to the criteria given by Kkdemir (2003).
Low disposition among the students might stem from the prole of students in the
faculty. From the situated-cognition perspective that denes thinking skills as social
practices exercised and shared within a community, a persons disposition is shaped
by his/her beliefs and the values of which he/she is convinced in a community; thus
the characteristics of culture and context, such as sensitivity toward thinking critically and the power of social practice on the development and application of CT,
have been stressed (Kuhn 1999; Pithers and Soden 2000). Accordingly, if CT has
not been encouraged in the communities where students live, expecting signicant
development in students thinking skills may not be reasonable. This perspective,
however, entails further research regarding students who enter universities with an
underdeveloped ability to think critically.
In conclusion, this study showed that the integration of CT skills into a pedagogical course did not render student teachers content knowledge and CT dispositions different from those acquired in traditional instruction. However, it may
offer several implications for practice and research. Firstly, it is accepted that
improvements in a CT-based learning environment require more time and practice. Therefore, CT-based instruction should not be specic to any one course,
but should be incorporated in other teacher education courses and subject courses
as a way of learning not opposed to, but as well as, other student-centred
instructional methods and as a way of promoting higher order cognitive processes
in classrooms. Opportunities for practising thinking skills should be given in a
variety of educational settings continuously, consistently, and for a longer period
of time. Additionally, if teaching CT can be extended in terms of time and
courses, and if thinking skills can be presented in a hierarchical way from basic
to higher-order skills, students may become more familiar with CT skills and
53
become used to applying these skills effectively in learning over the course of
time. In this way, the actual impact of endeavours to enhance the learning and
development of CT and CT disposition can be observed. Next, the low level of
CT disposition among the students in the study might derive from a previous
educational life that did not support thinking. This result shows that not only
educational policies but also actual practices should reect belief in the importance of developing learners CT at all levels of schooling, because only in this
way can the CT levels of students entering higher education institutions be
raised. Lastly, the results demonstrated that drama and weekly follow-up tests in
the traditional classroom were effective means for content acquisition and therefore their use as teaching and learning tools in any course can also be recommended. In terms of the implications for research, further research might focus
on the time or place effects of the CT-based instruction implemented over a
longer period of time and in different educational settings, disciplines, subjects or
courses on learning and CT skills, because in this study this instruction was
implemented only in a course in a vocational teacher education faculty. Moreover, whether previously acquired cognitive strategies assist or interfere with
using newly taught skills in learning might be investigated. Another issue that is
open to question for further research might be the impact of culture or previous
educational life on the development of CT skills and dispositions. In this study,
CGPA was used as a covariate in order to provide equivalence between groups
in terms of academic achievement. In future studies, demographic and cultural
characteristics and learning styles/strategies can be controlled as well. Finally, the
rst author was the instructor of the course in both treatment and control groups
in this study. The purpose was to eliminate the potential impact of instructors
different teaching styles. However, one might wonder whether being taught by
the same instructor was the cause of the lack of signicant differences between
the treatment and control groups in this study. For this reason, in a further study
CT-based instruction might be implemented in similar groups for the same course
by different instructors, and instructor effects might be compared.
Acknowledgements
This paper is a part of the rst authors dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of
Social Sciences of Middle East Technical University (METU), Turkey, in partial fullment
of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of
Educational Sciences and carried out under the second authors supervisor. She wishes to
thank her advisor Associate Professor Dr Ahmet Ok and her committee members: Associate
Professor Dr Gary M. Grossman from Arizona State University, Professor Dr Ali Yldrm,
Professor Dr Soner Yldrm, and Assistant Professor Dr Yesim C
apa Aydn from METU for
their contributions.
Notes on contributors
Banu Ycel Toy is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Commerce and Tourism
Education in Gazi University, Turkey. Her research focuses on teacher education, curriculum
evaluation, and critical thinking. She is also interested in research methodology.
Ahmet Ok is an associate professor at the Department of Educational Sciences in Middle
East Technical University, Turkey. He is specialised in teacher education, teacher quality,
quality standards and accreditation, curriculum evaluation and environmental education. His
recent projects focus on environmental education and learning environment quality.
54
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56
Appendix 1
Strategy list: 35 dimensions of critical thought
S.1.
S.2.
S.3.
S.4.
S.5.
S.6.
S.7.
S.8.
S.9.
Affective Strategies
Thinking independently
Developing insight into egocentricity or sociocentricity
Exercising fair-mindedness
Exploring thoughts underlying feelings and feelings underlying thoughts
Developing intellectual humility and suspending judgment
Developing intellectual courage
Developing intellectual good faith or integrity
Developing intellectual perseverance
Developing condence in reason
Copyright of European Journal of Teacher Education is the property of Routledge and its content may not be
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ABPPLearningandTeachingWorkingPaper
PUBLISHERBPPUNIVERSITYCOLLEGE
PLACEOFPUBLICATIONLONDON
BPP2013
ISBN9781445354569
ReflectivePractice:anonnegotiablerequirementforan
effectiveeducator
SimonPaulAtkinson
BPPUniversityCollege
JohnIrving
BPPUniversityCollege
Thispaperidentifiestheverypersonalcharacteristicsofreflectivepracticeandthe
importanceofemotioninthatprocess.Itexploresthenatureofreflectionserved
bysolitarydeliberationandengagementincommunitiesofpracticeandidentifies
theindividualattributesofreflectionasdefinedbySchnandBrookfield
(Brookfield,1995;Schn,1986).Finally,thispaperprovidesareviewofseveral
reflectivemodelsandsuggeststhatpersonaltransformationandreflectivepractice
mustformthebasisforeffectiveteaching.
Itisimpossibletobecome,andcontinuetobe,aneffectiveteacherwithoutapersonalcommitment
toreflectivepractice.Theverynotionofreflectionisacontestedone;reflectionhasbecomea
desirablecommodityandanecessaryskill;forothersitisasymbolofprofundity.Butwhilst
reflectionhasbeengivenmanydifferentmeanings,usingthesemeaningshasspawnedmultiple
interpretations.Shouldwebecautiousinaddressingthequestionofreflectionandcognisantofthe
thingswedon'tknoworistheabilitytoreflectinnate?Canteacherssupportstudentstoreflector
doesitjustneedtime?Indeed,howdoweknowwhenreflectionoccurs?Howdoweguide
reflection,focusit,harnessitandreuseit?Dopeoplereflectaboutthingsinthesameway?Is
reflectionculturallydependent?
Inthispaperwewillnotattempttoanswerallofthesequestions,insteadseekingtoaddress
perhapsamoremodestgoalofofferingalimitedcontextualdefinitionofreflectioninthecontextof
professionalpracticeandsuggestinghowfacultycanbenefitfromengagementwithit.Wedosoin
thehopethatreaderswill,however,seektoanswertheveryrelevantandpressingquestionsabove
forthemselveswithinthesphereoftheirownpractice.
Intheclosingyearsofthenineteenthcentury,JohnDeweyadvocatedthatthelearnershouldbe
activelyinvolvedinidentifyingproblems,contemplatingsolutions,actinguponthemandanalysing
theprocess.ForDewey,thereflectiononthesolutionprocessmeantbeingactivelyinvolvedin
problemsolving,learningwasaboutsolvingtheproblemorreturningtothereflectiveprocesswitha
viewtosolvingtheproblem(Dewey,1896).Thisfoundationaldefinitionofreflectionisstilluseful
today;noviceandexperiencedfacultyalikeareengagedinaconstantprocessofproblemsolving,
withthatproblemsolvingrevolvingaroundtheirownpractice.Thisisnottosuggestthateach
individual'spracticeisaproblem,butratherthattheprocessofenhancementisinherentlyoneof
identifyinganaspectofpracticewarrantingimprovementandthearticulationofthataspectof
practiceasaproblemtobesolved.Thereflectivepractitionercanbeexpectedtoseetheirpractice
intermsofthisprocessandtodosoinatransparent,selfevidentandselfawareway.
Thereflectiveprocess,anactofselfdeliberationinordertomakesenseofpractice,involvestheuse
ofpreviousexperienceandcontextualawareness.Thismeansboththedevelopmentofthe
mechanismforrecordingorrememberingexperience,ofvaluingitasaccumulationofreflective
assetsanddevelopingtheaffectiveskillstomatchandmarrythisrepertoiretothecontemporary
situation.
Thisdeliberativestageofthereflectiveprocessneednotbesolitary.WhilstDonaldSchons
influentialworkhasfocusedprimarilyontheindividual,heindicatesalsothepotentialvalueofthe
expertview(Schon,1986).Reflectioncanbeseenasafoundationalskillenablingfacultyto
articulatepersonalphilosophyofteachingwhichcanbeusedasthebasisforone'sown
developmentandanunderstandingofothersbeliefsystems(colleaguesandstudents).Reflection
canalsoserveasabenchmarktomeasureandobserveothers'professionalpractices,asafixed
pointaroundwhichanindividualcanrelatetotheethicalunderstandingofteaching.Theintricacies
ofthesedeliberativestagesarealsoaddressedinBrookfield'sfourcriticallenses,describedbelow
(Brookfield,1995).
ItisperhapsbecausetheconceptofreflectionremainscontestedthattheUnitedKingdom
ProfessionalStandardsFramework(UKPSF)doesnotmakeovertreferencetoreflection.Insteadits
ProfessionalValuesespousetheuseofevidenceinformedapproachesanditdescribestheneedto
acknowledgethebroadcontextsinwhichprofessionalpracticeoccurs.Itsareasofactivitydescribe
theneedtodevelopandengageinmultifacetedcontinuingprofessionaldevelopment.Itscore
knowledgeincludesawarenessofappropriatemethods,andmethodsforevaluatingeffectiveness
aswellasthetermawareness.ThewordreflectiondoesnotappearanywhereintheUKPSF
(HigherEducationAcademy,2011).
Howevernuancedourconceptofreflectionis,thereisnodoubtthattheobjectiveofthereflective
practitioneristobeabletoobjectivelyview,toevaluateandtoactononesownpracticebasedon
previousexperienceanddeliberativeactions.Ourcontentionisthatinordertobeaneffective
practitioner,onemustbeareflectivepractitioner.
APERSONALLANDSCAPEFORREFLECTION:EMOTIONSANDCONTEXT
Muchoftheliteratureonreflectionsuggeststhattheindividualissomehowneutral,autonomous
andalreadyselfaware.Consequently,reflectionmightbeseenasagenericskillapplicabletomany
differentcontexts.However,individualsdonotoperateoutsideofadiscerniblecontextandthe
sociallymediatedandsociallysituatednatureofallhumanactivitysuggeststhatawarenessof
contextisessentialtoanawarenessofself.
Thedifferencebetweenbeingabletoperformareflectiveact,assimpleasrecallinganeventand
suggestinghowfutureactionmaydiffer,andengagingorenactinginreflectionasaprocess,is
worthyofattention.Emotionsplayavitalpartinthedevelopmentoffaculty,theirawarenessofself
andtheirabilitytotranslatethepurposeoflearningtothecontextoflearning.Facultybringinto
theirclassroomsnotonlytheemotionalstateofanygivendaybutalsoarepertoireofemotion
derivedfromboththeirownformaleducationalhistory,howeverdistant,andtheiremotional
relationshipstostudents,pastandpresent.Understandingtherelationshipbetweenpersonal
emotions,theirrelationshiptobeliefsystems,assumptionsandattitudes,andtheprofessionaland
culturalcontextinwhichteachingistakingplaceisoftentakenforgranted,wheninfactitisboth
complexandcritical.
Qualityassurancesystemsoftenpaylittleheedtotheaffectivedimensionsofteachingandyetmost
practitionersintheirpersonalreflectionsfinditdifficulttodisentangletheheadfromtheheart.
Simplybecausetheemotionalstateisnotmeasuredinanyevaluationofalearningexperienceby
studentsdoesnotmakeanunderstandingofitanylessimportant.Indeed,theemotionalstateis
notanuncommonfeatureinpeerobservationofteaching,althoughoftendescribedinrestrained
emotionaltermsasbefitsourculturallimitations,butnonethelessaddressingissuessuchas
confidence,empathy,engagementandusingtermssuchasfriendly,supportiveandcaring,allof
whicharedescriptionsofemotionalstates.
Whereasteachingmightbeperceivedbymanyeducationalmanagersasthedevelopmentand
deploymentofskills,mostfacultyregardteachingasapersonal,emotionalactandfrequentlycite
issuesofcare,relationships,andevenconceptsofsocialjustice.Ineducationfortheprofessions
thereisabroaderemotionalcontextinwhichfacultyperceivethemselvesasresponsiblefor
nurturingentiregenerationsoffutureprofessionals.Thereisfrequentlyatensionbetweena
managerialdefinitionofteachingqualityfocusedaroundstandardsandinstructionaltechniqueand
anemotionaldefinitionofteachingdominatedbyconceptsofnurturingandcare.
Aprofessionalisabletoovercomethisfalsedichotomyandtobringtogetherthepersonalaffective
conditionandthecontextuallimitationswhichmightbeimposed.Becomingareflectivepractitioner
isnotentirelyaboutanawarenessofone'spersonalemotionalstateintheclassroombutratheran
awarenessofreflection,deliberationandactionwithinaculturalandinstitutionalcontext.Carol
RodgersoutlinesDeweysnotionofreflectionasacomplex,rigorous,intellectualandemotional
enterpriseinwhichopenmindedness,personalresponsibilityandwholeheartednessshouldbe
present(Rodgers,2002,p.844).Schnalsoadvocatesanopennesstoemotionssuchassurprise,
puzzlement,orconfusion(Schn,1986,p.86).
Therelationshipsbetweenstudentsandteachersareclearlycriticalbothfortheprofessionalwell
beingoftheteacherandthelearningefficacyoftheclassroom.Positiverelationshipsbetween
studentsandteachersoftencentreonteachersnotionsoffeelingcomfortable,ofbeingafriend
andofbeingpersonallyavailable.Managingthoseemotionalrelationshipscanbecomedifficult
whenstudentsbringfacultyintopersonalsituationsinwhichtheybecomeemotionallyengagedbut
overwhichtheyhavenocontrol(Lev,Kolassa&Bakken,2010).
PeterKugelidentifiedtwodistinctphasesinanoviceteachersdevelopmentasaneffective
practitioner,fromanemphasisonteachingtoanemphasisonlearning(Kugel,1993).Theemphasis
onlearningitselfsubdividesintothreestages,fromafocusonself,toafocusonsubjectandfinally
afocusonthestudent.Onlyoncethepractitionerhasachievedthisfocusonthestudentscanthey
moveintothesecondphasewithanemphasisonlearning.Heretoo,Kugelsuggestsathreestep
progressionwiththestudentasreceptivetotheteacher,thestudentasanactiveparticipantintheir
learningandfinallythestudentsasanindependentlearner.
Movingbeyondoneself,beyondthefocusonteaching,canbeasignificantchallenge.Anaffective
concernformanyteachersistheirperceptionthattheteachingthattheyarerequiredtosupportis
lessthanmeaningful.Teachersbeliefaboutthemeaningfulnatureofteachinghasaprofound
effectontheirpractice;teacherswhofindnotetakingdullmaymakeeveryefforttoavoiditintheir
practicetothedetrimentofthosestudentswhofindthisausefulformoflearningsupport.
Conversely,ateachermayreplicatetheirownteachingexperiencetothedetrimentofthosewith
alternativelearningpreferences(Riding,2005).
Anotherimportantaffectivedimensionisthedesireonthepartofmanyteacherstomakea
personalimpact.Theindividualmayhavebothadmirableintentandprofoundconviction,butan
awarenessofthemotivationforwishingtomakeapersonalimpactisoftenabsent.Yetthedesireto
affectothers,toimpactonotherslivesinprofoundways,isnotonetobetakenlightly.Many
teacherssetveryhighexpectationsofthemselvesandareintolerantofcolleagueswhoappeartodo
lessthanthem.
Thereisalsoaninterestingrelationshipbetweenprofessionalselfawarenessandconfidence.The
practitionerabletodrawonarepertoireofexperienceandactaccordinglyhasaconfidencethat
manynovicesdonot,notbecausetheirtechnicalskillsarenecessarilygreaterbutbecausetheyhave
selfassuranceintheirabilitytorespondtotheunforeseen.
REFLECTIVEPRACTITIONERSANDCOMMUNITIESOFPRACTICE
ThereareanumberoftermsusedtodescribecollegialsupportinthecontextoftheUniversity,from
thetermcollegialitytothepopularconceptofcommunitiesofpracticeandthenotionof
intellectualneighbours.Developingprofessionalcontextsthatblendtheeducationalandthe
externalprofessionalvaluesandcultureisparticularlydifficult.
Situatedlearningemphasizestherelationshipbetweenthesocialcontextoflearningandthe
subjectivityoflearningitself(Lave&Wenger,1991).Situatednesshasbecomesynonymouswith
notionsofauthenticity,howeverwemaychoosetoquestionthisrelationship.Situatednesssuggests
thatanyactivity,suchasreflection,existswithinasocialcontextandmakesuseofsociallymediated
toolsandpracticesthatexistwithinthatcontext.Personalreflectionisnolesspersonalforbeing
situatedwithintheprofessionalcontext.Bydefinition,professionalreflectionisthatwhichtakes
placewithinadefinedprofessionalcontext.Itis,therefore,thenatureofthisprofessionalcontext
thatrequiressomeattention.Atitsmostbasicitmightbeseenasonesplaceofwork,ones
immediatecolleaguesandthisyearsassignedcohorts.
Itisalsouseful,webelieve,toconsiderotherdefinitionsofthebroadersocialcontextthatmight
informourownpersonalappreciationofthebreadthanddepthoftheprofessionalcontextinwhich
wereflect.EtienneWengerdescribesthecommunitiesofpracticeinwhichtheprofessionalself
develops(Wenger,1999),BrunoLatourexplorestheconceptoftheactornetwork,inwhichthe
individualpractitionerisanintegratedbutnotwhollyautonomousactor(Latour,2005)andYrj
Engestrmproposescomplexinterrelatedactivitysystemsinwhichthereisaconstantdialogue
betweenmyriadparties(Engestrom,Miettinen,&Punamaki,1999).Morerecently,andwith
referenceincreasinglytothedigitalenvironment,JamesPaulGeediscussessituatedlearning
evolvingwithinnewcomplexdigitallandscapesinthecontextofaffinitygroups(Gee,2008).
Whicheverinterpretationofthecollectivesocialstructureonechoosesasmostsuitabletoones
ownunderstanding,acommonthemeemergesofindividualscomingtogetherinsomeshared,
consciousorunconscious,coconstructionofcontext.
Inthecontextofprofessionaleducation,inwhichaseducatorsweretainacloseaffiliation,
sometimesaparallelidentity,toourprofessionalcommunities,perhapsthemostusefuldefinitionof
thiscollectivesocialcultureistheconceptofthediscoursecommunity.Asaconcept,thisallowsfor
adiscoursetocrosstheboundariesbetweenaprofessioninitseducationalformandaprofessionin
itspractice(Ovens&Tinning,2009).Adiscoursecommunitydoesnotonlydefinetherelativeroles
andrelationshipsofindividualsbutalsotheideasandtheoriesthatprovidesharedmeaningto
actions.Discoursecommunityinthissensemightbridgedifferentcommunitiesofpractice.A
lawyerwhoalsoidentifiesthemselvesasaneducatoreffectivelyspeakstwocommunitylanguages,
andtheabilitytotransitionbetweenthesedifferentlanguagesisaskillnottobeunderestimated.
Thenatureoftheindividualandtheirreflection,anddiscoursecommunityanditscollective
reflections,aredistinctandcomplementary.Theindividualmightbestunderstandhisorherown
processwithreferencetoasharedcommunityperspective.Whilstthisrisksaperpetuationof
existinginequalitiesandprejudiceswithinanygivendiscoursecommunity,italsoprovidesthe
individualwiththemostevidentofsituatedexperience.Discoursecommunitythatisopento
challengeandreflectionmightalsobenefitfromthedissensioninherentincounterreflections.The
issueofconformityisalsopertinentforthosenewtoreflection,andthoseseekingtoenterintoa
discoursecommunity,asthereisalwaystheriskthatindividualsenactreflectioninordertosuitthe
socialcontextinwhichtheyaresituated,todistorttheirreflectioninordertobelong.
Itispossiblethattheaffectivedimensiondefinestheboundarybetweentrainingandteaching.
Communicatingemotionallydecontextualizedinformationcouldbesaidtocharacterisemany
aspectsoftraining.Teachingisrecognisablydifferent,combiningnotonlythedevelopmentof
knowledgebutalsothecultivationoftheindividual.Wheretrainingmaybeseentoimpart,teaching
seekstotransform.
BROOKFIELDSFOURCRITICALLENSESANDTHEREFLECTIVEPRACTITIONER
StephenBrookfieldarguesthatexcellentteachersarethosewhocontinuetorefineaverypersonal
authenticvoice,suggestingthatthisinstilsbothvalueanddignityinteachingpractice.A
continuousprocessofselfcriticalreflectionproducesaconfidencethatisthefoundationto
inspirationalteachingandthebasisforsustainedachievementofteachinggoals.Asaconsequence,
Brookfieldbelieves,studentsthemselvesbecomecriticallyreflective(Brookfield,1990).
Brookfieldsfourcriticallensesprovidemultiple,distinctlydifferent,vantagepointsfromwhichto
reviewpractice.Theautobiographical,studentview,collegial(peer)perspective,andthescholarship
ofteachingandlearning,presentfourdistinctbutcomplementaryperspectives.The
autobiographicallens,typifiedbythecreationofthepersonalteachingphilosophyandmaintenance
oftheteachinglog,providesthebasisformuchofthereflectiveprocessadvocatedbyBrookfield.
Exploringpreviousexperiencesasalearnerandrelatingthattotheexperienceofbeingateacher
ensuresthatfacultybecomeawareoftheparadigmaticassumptionsandinstinctivereasoningsthat
framehowwework(Brookfield,1995,p.30).
Itisimportanttogobeyondselfreflectionandtodrawondifferentperspectivesthatinform,
strengthenandprovidevalidityforamoreholisticreflectionontheteachingprocess.Student
evaluationsoftheirlearningexperience,particularlythosegarneredduringthecourseofthemodule
ratherthanasendofmodulereviews,provideaninvaluableinsightintotheeffectivenessofthe
learningbeingoffered.Studentevaluationalsooccursthrougheveryencounterintheformof
naturalfeedbackandresponsivenesstolearningopportunitiesandtheattentiveteacherdrawson
thisunconsciousevaluationtoinformtheirpractice.ForBrookfield,itisthisstudentperspective
thatrevealsthoseactionsandassumptionsthateitherconfirmorchallengeexistingpower
relationshipsintheclassroom(1995,p.30).Inaprofessionaleducationcontext,thenegotiationof
thesepowerrelationshipsisoftencriticaltotheeffectivenessoflearningandstudentscomfortand
senseofsafetyinthelearningenvironmentisanimportantcharacteristic.
Manyteacherswillengagewiththesetwolenses,theautobiographicalandthestudent,aspartof
selfawarepractice.Theymayalsoengagewiththethird,thecollegiallens,intheformof
formalisedpeerreviewofteaching.However,theformalityofsuchprocessesrisksundermining
theirtruevalue,asitisthroughdialoguewithpeersthatoneisabletohighlighthiddenassumptions
aboutonesownpractice.Identifyingsharedassumptions,andmisassumptions,isanimportantpart
ofthispeerperspective,asBrookfieldsuggestsitisthroughobservingothersthatteachersmight
realiseidiosyncrasyfailingsaresharedbymanyotherswhoworkinsituationslikeours(1995,p.
36).Inadditiontopeerobservation,theroutineprocessesofcoursereview,teammarking,
programmeevaluationandotheropportunitiesfortraininganddevelopment,alloffervaluable
insightsintoonesownpractice.
Formanypractitioners,itisthefourthlensthatappearstheleastaccessible.Scholarlyliteratureon
highereducationcanseemalientothedisciplineandinstitutionalcontextofmanypractitioners.
Thisisparticularlytruetothoseinprofessionaleducationwherethestressmaybeonprofessional
identitiesoutsideeducation,theirfirstlanguagecommunity.However,Brookfieldsuggeststhat
teacherswhoundertakescholarlyresearch,presentationandpublicationdevelopanadvanced
vocabularythatdescribes,andcomestosupport,theirteachingpracticeinsuchawaythatit
providesanimportantcontextforthiscriticalfourthperspective.
DONALDSCHONANDTHEREFLECTIVEPRACTITIONER
DonaldSchnhasmadeasignificantimpactonthedebateaboutboththeprocessofreflective
practiceanditsimpactonorganisationsandlearningcultures.Muchofhisearlywork,fromthe
1970sonwards,wasconcernedwithorganisationallearningandfocusedaroundcollectivenotions
ofpracticeandresponse.Hislaterworkintroducedconceptssuchasdoublelooplearningandthe
notionofdifferentiationbetweenreflectiononaction,takenretrospectively,andreflectionin
actionassomethingreflectingmasteryofselfawarepractice.
DonaldSchnhasprovidedsignificantinsightsintothedevelopmentofnotionsofthelearning
society.Associetyhaschangedtoallowforincreasingproportionsoffreetimeandtherehavebeen
rapidchangesinhowoccupationswerefulfilled,itisperhapsunsurprisingthatsocietyperceives
specialistsandgeneralists,andthelearningevolutionofboth,innewways.
The loss of the stable state means that our society and all of its institutions are in
continuous processes of transformation. We cannot expect new stable states that will
endure for our own lifetimes.
We must learn to understand, guide, influence and manage these transformations. We
must make the capacity for undertaking them integral to ourselves and to our institutions.
We must, in other words, become adept at learning. We must become able not only to
transform our institutions, in response to changing situations and requirements; we must
invent and develop institutions which are learning systems, that is to say, systems
capable of bringing about their own continuing transformation.
The task which the loss of the stable state makes imperative, for the person, for our
institutions, for our society as a whole, is to learn about learning.
What is the nature of the process by which organizations, institutions and societies
transform themselves?
What are the characteristics of effective learning systems?
What are the forms and limits of knowledge that can operate within processes of social
learning?
What demands are made on a person who engages in this kind of learning?
(Schn,1973,pp.2829)
Schnsrelevanceis,therefore,notonlytotheindividualprocessofreflectionbutalsothattaking
placetocounterthedynamicconservatismofinstitutions,includingtheprofessions.Thereisa
delicatebalancebetweenthepreservationofidentityandvalues,sharedbythemembersofthe
profession,andtheneedforconstantrenewal.Thewayinwhichorganisationsandinstitutions
learninpartdefinestheirabilitytotransformandevolve,toremaincontemporary.Schn
identifiesinnovationasoneexampleofhowalearningorganisationdiffersfromtheclassicalmodel,
citingthechangefromtheclassicalconceptofinnovationasaproductortechniquetoitsperception
asafunctionalsystem.Heidentifieshowfixedpatternsofleadershipmoveinlearningorganisations
towardsshiftingcentresofleadership.Thetransformationisoneinwhichinstitutionspreviously
definedbythescopeoftheresourceandenergyattheircentreevolveresourcesandenergylimited
onlybythetechnologythatsupportsinfrastructure(Schn,1973,p.168).
ThisevolvingstressonnetworksandinfrastructureforeshadowsthenetworktheoryworkofManuel
Castellsin1980ssociology(Castells,1996)andtwentyyearslatertheConnectivismlearning
theoriesofGeorgeSiemen(Siemens&Conole,2011).Thisstressonnetworkshasimpactedonthe
wayinwhichindividualsseethemselves,ontheinterrelationshipsbetweenteacherandstudent.
Learningisredefinedasbeingnotsolelyanindividualpursuitorevenanindividualwithinasocial
collective,butaverypublicandsocialexperience.Itisthesocialsystemitselfthatiscapableof
learningthroughaprocessofconstantidentityrenewal.
IncollaborationwithChrisArgyris,Schnexploredtheindividualsroleinorganisationallearningby
redefiningtheprocessofprofessionaleffectiveness.Theysuggestedthatindividualspossessed
mentalmapsofhowtorespond,plan,implementandreviewtheiractionsinanygivensituation.
Ratherthanactuponespousedtheory,individualsinfactreactedaccordingtopredetermined
notionsofeffectivebehaviour.Theseframesofreference,asMezirowwouldlaterdescribethem
(Mezirow,2000,p.16),aredifficulttochangeandArgyrisandSchnsoughttoillustratejusthow
difficultbydissectingthesedurableespousedtheories.
Theirnotionofthedifferencebetweensinglelooplearning,wheregoalsandstrategiesaretakenfor
granted,wheretheemphasisismerelyontheincrementalenhancementofestablishedtechnique,
anddoublelooplearningwheretheframeofreferenceandthelearningsystemsthatunderliethose
techniquesarequestioned,isasimplebutpowerfulidea.Ratherthanhavingtogothroughafull
cycleofplanning,actingandreflectingasdescribedinthereflectiveprocessesofDeweyandKolb
(Dewey,1997;Kolb,1984),thenotionofdoublelooplearningsuggestedthatreflectingcriticallyat
anytimeontheoryinaction,orpreexistingframesofmind,wouldbringenhancements.
DonaldSchnextendedthisideaofabstractreflectionbydifferentiatingbetweenreflectionon
actionandreflectioninaction.Reflectioninaction,referredtointhevernacularasthinkingon
yourfeet,mayseemselfevidentandyetforSchnthewayinwhichnewunderstandingsare
createdinthemomentissignificant.
Thepractitionerallowshimselftoexperiencesurprise,puzzlement,orconfusioninasituationwhich
hefindsuncertainorunique.Hereflectsonthephenomenonbeforehim,andontheprior
understandingswhichhavebeenimplicitinhisbehaviour.Hecarriesoutanexperimentwhich
servestogeneratebothanewunderstandingofthephenomenonandachangeinthesituation.
(Schn,2009,p.68)
Onemustbeawareofonesownespousedtheoriesinordertobeabletoengagewiththeminthe
moment,todrawonourrepertoireofpreviousexperienceincomparablemoments,inordertoact,
toreflect,inthatverysamemoment.Criticismsofthisdifferentiationbetweenreflectiononaction
andreflectioninactioncentreonthenotionoftime,whetherinfactthereistimeinthemomentto
trulyreflect.Practitioners,however,areabletodescribetheprocessofthinkingontheirfeetand
oftenareabletoarticulatethereasonswhytheymadeparticulardecisionsinresponsetoan
unanticipatedevent.Thenotionofreflectioninactioncanbecriticisedforunderestimatingthe
adaptabilityofarepertoireofexperience.Theabilitytodeployavariationonapreviousexperience
certainlyinvolvesintellectualprocessesbutthismaynotconstitutewhatSchncallsreflectionin
action.
DespitetheinadequaciesoftheresearchbasetoSchnsmodelofreflection,thereisclearlya
differencebetweenthewayindividualsrelatetoaneventafterithasoccurredandhowthey
respondduringtheeventitself.Thisdifferencebetweentheonactionandinactionissurelyworthy
ofdeeperconsideration.Professionalpracticerequiresnotsimplythatindividualshavetheabilityto
beabletoperforminthemomentinaversatileandappropriateway,butalsothattheyareableto
articulateforothersthatprocess.
MODELSOFREFLECTION
RecentworkbyDelCarloandcolleagueshasexploredtherelationshipbetweenqualitativeresearch
methodsineducationandteachersreflectivepractices(Carlo,Hinkhouse,&Isbell,2010).Thiswork
providesausefulsummaryofseveralofthedifferentmodelsofreflectionthatexistintheliterature
andwhichmightbeusedtoguidethereflectivepractitioner.
Technicalreflectionislargelybehavioural,focusedonskillsacquisitionmeasuredagainst
predeterminednotionsofbestpractice.Reflectionsonobservationcarriedoutsuperficiallytendto
focusonthistechnicalperformanceand,whilstitiscertainlyusefultobeawareofexternal
definitionsofbestpracticeagainstwhichonemightpositiononeself,technicalreflectionrisksbeing
limitedtoothersperceptionofqualityratherthanonesown.
Reflectioninactionandreflectiononactionare,aswehaveseen,termsintroducedbyDonald
Schnandseektomovethepractitionerbeyondareflectionontechnicalperformanceandopenup
bothissuesofcontextandconsequence.Reflectiononaction,bestcarriedoutimmediately
followingateachingengagement,mostfrequentlyinvolvesadiaryorjournalreflectiononaspecific
lessonorclasswithaviewtoidentifyingkeypointsagainstapersonalsetofreflectivecriteria.
Reflectioninactionfollowsthesamereflectiveprocessbutoccursduringratherthanafterthe
teachingepisode.Whilsttheformerallowsforfutureactionstobemodified,thelatterensuresthat
modificationsaremadeinthemoment.Whilstthereisstillanacknowledgementofexternally
validatednotionsoftechnicalexcellence,theemphasisisonpersonalvalues,personalexperience,
andcontextualisedknowledge.Everyindividualsexperienceasateacherdiffersandsothe
measureofreflectionisinternalratherthanexternal.
Drawinginpartonthetraditionofactivitytheoryandactornetworktheory,personalisticreflection
isconcernedwiththedirectrelationshipbetweenteachersactionsandstudentresponse,and
studentsactionsandteacherresponse.Thisrequiresteacherstohaveasignificantunderstanding
oftheirownepistemologicalbeliefs,wheretheybelieveknowledgeismade,resides,andunder
whatcircumstancesithasauthority,aswellasanappreciationofthealternativeperspectivesthat
maybeheldbytheirstudents.Suchreflectionrequiresanexaminationofselfidentityandan
appreciation,andempathy,fortherealitiesofstudentsidentities,whichisoftenproblematicin
masseducation.Anincreasingappreciationofthediversityofthestudentbodyatatimeof
increasingstudentmobilityandglobalisationofhighereducationcertainlyprovidesteacherswithan
opportunitytoreflectontheirownbeliefsinthelightofdifferent,alternative,conceptionsof
learningandselfawareness.
Educationalliteraturealsopositsthenotionofcriticalreflectionasbeingrelevanttothepractitioner.
Muchofthefocusforcriticalreflectionisonthepoliticalandsocialdimensionalderivingmuchofits
substancefrompoliticalphilosophy.Itextendspersonalisticreflectionbyreachingbeyondthe
personalandimmediatesocialmilieu,andencompassingbroaderconceptssuchassocialclass,
genderandethnicitywiththereviewtoestablishingsociallyjusteducationalpractices.
Inbothpersonalisticreflectionandcriticalreflection,thereisastressonreachingbeyondselfandto
leverageempathyasapowerfulreflectiveinstrument.However,whilstusefulandeffectivein
educationalresearch,thisprocesshaslessimmediateimpactonindividualpractitioners.Amore
usefulandbroaderconceptofreflectionperhapstypifiedbyBrookfield,isthenotionofdeliberative
reflectioninwhichnumeroussourcesofinformation,fromdifferentexpertviewpoints,areusedby
theteachertoenhancetheirpractice.Aswellastheteachersownvaluesandbeliefs,thestudent
voice,thecollegialvoiceandscholarshipareallheard.Whilsttheimmediatesolutionmaybeless
easilydiscernibleamongstthesemultiplevoices,therichnessofthereflectiondevelopsa
sustainableandadaptablerepositoryofexperience(SeeTable1).
Table1Modelsofreflection
Type
Contentofreflection
Criteriaforqualityreflection
Technical
Generalteachingbehavioursbasedon
researchonteachinggoodpractice
Matchingonesownperformanceto
externalnotionsofgoodpractice
Inandon
action
Onesownpersonalteachingperformance Decisionsbasedononesownunique
immediatesituation
Listeningtoandtrustingonesowninner
voiceandthevoicesofothers
Critical
Judgingthegoalsandpurposesof
Learninginlightofethicalcriteriasuchas
socialjusticeandequalityofopportunity
Social,moralandpoliticaldimensionsof
LearningContexts
(Valli,1997,p.75)
CONCLUSION
BPPUniversityCollegehasdesigneditsPostgraduateCertificateinProfessionalEducationaround
four15creditmodulesalignedtothismodelofprofessionalreflection;eachmoduleinturnstressing
oneofBrookfieldsfourcriticallenses.Whilstseveraldevelopmentalinstrumentsreturnthroughout
themodules,mostnotablypeerobservationofteachingasobserverandobservee,thereisa
developmentfromafoundationalmodulefocusedheavilyonselfreflectionandcontext
(autobiographicallens),toamodulefocusedonassessmentandfeedbackwithreferencetothe
broaderpoliticalandinstitutionalcontext(peerlens),amoduleemphasisingthestudentlearning
experiencefromthestudentsperspective(studentlens)andafinalmodulefocusedonpracticeand
evidencebasedscholarship(scholarshiplens).Thisembodimentoftheoryincoursedesignis
intendedtoprovideatransparentandintellectuallycoherentapproachtowhichfuturecourse
modificationscanrefer.
Itisalsointendedtosupportpractitionersfromoneprofessionaldiscourse(thosefamiliarwithone
professionallanguage)toaccessanother.Itisourinstitutionsstatedgoaltochallengeanddisrupt
thestatusquoineducationandtheprinciplesofcriticalreflectionare,therefore,relevanttoour
reflectiveprocesses.Weshouldbethinkingaboutsocialjustice,equalityofopportunityandourrole
indifferentpowerdynamics.Tohaveanyhopeofdoingsowemustmovebeyondthetechnical
reflectiontypifiedbyendofmodulesatisfactionsurveys,becomeeffectivereflectorsonactionand
inactionandbecomedeliberativereflectors.Tobeaneffectiveeducatorinacomplexofdifferent
professionalcontexts,inthemultidiscourseofaninternationalhighereducationsector,wemust
beeffectivereflectivepractitioners.
Wewouldgofurtherandsay,inourconsideredview,thatreflectivepracticeisanonnegotiable
requirementforanyeffectiveeducator.
REFERENCES
Brookfield,S.(1990).Theskillfulteacher:ontechnique,trust,andresponsivenessintheclassroom
(1sted.).SanFrancisco:JosseyBassPublishers.
Brookfield,S.(1995).Becomingacriticallyreflectiveteacher.SanFrancisco:JosseyBass.
Carlo,D.D.,Hinkhouse,H.,&Isbell,L.(2010).DevelopingaReflectivePractitionerThroughthe
ConnectionBetweenEducationalResearchandReflectivePractices.JournalofScienceEducation
andTechnology,19(1),5868.
Castells,M.(1996).TheRiseoftheNetworkSociety.Oxford:BlackwellPublishers.
Dewey,J.(1896).TheReflexArcConceptinPsychology.PsychologicalReview,3,357370.
Dewey,J.(1997).Howwethink.Mineola,N.Y.:DoverPublications.
Engestrom,Y.,Miettinen,R.,&Punamaki,R.L.(1999).PerspectivesonActivityTheory.Cambridge:
CambridgeUniversityPress.
Gee,J.P.(2008).Sociallinguisticsandliteracies:ideologyindiscourses.Routledge.
HigherEducationAcademy.(2011).TheUKProfessionalStandardsFrameworkforteachingand
supportinglearninginhighereducation.York.
Kolb,D.A.(1984).Experientiallearning:experienceasthesourceoflearninganddevelopment.
PrenticeHall.
Kugel,P.(1993).HowProfessorsDevelopasTeachers.StudiesinHigherEducation,18(3),315328.
Latour,B.(2005).ReassemblingtheSocial:AnIntroductiontoActorNetworkTheory.Oxford
UniversityPress,USA.
Lave,J.,&Wenger,E.(1991).Situatedlearning:legitimateperipheralparticipation.Cambridge
UniversityPress.
Lev,E.L.,Kolassa,J.,&Bakken,L.L.(2010).Facultymentorsandstudentsperceptionsofstudents
researchselfefficacy.NurseEducationToday,30(2),169174.
Mezirow,J.(2000).Learningastransformation:criticalperspectivesonatheoryinprogress.San
Francisco:JosseyBass.
Ovens,A.,&Tinning,R.(2009).Reflectionassituatedpractice:Amemoryworkstudyoflived
experienceinteachereducation.TeachingandTeacherEducation,25(8),11251131.
Riding,R.(2005).IndividualDifferencesandEducationalPerformance.EducationalPsychology,
25(6),659672.
Rodgers,C.(2002).DefiningReflection:AnotherLookatJohnDeweyandReflectiveThinking.
TeachersCollegeRecord,104(4),842866.
Schn,D.A.(1973).BeyondtheStableState:PublicandPrivateLearninginaChangingSociety.W.
W.Norton&Co.
Schn,D.A.(1986).EducatingtheReflectivePractitioner:TowardaNewDesignforTeachingand
LearningintheProfessions(1sted.).JosseyBass.
Schn,D.A.(2009).Thereflectivepractitioner:howprofessionalsthinkinaction.Aldershot:
Ashgate.
Siemens,G.,&Conole,G.(2011).Connectivism:DesignandDeliveryofSocialNetworkedLearning.
TheInternationalReviewofResearchinOpenandDistanceLearning,12(3),iiv.
Wenger,E.(1999).Communitiesofpractice:learning,meaning,andidentity.Cambridge,U.K.;New
York:CambridgeUniversityPress.
AUTHORS
SimonPaulAtkinson
SimonistheAssociateDeanofLearning&TeachingatBPPUniversityCollege.Simonhasover18
yearsexperienceinUnitedKingdomandNewZealandeducationaldevelopmentandeducational
technologyrolesattheLondonSchoolofEconomics,MasseyUniversityNewZealand,theUniversity
ofHull,theInstituteforEducationalTechnology(OpenUniversity)andVictoriaUniversityof
WellingtonNewZealand.Simonhasdeliveredinternationalkeynotesandinvitedworkshopson
learningdesign,includinghisownSOLEmodelandtoolkit,ontheuseofvideointeachingthrough
theDialeProjectandontheuseofeducationaltaxonomies.Heisontheinternationaleditorial
boardoftheOpenUniversitysJournalofInteractiveMediainEducation(JIME).
JohnIrving
JohnhasworkedforBPPfor14yearsafterspending15yearspractisingasasolicitoratassociate
andpartnerlevel.JohniscurrentlyworkingfortheLearningandDevelopmentTeam.Hehastaught
acrossawiderangeofdisciplinesandsubjectsintheUniversityandwasHeadofTrainingand
DevelopmentfortheLegalPracticeCourse(LPC)from20022011.Hedesignedanddelivereda
comprehensivetraininganddevelopmentprogrammeforallLPCtutorsduringthisperiodincluding
aninnovativeinternalinductiontrainingprogrammefortutors.Thisprogrammehasalsobeen
successfullyadaptedanddeliveredannuallybyJohnsince2010totraintutorsattheLawSchoolof
Tanzania.Johnisaqualifiedcoachandmentorwithextensivecoachingexperienceinbusiness,
educationandsportinBritain,EuropeandAfrica.Hehascoachedandmentoredmanagers,
students,tutorsandteams.JohnisalsoamemberoftheAssociationforCoaching,theEuropean
MentoringandCoachingCouncilandtheInstituteofLeadershipandManagement.
Introduction
Critical thinking and collaborative knowledge construction have become essential
competencies for people in the new information age and the global economy society
(Mason, 2007). The rapid growth of information and communication technology
(ICT) has made an increasing amount of information available. People must have
critical thinking skills so that they can analyze and compare information, construct
arguments, respect diverse perspectives and, view phenomena from dierent points
(cf. MacKnight, 2000). Also, solving highly complex real life problems requires a
variety of knowledge. It is, hence, hardly possible for a single person to solve a
complicated problem. People must learn how to work together so that they can solve
the problems and construct meaningful knowledge.
ICT has the potential to engage students in a range of activities that contribute to
critical thinking development and collaborative knowledge construction. The
Ministry of Education (MOE), in Singapore, initiated the Masterplan as a blueprint
96
Q. Wang et al.
for ICT integration in education. One of its key objectives has been to help students
develop critical thinking skills and meaningful knowledge with the use of ICT
(Ministry of Education, 1997). In this study, a web-based interactive learning
environment (ILE) was designed to help students in the National Institute of
Education (NIE) to achieve this objective. This paper describes the conceptual
framework, design specications and, evaluation results of the ILE. Implications of
the results and issues involved in the study are discussed.
Conceptual framework
The ILE was designed based on interactivity and constructivist learning theories,
aimed at promoting students critical thinking and knowledge construction. This
section will elaborate on the conceptual framework on which this study was based.
Interactivity and constructivism
Interactivity is a major construct and striking characteristic of web-based learning
environments (Chou, 2003; Vrasidas, 2000). It is often dened as sustained, two-way
communication between students and students or, between students and the
instructor, with the purpose of task completion or social relationship building
(Gilbert & Moore, 1998; Liaw & Huang, 2000). An interactive web-based learning
environment often involves four types of interaction: learner-content, learnerlearner, learner-instructor and, learner-interface (Chou, 2003; Hillman, Willis, &
Gunawardena, 1994). Learner-content interaction is a process in which learners
make sense of course materials. It is a basic type of interaction as content is crucial in
all forms (such as web-based or face-to-face) of education (Wang, 2007). Learnerlearner interaction and learner-instructor interaction are the communication
between learners and peers and between learners and the instructor for information
sharing, negotiation and knowledge construction. Although learner-learner interaction and learner-instructor interaction may happen in dierent ways due to the
imbalanced power and knowledge level between students and teachers, they are often
called social or interpersonal interaction (Liaw & Huang, 2000; Moallem, 2003).
Learner-interface interaction refers to how learners use the computer program
interface to communicate with the course content or people (Lohr, 2000).
These types of interaction are important for an eective learning environment.
Learner-content interaction, learner-learner interaction, and learner-instructor
interaction are more related to pedagogical design, whereas learner-interface
interaction focuses more on human-computer interface design. Pedagogical design
is undoubtedly critical for an eective learning environment. Interface design,
however, provides fundamental support for a usable computer-based learning
environment as all other types of interaction are implemented through the
interaction with the interface.
Learner-content, learner-learner, and learner-instructor interaction match well
the beliefs of cognitive and social constructivists. The basic belief of constructivism is
that knowledge is actively constructed by learners, who are active knowledge
constructors rather than passive information receivers (Jonassen, 1991). Nevertheless, cognitive constructivism and social constructivism hold minor distinctions
(cf. Hirumi, 2002; Liaw, 2004). Cognitive constructivists believe students construct
knowledge individually based on their prior experience and newly acquired
97
98
Q. Wang et al.
year students, who were pursuing Diplomas in Education. The course ran once a
week and lasted for 12 weeks. It consisted of nine face-to-face and three, purely
online sessions. All face-to-face sessions were conducted in a computer lab. During
each lesson, the tutor explained key concepts and demonstrated on certain features
of the multimedia authoring tool: Multimedia Builder. Next, the students had handson activities on the authoring tool. After each lesson, the students wrote online
reections as a follow-up activity. For the online sessions, the students did not come
to the computer lab for tutorials. Instead, they studied the lesson materials
independently and participated compulsorily in the online discussions.
Seventeen students who enrolled in this elective course participated in this study.
Their average age was about 22. All the students had either GCE (General
Certicate of Education), A level or polytechnic qualication. They would be
teaching at primary schools after graduation.
Interaction design
E-blogger (http://www.blogger.com) was chosen as a platform for hosting the ILE.
Three forms of interaction were integrated into the ILE as shown in Figure 1. The
rst form of interaction was at the individual level. The students interacted with the
course content and wrote weekly reections on what they learned. Figure 2 displays
a screenshot of a students online reection. All reections were graded and
accounted for 10% of their nal marks.
The second form of interaction was at the group level, on which the students
interacted with peers. Students shared, negotiated and discussed their nal projects
in groups of two. This small group collaboration was graded and carried 5% of their
marks.
The third form of interaction occurred at the class level, targeted at fostering
whole class interaction. The ILE involved three online discussions. The rst
discussion was to debate whether media could inuence learning. The second was to
criticize the nal project proposals. Every group was required to post the nal
project proposal to the discussion forum. Each student ought to criticize at least two
proposals of other groups. The third discussion was designed to collect feedback on
Figure 1.
Figure 2.
99
the course design and delivery. Each online discussion contained 10% of their nal
marks.
Evaluation of the ILE
This study aimed to answer the following questions:
To what extent were the individual reections conducive to students critical thinking?
To what extent were the small group collaboration and the whole class online
discussions helpful for students knowledge co-construction?
The students reections were coded by following the critical thinking model
proposed by Newman et al. (1995). This model lists a number of positive and
negative indicators of critical thinking in categories of relevance (R), importance (I),
novelty of information (N), use of outside of knowledge (O), ambiguities (A), linking
of ideas (L), justication (J), assessment (A) and practical utility (P).
All weekly reections of a student were complied into a Word document. The
unit of analysis was a single sentence. An applicable code was inserted at the end of
each meaningful sentence. For example, the following passage shows coding results
of an excerpt from a students reection. A L code was applied to the rst
sentence because it was a decision made based on the course materials; a J code
was applied to the second sentence since it was to further justify why the idea was
great; a P code was associated to the last sentence as it referred to practical utility
of the idea in the nal project.
100
Q. Wang et al.
Todays lesson we have learnt how to insert a ash le to a program, which is great (L). Now
I can include a ash le in the project that my partner and I have planned for (J). I was
thinking of putting an advertisement for dental care or the Colgate advertisement that I can
nd on the website to my project, or maybe a movie le on bacteria and cavity. This is
denitely good (P).
The coding procedure was as follows. We (two of the authors) coded, individually,
the reections of student S1. After completing the coding, we met and discussed the
rationale for each code applied and, reached a consensus on all codes used and their
rationales applied. We continued to code the reections of the remaining students
and conducted an inter-rater reliability check at the end. For each sentence, we
compared whether the same code was used. If not, we further exchanged rationales
for using the codes and made an agreement on which or what codes were more
appropriate by reviewing the code denitions. We managed to make an agreement
on most codes in question after discussions. In few cases where we could not
convince each other, the original codes were remained.
The same procedure was applied to the knowledge co-construction coding
process as well, by following the Interaction Analysis Model (IAM) model
(Gunawardena, Lowe, & Abderson, 1997). This model describes ve successive
phases of knowledge construction: (i) sharing, comparing, contributing of
information; (ii) discovery and explanation of dissonance or inconsistency among
participants; (iii) negotiation of meaning or knowledge co-construction; (iv) testing
and modication; and (v) phrasing of agreement and allocations of newly
constructed knowledge. The unit of analysis was a complete message, as originally
used by Gunawardena et al. (1997).
Results
Table 1 shows the numbers of positive and negative critical thinking indicators found
in the students individual reections.
The result shows that about one-third of the students (for example S1, S3, S6, S7
and S8) did think critically in the process of reection writing. A considerably high
number of positive codes were found and, the ratio of positive to negative indicators
was as high as 6:1. However, the results also revealed that approximately half of the
students (for example S2, S4, S10, S11, S12, S15, S16 and S17) did not think critically
at all. Few positive indicators were involved in their reections and, the ratio of
positive to negative indicators was about 2:3 only. In particular, some students such
as S2 and S4 did not involve any positive indictors at all. In all reections, they just
simply listed down the points learned from the lessons in a bullet format without
further elaboration. The rest (for example S5, S9, S13 and S14) had moderate
numbers of positive and negative critical thinking indicators, which indicated that
these students applied certain critical thinking skills but, did not keep thinking
critically. The ratio of positive to negative indicators was about 3:1.
Figure 3 shows the nal rating results of the online discussions and group
collaboration. In the rst online discussion, the students commonly believed that
media inuenced learning. For this they held coherent opinions, interaction and
meaning negotiation were largely scarce. In total, 17 original messages and seven
responses were posted. All original messages were at Phase I of the IAM model, for
these messages just explained why media inuenced learning. Six responses were
101
Rater2
Final
Student
S1
S3
S6
S7
S8
13
24
14
23
17
1
2
7
5
2
13
19
14
13
20
0
0
0
0
0
16
15
14
21
20
86
1
2
6
4
1
14 (6:1)
S5
S9
S13
S14
11
7
9
12
1
6
1
8
9
7
9
12
1
6
1
2
8
6
9
9
32
2
3
1
4
10 (3:1)
S2
S4
S10
S11
S12
S15
S16
S17
0
0
2
4
1
3
2
6
11
8
1
1
0
2
3
7
2
0
2
4
1
3
3
3
7
5
0
1
0
2
3
5
0
0
3
4
2
3
3
3
18
10
8
0
0
0
2
3
5
28 (2:3)
148
66
134
33
136
Total
Figure 3.
52
Phase II. They showed disagreement with some ideas in the original messages. One
response was Phase III for the student negotiated the comment to her original
message.
In the second online discussion, all groups posted their proposals and 30
responses in total were given to the proposals. Further analysis showed that 27
responses were Phase II, as these responses were to clarify certain issues in the
proposals. The remaining three responses were Phase III, which were replies posted
by the proposal authors to the received comments. In the third discussion, the tutor
posted three open-ended questions and received 37 replies. All the replies were Phase
I and no further responses were given to the comments.
102
Q. Wang et al.
103
and there is little ambiguity between codes (Marra et al., 2004, p. 35), it was
often hard to judge which code should be applied to a sentence during the coding
process (cf. Chi, 1997). We had to refer back to the code denitions so as to make
a nal decision. This coding process was tedious and time consuming. This
experience supports the notion that more computer support tools should be
developed to help people conveniently analyze discourse (Dringus & Ellis, 2005).
Also, picking out indicators of uncritical thinking was generally harder (cf. Newman
et al., 1995). In conclusion, this study revealed that the three forms of interaction
(individual reections, group collaboration and whole class discussions) had the
potential to promote students critical thinking. However, not all students kept
thinking critically when they were writing individual reections. Group collaboration and class discussions contributed to students social knowledge construction.
Nevertheless, the majority of postings in this study were at the lower levels only of
the IAM model. How to promote their online discussions to upper levels needs to be
further studied.
Notes on contributors
Qiyun Wang is an assistant professor in the Academic Group of Learning Science and
Technologies (LST) at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore. His research interests include online learning, interactive learning
environments, constructivist learning and web 2.0 for teaching and learning.
Huay Lit Woo is a lecturer with the same group. His research focuses on online learning,
pedagogical agent, and multimedia design.
Jianhua Zhao is a professor at School of Information Technology in Education, South China
Normal University in Guangzhou, China. He is the director of the Centre for the Studies of
Learning Science and Technology. His research interests include CSCL, e-learning for
professional development, research methods, and cross-cultural communication.
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104
Q. Wang et al.
Majid Farahian
Kermanshah Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kermanshah, Iran
majid_fa53@yahoo.com
Abstract
Success in adult life and effective functioning in education depends among other things on
critical thinking. The present study consisted of two parts. First, critical thinking (CT) skill of a
group of 68 students majoring in education in Islamic Azad University, Kermanshah Branch was
evaluated. The participants, divided into two experimental and control groups, received California
Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) which is a 34 item Multiple-Choice test. The students in the
control group were freshmen and the experimental group, junior students. To the researchers
dismay, junior education students did not perform significantly better than did the freshman
students. Using a qualitative method of research, another study was conducted to see whether the
university instructors in the education department who had the responsibility of teaching different
courses to the same students were aware of the principles of CT. A semi-structured interview was
conducted and eight volunteering faculty members in the department of education took part in the
interview. Result revealed that, although these instructors highly valued CT and were aware of its
tenets, there were some constraints which did provide a situation to let the students practice CT in
their classrooms, and much had to be done to help instructors implement CT in their classrooms.
Key words: critical thinking, instructors belief, top down educational system, inductive
reasoning
1. Introduction
With everyday advancement and progress in different areas of technology in the world
today, especially in the area of communication and information technology, one may assume that
students must be merely trained to be able to cope with this progress in technology; however,
success in adult life depends on, among other things, the capacity for (CT); purposeful and goaldirected cognitive skills or strategies that increase the likelihood of a desired outcome (Halpern,
2002). Put another way, human beings, especially students must be trained CT skills to be able to
think critically for their future career (Badri and Fathi Azar, 2006). As Hongladarom (2002) holds,
It is widely recognized nowadays that CT has become a necessary ingredient in all levels of
education. Educators and educational policy makers agree that one of the desirable goals of
education is that students are able to think critically (P. 1). There are some other scholars (e.g.,
Yeh, 2002) who put more emphasis on CT skills and suggest that success in school greatly depends
on CT skills. Accordingly, extensive bodies of literature focus on CT (e.g., Browne & Keeley,
2001; Ennis, 1987; Resnick, 1987) and applications of CT in education (e.g., Henderson, 2001;
OTuel & Bullard, 1993; Pogrow, 1990, 1994; Raths, Wasserman, Jonas, & Rothstein, 1986; and
Torff, 2003). Last but not least, Paul and Nosich (1991) believe that developing CT skills in
educational settings engenders intellectual empowerment. Students use their minds as thinking
instruments. In fact, they change into more effective readers, writers, speakers, and listeners. These
skills and abilities are also highly transferable to work place.
As to what CT is and what its role can be in education, Bauerlein (2011) notes,
64
However, if CT is not practiced at schools, students may not have the opportunity to learn
the skills from any other source. This means that they will lose the chance to get the necessary skills
for their future life and career. In that case, they will not be well-prepared or even prepared enough
for what is waiting for them in the future. Weil (2009) believes, It is dangerous to neglect CT. An
inability to assess information critically, especially in an Internet age of massive information and
misinformation, leads to an inability to participate honestly and realistically in a democracy. (p. 2).
Too, in another part of her paper, she very briefly states, an absence of CT in educational
settings will lead to a lack of academic rigor. (Weil, 2009, p. 3).
Duron, et al., (2006) argued that despite the fact that thinking as a natural process is taken
for granted, but when left to itself, it can often be biased, distorted, partial, uninformed and
potentially prejudiced; excellence in thought must be cultivated (p. 160). In the same vein, Black
(2005) states that students thinking skills can be improved if they are instructed to do so. However,
it seems that instructors assumptions regarding the importance and practicality of CT are critical in
this regard.
For the past fifteen years, the concept of instructors belief has come into favor in education.
Based on Yin (2006), there are a number of sources which influence instructors traits and greatly
affect the development of their personalities. The first source comes from instructors personal
experience and understandings as an individual. Every individual develops his own understanding
and interpretation of the world after birth. A second source of instructors beliefs is the experience
each one has obtained from his own experience when he was a student. Instructors, as human
beings, seldom forget the school days and the kind of education they had in schools. Sometimes
these are so vivid that can be a model for an instructors instruction. A third origin of instructors
beliefs is their formal knowledge acquired through training whether in in-service sessions or in
instructor education centers. The fourth source of beliefs is instructors contexts of work. The
context in which instructors practice, has a great influence on their philosophy of teaching and
instructional approaches. There is a great pressure in schools on nave instructors to conform to the
practice of more experienced ones.
Lauer (2005) notes that instructors who conceive their roles as disseminators of knowledge
may have different ideas about CT and the way it should be incorporated into classroom activities
than those who play the role of mediators and perceive teaching as enabling students to think for
themselves and identify their own duties as imparting necessary skills and strategies to students.
Whenever an instructor has the role of the mediator, based on Williams and Burden (1997),
interaction happens between the learner and him/her and the learner becomes an active participant
of the learning process. On the contrary, when an instructor perceives his/her role as disseminator of
information, there is less attention to students input and feedback. In such a situation the instructor
is solely in control of the teaching situation.
What is CT
In traditional teaching classes, instructors often use didactic instruction in their teaching
process. In this kind of instruction, information and facts are transmitted to students, the whole class
is teacher-centered, and students are assumed to be passive participants (Qing, et al., 2010). As the
sole authority, the instructor is entrusted with the responsibility of taking care of everything. With
the minimum amount of interaction, students passively receive the lectures copy down. In this kind
of instruction, students know nothing. Instructors think, while students are taught. Instructors talk,
while students listen. Students have to comply with whatever instructors choose. As Duron, et al.,
(2006) notes, Passive thinkers suffer from a limited and ego-centric view of the world; they answer
65
questions with yes or no and view their perspective as the only sensible one and their facts as the
only ones relevant (p. 160).
Such a view of education is regarded detrimental to students learning since the role of
learner is regarded to be passive. What has assumed to liberate students from the passive state, in
the current views of education (Erkilic, 2008) is thought to be CT (Lang, n.d.).
There is no consensus regarding the exact definition of the term CT. It is often linked with
creative thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making as well as inductive and deductive
reasoning. However, Howe (2004) believes that terms such as creative thinking, problem-solving
and decision-making refer to the circumstances in which CT may occur. Conversely, some
educational philosophers argue that CT is inductive, encompassing, divergent, and creative thinking
skill. Others recognize it as primarily deductive, convergent, and logical in nature. Halpern (2002)
defines CT as:
Cognitive skills and strategies that increase the likelihood of a desired
outcomethinking that is purposeful, reasoned, and goal-directed; the kind of thinking
involved in solving problems, formulating inferences, calculating likelihoods, and making
decisions. (p. 4).
Based on the literature, a person who thinks critically, asks appropriate questions. In order to
answer the question, he gathers relevant information, reasons logically from this information, and
comes to conclusions which are reliable. Such a discipline of thinking not only enables students to
be successful at school but also improves their thinking skills and thus better prepares them for
after-school life.
Birjandi & Bagherkazemi (2010) hold that a critical thinker has the following features:
has a strong intention to recognize the importance of good thinking;
identifies problems and focuses on relevant topics and issues;
distinguishes between valid and invalid inferences;
suspends judgments and decisions in the absence of sufficient evidence;
understands the difference between logical reasoning and rationalizing;
is aware of the fact that ones understanding is limited and that there are degrees of
belief;
differentiates between facts, opinions and assumptions;
watches out for authoritarian influences and specious arguments;
anticipates the consequences of alternative actions. (p. 137).
CT cannot be learned by direct teaching (Howe, 2004). However, as Howe (2004) notes, it
can be incorporated into all different subject areas. Since as he maintains, CT often requires
imagining possible consequences, generating original approaches, or identifying alternative
perspectives (p. 508). Any form of human activity may involve CT. Moreover, in different
cultures, people may have different conceptions of CT, though there may exist commonalities
among them regarding what CT is. It seems that while there are different definitions for CT in the
world, one of the purposes of education in all modern systems of education is preparing students for
after-school life.
Instructors perception of learning has a great influence on their behaviors in the classrooms
(Choy & Cheah, 2009). Instructors who are not aware of the effectiveness of CT, as well as those
who cannot implement it in their classrooms may have to comply with the traditional perspectives
of education and have passive students who are not active participants in the classrooms. Browne
66
and Freeman (2000) hold that CT comes in different forms; however, those classrooms which
encourage CT have some distinguishing features as follows:
a) Frequent questions: One of the students activities which most likely develops CT is a
classroom in which frequent questions are asked and answered. Of course by questions Browne
and Freeman (2000) do not surely mean the questions which are solely related to fact questions
and therefore are part of low critical activity (Torff, 2005). According to Browne and Freeman
(2000) CT can be usefully conceptualized as knowing how to seek answers to questions and
enjoying the process of asking them at appropriate times (p. 303).
b) Developmental tension:
Sometimes a little uneasiness and tension may foster learning. Thinking sometimes is
accompanied with uncertainties and doubt. Such an uncertainty may encourage students to seek
solutions and find appropriate ways out of the dilemma. The authors emphasize that the
process of value change depends on learners awareness of contradictions, tension and
confusion in their current belief system (Browne and Freeman, 2000, p. 305).
c) Fascination with the contingency of conclusions
Students have to learn to be open to different opinions and critically appraise the possible truth
in them. Classrooms which develop CT encourage commitment, but also give the insight to
students to frequently re-examine those commitments to their own ideas as they encounter new
logic, evidence, and different accounts.
d) Active learning:
Most lecturers, especially those at universities, tend to be transmitters of body of facts or
knowledge to the audience who passively are supposed to acquire those facts. However, those
who favor CT have different approach and try to develop active learning in students by letting
them have active participation. Too, they provide a situation in which students are affectively
involved in the discussions.
CT is an important life skill for people today (Mimbs, 2005). Instructors need to model CT
skills to their students and explicitly teach them to think critically. Instructors can be transformed in
their teaching and students can be transformed in their learning through continued and consistent
use and application of CT skills.
Since instructors are decision-makers in classrooms, and they are mainly responsible for
students learning, exploring certain issues regarding their beliefs about CT seems to be necessary.
Instructors in different contexts in Iran have valued didactic system of education and have been
expected to do so. Research regarding instructors beliefs, especially university instructors, about
CT is scarce. The impetus for this study was that one of the present researchers had a long contact
with some of the PhD students of this study who in numerous informal contacts with the researcher
showed to be knowledgeable in their field of study; however, based on the informal interview of the
researcher with the head of department, these two instructors teaching was lecture-based and they
gave little opportunity to students to participate in classroom discussion, seek answer to the
question and even worse, they were given no chance to critically appraise what they study. A
cursory look at the final exams, given by these two instructors revealed the fact that nearly all items
were directed toward assessing students shallow learning.
1. Is there any significant difference between CT skills of Freshman and Junior education students?
2. What are university instructors perceptions of CT?
3. What constrains, if any, impedes instructors from implementing CT in their classrooms?
2. Method
The design of the research was both qualitative and quantitative since both a test and an
interview were employed.
2.1. Participants
67
68
Table 1. Descriptive Statistics of Exp. & Control Groups for Multiple-Choice Test
MCTest
MCTestGroup
Mean
Std. Deviation
Std. Error
Mean
Experimental
36
8.39
2.309
.385
Control
32
8.00
2.794
.494
As Table 1 shows, the mean and standard deviation of the experimental groups are 8.39 and
2.309, while the mean and standard deviation of the control group are 8.00 and 2.794. It can be seen
that there is no specific difference between the two groups regarding their mean and standard
deviation. Too, the researchers used an independent samples t-test to see if the difference between
the two groups was meaningful. (See Table 2)
Table 2. Independent Samples t-test for Experimental & Control Groups in Multiple-Choice Test
Leveness Test
for Equality of
Variances
Equal Variances
assumed
Equal Variances
Not Assumed
Sig.
df
Sig (2tailed)
Mean
Difference
Std. Error
Difference
Lower
upper
.413
.523
.628
66
.532
.389
.619
-.847
1.625
.621
60.356
.537
.389
.626
-.863
1.641
According to Table 2, the amount of observed t with 66 degree of freedom and 95%
confidence interval of difference is .628, which is not meaningful at all. This means that there is no
meaningful difference between the experimental and control groups regarding their answers to the
Multiple-Choice test of CT. In other words, those students who were in the aforementioned classes
for three consecutive semesters were not better than the freshmen who were new to the university in
answering the MC test of CT. But, what can be the reason for this. To answer this question, we
went to our second instrument, i.e., the interview. In fact, the interview was a modified form of
Choy and Cheahs (2009) questionnaire. As mentioned above, the interview consisted of six
questions. Below are the responses given by the instructors to the six questions.
Instructors perception of CT
All instructors gave comprehensive definitions of CT. Six out of eight participants wrote
that CT is the ability to ask appropriate questions about different phenomena and find answer to the
questions. They noted that to find answers to the questions one has to look for relevant information
and interpret the information in light of inductive and deductive reasoning. The others, who had
nearly the same opinion, held that in order to be a critical thinker one has to distinguish facts from
opinions. What was the distinguishing characteristic of a critical thinker to his opinion was the
power of ration as they believed. One of the participants remarked that CT has to do with higher
order thinking and problem solving activities.
Does CT happen in the instructors classroom when they are teaching their students? If so,
how do they know?
Seven respondents explicitly and implicitly indicated that they did not have CT in real sense
in their own classrooms. However, as they explained whenever they ask students to look at facts
from a new perspective, a sort of CT happens in the classroom. Six of the instructors were more
critical of their own teaching and explained that since their teaching was predominantly lecturebased and they did not give students enough opportunity to freely express themselves and above all,
since there was little democracy in the classroom, no CT occurred in the course they taught.
69
How do instructors think they could bring about CT among students? Specifically what are
some of the things they did or could do to get their students to think critically?
All the participants answered that asking students to do research or project works is the best
activity to encourage learners think critically and go through the stages of CT. They also
emphasized posing questions to the students and asking them to find answers to the questions.
Three of the participants wrote that providing a suitable environment improves the situation to have
CT in the classrooms; however, they did not mention how such an environment should be
established. One of the instructors answered this question by saying that establishing democracy in
the classroom is very crucial for having critical thinkers. He wrote that whenever the instructor is
the sole speaker who does not allow students to express themselves, have their voice in the course,
and takes the floor for the time he is in class, there is no likelihood of developing CT. Another
participant believed that students should be problem solvers, asked to seek the solution via books,
internet and different sources available.
What are the problems faced by students when an instructor is trying to teach CT?
Five participants expressed that they felt a pressure to cover the content in a short time;
therefore, they had to lecture in order to cover more content in a shorter time.
Two of the instructors wrote that most of their students lacked the skills of judgment and
enquiry and that they had accustomed to being given the most straightforward answers by the
authorities. One of these two added that if they were left to themselves, they had no ability to decide
how to study on their own.
One of the respondents answered that from the first days of schooling, his students were
not taught how to think, and they had been only asked to cram materials in their heads for the
exam. Therefore, as he believed they resist higher order thinking.
Do the instructors think they need to give all the information to their students in order to
learn the subject? Why and why not?
All the participants unanimously agreed that there is no need to provide their students with
all the facts and information. All identified the CT as a process of enquiry in which students have to
seek the answers to the questions posed by themselves or others.
Do the instructors think they would be able to implement CT in their lessons if they were
required to do so? Why and why not?
Six out of eight participants argued that with the current state of affairs they were not able to
implement CT in their classrooms. They believed that unless from the first days of schooling
students are taught to think critically and solve problems, they would not to think critically.
Moreover, they knew the system of education responsible for such a problem. They asserted that the
curriculum is top down, assessment is based on memorization of materials, and pre-service
instructor education universities do not seriously involve instructors in such a process.
Two other respondents agreed that it would be possible to incorporate CT in different
degrees in their courses. As they believed such a shift toward CT may be slow and difficult but
possible. They argued that such a shift could begin with instructor education centers and teaching
materials. They insisted that workshops, seminars, pre-service and in-service courses for instructors
can make instructors aware of the importance and process of CT.
4. Discussion and conclusion
CT is of great importance in education, and it should be taught to students in all educational
settings (Black, 2005; Yeh, 2002); however, the findings of this study showed that while junior
students of education were expected to be familiar with the skills of CT, it was not so at all. Thus, to
find the reason, the study intended to investigate instructors familiarity and view regarding the
70
issue. To this aim, an interview with six questions was held with the eight instructors with the
following results.
As to the first question of the interview which asked the definition of CT, it seemed that all
the participants were familiar with the term. However, what is not clear is whether they were
familiar with the components of CT as well as its characteristics. Furthermore, further research is
needed to see if the instructors are aware of how to implement practically CT in their usual courses.
Despite lack of such information for the researcher, from the answers provided by the instructors
and use of terms such as low CT activities, appraisal, and scientific inquiry by the instructors, it
could be understood that they were aware of the related literature.
It is evident from the answers that nearly none of the instructors believed that CT happens in
their classrooms. It is not surprising that though all the participants in the study were familiar with
the concept in the field, they themselves may have been subjected to the same top down educational
system in which students were well informed about the theories; however, had no power to
implement what they had learned in the new contexts. Based on the responses, it was clear that the
instructors were compelled to cover the content. To do so, they felt that they did not have enough
time to teach what they taught to be the features of CT. Although in Iranian universities instructors
are somehow free to choose the books and specify the content based on the guidelines prescribed by
Ministry of Science and Technology, they have to cover some pre-specified goals and objectives of
the courses especially for courses which are prerequisite for other university courses.
As the instructors reported, one of the barriers which was hard to tackle was that from the
first days of schooling students in Iran have learned to be passive listeners whose freedom to have
voice in the classrooms is very limited. Therefore, they lacked eagerness and were reluctant to
spend extra mental effort required by high level thinking. Such a way of thinking in a class as a
mini-society may be due to the cultural norms in the country. Davidson (1998) points out that that
CT must be clearly defined and adapted culture-wise. If CT is not valued in the society, it may be
likely to meet with opposition in schools and universities. Such an attitude even has molded
instructors expectations who would like to have everything under their control and not to overload
students who prefer to be given the most straightforward information. Moreover, students in all
years of schooling may already have experienced a pedagogy that rewards note taking and good
recall of facts (Peirce, 1998). The consequence of such an education, as Peirce (1998) notes, is
having students be more interested in the right answer than the way the answer is obtained.
It seems that instructors view CT as an activity which needs more time than the
conventional methods of teaching. Perhaps, students need enough time to think about and explore
the answers to the questions, raise their own questions, discover information, and construct their
own models since CT as other approaches to constructivism, as Marlowe and Page (1998) note, is
about thinking and the thinking process rather than about the quantity of information a student can
memorize and recite (p. 11).
Wang (2009) notes that CT is an ability that allows students to freely express their own
ideas. As one of the instructors mentioned, students rarely have freedom to express themselves. Of
course creating a condition in which students are able to have their say and participate in the
process of decision-making may help them get more involved in deep learning.
To change such a situation and implement CT, as the instructors mentioned, are not easy. As
van Gelder (2004) points out, while it can seem quite basic, it [CT] is actually a complicated
process, and most people are just not very good at it (p. 2). It needs unanimous endeavor from the
side of those responsible for developing curriculum, instructor education centers to give enough
practical insights to the instructors, and workshops to maintain such an attempt.
CT effectively helps students to perform well both at educational settings and in after school
life. It contributes to better decision making in the social and interpersonal contexts; therefore,
attempts should be made to resolve the problems and constraints encountered by instructors to teach
critically.
Further research with a sample of more instructors is needed to see if the instructors beliefs
are compatible with that of students. Instructors who took part in the study may not have
71
implemented CT only because they may have had wrong assumptions about their students beliefs.
They even my not have been aware of the techniques to implement CT.
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Introduction
Institutions of higher education have
widely embraced critical thinking (CT) as
essential to student success. CT is a core
concept of the general education (GE)
program within undergraduate education.
A fundamental assumption that underlies
the implementation of CT in GE is that it
is discipline-general. As discipline-general, CT is comprised of a battery of skills
that can be applied to all disciplines and
subject-matter indiscriminately (Davies
2006, 1). Consequently, Davies (2006)
has argued, general skills of CT can help
us assess reasoning independent of the
vagaries of the linguistic discourse we
express arguments in (1).
The pervasiveness of this model in
assessment is evident when considering
that the instruments recommended by
the Voluntary System of Accountability
(VSA), the VALUE CT rubric, and commercial instruments all conceptualize CT
as discipline-general. Questions about
the generality of CT arise from evidence
indicating that the distribution of testtakers majors influences value-added
scores when using discipline-general instruments such as the Collegiate Learning
Assessment (Banta and Pike 2007).
An increasing body of research implies that disciplinary epistemology
(Jones 2007; Moore 2011) and campus
culture (Tsui 2000) inform faculty views
of CT. Further, Nicholas and RaiderRoth (2011) found that faculty favored
Assessment Update JulyAugust 2013 Volume 25, Number 4 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. doi:10.1002/au
Self-Examination of Current
Assessment Approach
An examination of recent evidence has
led to specific concerns about the current
approach for assessing CT as an outcome
of the GE program. Nicholas and RaiderRoth (2011), who conducted interviews
and focus-group sessions with 17 faculty
in the humanities and natural and social
sciences, found that these faculty implicitly assessed CT within disciplinary contexts. Faculty took a faceted approach to
teaching and assessing CT in an academic
course, focusing on components of CT
applicable to specific disciplinary content
and contexts. Further, the facets of CT on
which faculty focused differed according
to discipline-specific epistemic criteria.
For instance, faculty in the natural sciences
focused on rationalistic elements of CT,
while those in the humanities focused more
A Multipronged Response
CAGE developed a multipronged approach to address the above challenges.
This approach entailed a focus on faculty
development and revisiting the CT rubric.
8
Assessment Update JulyAugust 2013 Volume 25, Number 4 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. doi:10.1002/au
Assessing CT Using
the Revised Approach
In summer 2012, OSU faculty undertook exercises to assess CT as a GE
outcome. This provided a good opportunity to implement our revised assessment
approach. Faculty across the university
submitted student work, which was then
sorted into disciplinary categories reflecting the humanities, natural sciences, and
social sciences. Instead of asking faculty
members to score student papers outside
their discipline, they worked in groups
with student papers that reflected their
disciplinary expertise.
Prior to scoring student artifacts, raters participated in a norming session.
During these sessions, faculty members
across disciplines were provided with
opportunities to discuss differences in interpreting the rubric. Experienced raters
from the humanities reported that in previous years they frequently had to recalibrate specific dimensions of the scoring
rubric. For example, the dimension Student Provides Evidence and Supporting
Information was interpreted as having a
distinct meaning within each discipline.
Some initially took this to mean with or
without any additional support, while
others took it as involving some sort of
additional evidence. As soon as this came
out in discussion, there was quick agreement that unsupported opinion is useless
for the purposes of CT.
Further, the nature and content of
discussions among faculty in related
disciplines was markedly contextual.
Disciplinary facilitators reported that
Summary
The approach we outline is relevant
in establishing a faculty-driven, alternative assessment practice for CT assessment at an institutional level while
remaining cognizant of disciplinary distinctions in both the conceptualization
and indicators of CT. If a goal of GE is
to provide students the widest spectrum
of disciplinary exposure, the value of
CT in GE may lie not in its generality
but instead within the multidisciplinarity of CT. Hence, expanding the scope
of CT assessment to reflect disciplinary
idiosyncrasies as opposed to generalities
has proven more valuable in our own assessment experiences than value-added
approaches using discipline-general
measures.
Assessment Update JulyAugust 2013 Volume 25, Number 4 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. doi:10.1002/au
References
Banta, T. W., and Pike, G. R. 2007.
Revisiting the Blind Alley of Value
Added. Assessment Update 19(1): 12,
1415.
Davies, W. M. 2006. In Defence of
Generalisation: Moore on the Critical
Thinking Debate. Higher Education Research & Development 25: 179193.
Hawthorne, J., and Kelsch, A. 2012.
Closing the Loop: How an Assessment
Project Paved the Way for GE Reform.
Assessment Update 24(4): 12.
12
Summary
The intent of this article was to describe the techniques used in one qualitative assessment initiative and to demonstrate the ways in which qualitative
assessment can bring life and depth to
assessment projects in student affairs. As
the demands for greater accountability increase, student affairs divisions will need
to demonstrate both a capacity and willingness to implement rigorous methods
to collect, analyze, and interpret qualitative assessment data.
References
Bolman, L. G., and Deal, T. E. 2001.
Leading with Soul: An Uncommon Journey of Spirit. San Francisco, CA: JosseyBass.
Cooperrider, D. L., and Whitney, D.
2005. Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive
Assessment Update JulyAugust 2013 Volume 25, Number 4 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. doi:10.1002/au
Copyright of Assessment Update is the property of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and its content
may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright
holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for
individual use.
J. Pinkney, Michael F. Shaughnessy. Teaching critical thinking skills: a modern mandate. International
Journal of Academic Research Part B; 2013; 5(3), 346-352. DOI: 10.7813/2075-4124.2013/5-3/B.52
All of us compare, classify, order, extrapolate, interpret, form hypotheses, weigh evidence, draw
conclusions, and engage in various activities that are typically classified as thinking. This is not to say that
we always do these things perfectly, or even that we typically do them all very well, but we do them with or
without prodding or the benefit of formal training(However,) the fact that we think spontaneously does not
prevent us from succumbing to the stratagems of hucksters and demagogues, nor does it ensure the
consistent rationality of our behavior. Indeed, the list of documented ways in which our reasoning commonly
goes astray is a long one (Nickerson, 1987).
Some policymakers justify the mandate to teach critical thinking through the assertion that critical thinking is
necessary to get a job, or to keep the US economy competitive on the worldwide market. But is this true? Goodlad
(Nickerson, cited in Sternberg, 1987, p. 31) argued that few employers pay their workers to contemplate, question,
and inquire; in fact, many discourage this. Some jobs at the professional and technical level require troubleshooting
and problem solving within their domain, but Brown and Saks (Nickerson, p. 31) speaking from a strictly economic
point of view, stated that "there is no obvious economic argument for maximizing the reasoning skills of the
population."
On the other hand, Adam Smith (1776) argued that the combined action of rational choices by all members
of an unconstrained economic system constitute the effect of an "invisible hand," which maximizes benefits for all.
John Nash, in his Nobel Prize winning theory of Nash Equilibrium, refined this idea (Nasser, 2007). He showed that
benefit is maximized not when all act according to individual self-interest, but instead when a rational actor,
assuming that others in a transaction will continue their course of action, considers what actions would maximize
benefits for all.
It is noteworthy that, in both models, the assumption is that actions are rationally considered and chosen.
Unfortunately, this assumption is not always accurate. Thus, a case may be made for teaching critical thinking,
even if there is no immediately visible economic benefit.
Likewise, the U.S. political system depends on citizens and leaders who can think rationally. We value
democracy; however, the ancient Greeks, who enjoyed a prototypical democracy, observed that an educated
populace is necessary to keep democracy from degenerating into mob rule. Indeed, this is echoed in Thomas
Jefferson's forceful support of public education: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization,
it expects what never was and never will be." (Bergstett, n.d.). Echoing this, Postman wrote, "There can be no
liberty for a community which lacks the critical skills to distinguish lies from truth" (Nickerson, cited in Sternberg,
1987, p. 31). This is true even though society does not always reward or appreciate critical thinking; Eve remains
vilified in mainstream Christian tradition, and Socrates was executed. Moreover, critical thinking does not always
th
lead to immediate peace or tranquility; instead, it may lead to periods of social upheaval such as the 18 century
Enlightenment-inspired revolutions of France, the United States, and Haiti, or the civil rights and anti-war
movements of the 1960s. Even though critical thinking may be troublesome at times, it is still highly valued as a
skill of civilization.
3. CHARACTERISTICS OF CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS
What do researchers mean by critical thinking? Two constructs come most readily to mind: Bloom's
Taxonomy and Piaget's theory on Formal Operations. There are other constructs as well. For example, Robert
Ennis of the Illinois Critical Thinking Project discussed thirteen dispositions, which he regarded as "essential for the
critical thinker" and a fourteenth, sensitivity to others, as also important. Ennis summarized these thirteen under the
four headings of clarity, basis, inference, and interaction, and created a curriculum for teaching critical thinking
(Ennis, 1985, p. 10). This curriculum may be found in the cited reference.
4. BLOOM'S TAXONOMY
Bloom's Taxonomy is a hierarchical structure of thinking skills, which may be summarized as follows:
Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evalutaion. Bloom regarded Evaluation,
Synthesis, and Analysis as higher order skills. Further, Bloom believed all children to be capable of all of these
skills if given appropriate expectations and guidance.
Many educators believe that the hierarchy of these skills is essential, that is, that the skills build on each
other and that students cannot attain higher level skills until the lower level skills are firmly in place. For example, in
grade school, children learn addition and multiplication tables to automaticity, and perform calculations with
fractions, decimals, percentages, basic geometric figures, and the division algorithm. Educators believe these rote
skills serve a person well in developing number sense as well as form a foundation for understanding the field
properties of the real number system. This foundation prepares students to abstract this number sense to algebra,
an area generally regarded as a gateway to a rigorous study of science and mathematics (US Government,
National Mathematics Advisory Panel, 2008)
Others object that such "drill and kill" is unnecessary, demeaning, and counterproductive (Devin, 2010).
They note that very young children spontaneously show higher order thinking skills in areas that interest them, and
the availability of calculators and computers makes it possible for children to carry out sophisticated endeavors in
literature and mathematics even if they lack the underlying basic skills. Educators hope that the increased
availability of technology may lessen the achievement gap seen in minority and low SES students even though the
availability of technology in low SES communities may always lag behind such availability in affluent communities.
Piaget further hypothesized that these stages progress naturally as a child accommodates and assimilates
new information. When a child encounters information that does not fit into current schema, an uncomfortable state
of disequilibration can occur. Under optimal circumstances, new schema development resolves this disequilibration
and stimulates progress into the next stage of cognitive development (Commons & Richards, 2002).
Piaget developed a set of tasks to see if children had achieved concrete operational abilities, and found that
most middle class French children did achieve them at about the same age range, 5 to 7 years old. Other studies
have found that these abilities develop at about the same age range in children in many parts of the world,
especially in Westernized or literate cultures. However, the exact age, as well as the order at which the skills
develop, may vary depending on which skills the given culture values (Suizzo, 2000). Other studies in non-reading
cultures have failed to produce consistent results. These studies, however, may have suffered flaws in
methodology and applicability to cultures very different from that of the researchers (Dasen, 1972). For present
purposes, it is safe to say that concrete operational skills are generally established and functioning in noncognitively impaired in adults and adolescents of Western cultures (Huitt & Hummel, 2003).
Picture credit: Huitt W. & Hummel J. (2003). Piaget's theory of cognitive development.
Educational Psychology Interactive, used with permission.
It is important to note that learners in the concrete operational stage are quite capable of rational inquiry and
problem solving. But they can reliably solve only problems that apply to actual (concrete) objects or events;
abstract concepts and hypothetical tasks may leave them frustrated, exasperated, and overwhelmed. Because
their reasoning is based on concrete events, they thrive on hands-on learning. They readily perform inductive
reasoning, recognizing a pattern in examples and applying this pattern to understand and interpret subsequent
experiences. But deductive reasoning, from abstract principles to concrete applications, is sporadic to non-existent.
Stage 3 thinkers can devise and carry out experiments, and often enjoy doing so. However, left to their own
devices, their experiments are haphazard, based on isolated rounds of trial and error rather than formulation and
systematic testing of hypotheses.
Thus, the middle school science or math teacher can devise meaningful and engaging learning experiences
subject to these conditions as long as the teacher is mindful of the strengths and limitations of concrete operational
thought. Since many adults remain at the concrete operational stage (Huitt & Hummel, 1998), teachers at the high
school and undergraduate college level would also do well to remember these characteristics of the concrete
operational learner. Sometime around early teen years, and into adulthood, some learners successfully manage
disequilibration, so that they develop the ability to mentally manipulate abstract concepts and solve problems by
deduction from general principles, to specific circumstances. Piaget developed a set of tasks, such as the
pendulum task, the flexible rods task, and the shadow task, in which researchers ask adolescents to devise an
experiment, systematically testing variables in order to solve a problem or achieve a goal. Unlike the concrete
operational tasks, the ability to complete these tasks was not universal, even in the middle class French children
Piaget, studied and even less so in young people of other nations, cultures, and social classes.
Concrete thinkers use and manipulate symbols for concrete objects; in addition, formal thinkers use symbols
to manipulate abstract concepts. Concrete thinkers reason about things; formal thinkers reason about ideas. A
formal operational thinker can systematically consider the interaction of multiple variables, isolating them singly or
in orderly patterns, in order to solve a problem or find a new relation. Stage 4 thinkers can mentally manipulate
abstract relationships and concepts without a need for concrete models or even real-world examples, and do so
reliably (Wood, Smith, & Grossniklaus, 2001). These are the skills required in mathematics from high school
algebra on. Unfortunately, these skills are not universal.
Picture credit: Huitt W. & Hummel J. (2003), ibid, used with permission.
Genovese (2003) argues that this is because concrete thinking skills are "biologically primary, based on
the characteristics of matter and energy that humans encounter in their daily interactions with the physical world. A
person who could not make sense of the environment in these or equivalent terms would be at a survival
disadvantage. However, stage four thinking skills are "biologically secondary." Not necessary to survival, they
pertain to abstractions that are not part of most peoples everyday experiences, so they do not occur as standard.
According to Huitt and Hummel (1998), only 35% of high school graduates in industrialized countries obtain formal
operations; many people do not think formally during adulthood". This raises serious difficulties in mathematics and
science education. As Genovese (2003) said:
The failure of adolescents and adults to reason in the ways predicted by Piaget is a serious problem
for both the theory and practice of education, for it is precisely the formal reasoning skills that are necessary
for mastering academic subjects such as math and science beyond the elementary level.
The problem is clear: if a person is unable to operate on operations, algebra makes little sense to them, and
the pathway to a higher science education is closed. Yet the federal government and states require algebra for high
school graduation, and, without a high school diploma, a person faces a life of marginalization. Moreover, there is a
trend to introduce algebra in middle school, even in elementary school, and to require more years of math for high
school graduation. Unlike the "new math" of the 1960's, the mandate to achieve accompanies this introduction.
So, the question is: how do educators foster these thinking skills in adult and adolescent learners? This
question may be broken down further: what can educators do for those who remain at the concrete operational
stage? How can educators create situations of disequilibration to nudge adult and adolescent learners over into
formal operational thinking, without driving them to give up in frustration? Or, if this is not feasible, how can
educators help learners to make optimal use of the concrete operational skills which they do have, so that they can
function as rational beings at that level?
Critics have noted that Piaget's stages are not as context and culture free as they seem (Genovese, 2003)
and that culture itself, helps to define intelligence (Suizzo,2000). Other critics have noted that the Piaget's stages
may be artifacts of his testing process and that human cognition develops in a sequential and continuous manner
(Dasen, 1972). Yet, there does seem to be qualitative differences in the thought patterns of those who are
proficient in reasoning from abstract principles, and those who seem to be able only to reason from what they can
touch, see, and manipulate, and this qualitative difference seems to be related to the opportunities that education
stakeholders make available to students. These educational opportunities, in turn, can influence the socioeconomic
status of students long after their formal education has ended. Thus, social justice demands that all interested
parties investigate critical thinking and how it may be made accessible to more, if not to all.
6. ENNIS: CRITICAL THINKING DISPOSITIONS
Robert H. Ennis (1985) of the Illinois Critical Thinking Project defined critical thinking as "a practical
reflective activity that has reasonable belief or action as its goal," that is, "the process of reflectively and reasonably
deciding what to believe in do." He added:
Critical thinking is not equivalent to the higher order thinking skills, in part because that idea is so
vague. However, critical thinking, a practical activity, includes most or all of the directly practical higher order
thinking skills. Furthermore, critical thinking includes dispositions which would not be included in a listing of
skills.
Ennis defined the basic areas of critical thinking as clarity, basis, inference, and action. These may be
broken down further as follows: clarity includes focusing, analyzing arguments and asking appropriate questions.
Basis involves support for one's inferences and includes judging the credibility of statements and sources as well
as observation. Inference is the process of developing frames of reference. Inference includes inductive reasoning
(generalizing to create and test hypotheses), deductive reasoning (applying a principle or abstract idea to concrete
situations, determining whether a conclusion necessarily follows from premises), and inference to value judgments,
that is, making statements in terms of what people actually do or should reasonably do. Ennis added a fourth area,
interaction with others, because the ability to see issues from others' points of view is necessary to refine one's
thinking as well as to make it appropriate and applicable to functioning as a rational member of human society. It is
interesting to note that most of these dispositions, through application to real world examples and hands-on
experiences, can be made accessible to learners who possess concrete operational skills.
7. INSTRUCTION FOR CRITICAL THINKING
Ennis developed a curriculum for teaching critical reasoning, described in the references. In this curriculum,
students learn to seek clarity, formulate questions, analyze arguments, judge the credibility of statements and
sources, recognize valid logical processes as well as fallacies, make value judgments, and interact with others as
rational beings. This curriculum was developed for use at the undergraduate college level. It would also be
appropriate for high schools, if it were not for curriculum constraints imposed by federal and state law. That is, one
may object: with all the required courses for high school graduation, how could schools afford to add a class like
this? In view of the points raised under the topic "why teach critical thinking?," one could just as well ask, how can
educators afford not to teach a class like this at the high school level, where, thanks to compulsory education laws,
more young people would be exposed to this material. Perhaps a course like this could be offered in lieu of some
mathematics requirements.
Traditionally, one reason given for teaching algebra and geometry is "to teach the (human) race to reason
even though, "It does not, heaven knows, always succeed, but it is the best method that we have. It is not the only
road to the goal, but there is none better." (Dudley, 2010) Unfortunately, those who are not capable of the type of
thought described as Piagetian Formal Operations often balk at the effort, underperforming in mathematics and
avoiding college major choices which require mathematics (Commons, Miller, & Kuhn, 1982, Salman, 2002). To
address this, instructors may integrate critical thinking into courses on writing, philosophy, and social studies. The
curriculum cited earlier by Ennis explicitly teaches critical thinking skills, as do courses in quantitative literacy,
intended for liberal arts and social science majors.
At one southwestern university, the Mathematics department has developed a new math course, Math 106,
to suit the needs of social science majors who need the basic math and critical thinking skills that are prerequisite
to the statistics classes required by their major. This, in turn, raises the question among social science majors,
Why do we need statistics? Such students argue that they are not going to be statisticians; they contend that they
are going to be working directly with people. However, when they ask this, math faculty must point out to them that
statistics is necessary to the scientific method, which in turn is necessary to social sciences in order to be truly
scientific endeavors. At this juncture, it is helpful to show them how, as social science professionals, they will be in
positions to create and administer social policy. Such professionals should base such policy on science and
reason.
Educators can also integrate critical thinking into mainstream instruction at the secondary and elementary
levels. Educators may teach children as young as age seven to analyze, compare, judge, and infer across the
subject domains of reading, mathematics, and writing (Quellmalz, 1987). In social studies classes, teachers may
challenge students to visualize and comment on historical events from points of view other than the usual
mainstream, or argue an issue from a "devil's advocate" position (Swartz, 1987). Such exercises can nudge
students out of their comfort zones and into a state of disequilibration that will, it is hoped, resolve itself into higher
order thinking patterns.
8. CONCLUSION
Educators must teach critical thinking because critical thinking is a skill which makes people fully human.
Although thinking comes naturally to humans, people generally need training in order to think reliably and well.
Modern mandates in education require that schools teach higher level thinking, without really specifying what this
means.
Paradigms provided by Piaget, Bruno, Ennis, and others, define higher level thinking and suggest ways that
educators can foster these skills in learners. In particular, since most people are Concrete Operational thinkers,
critical thinking should be taught in ways that rely primarily on the skills of Concrete Operational thinking. Such
curricula may introduce enough disequilibration to stimulate transition to Stage 4, while, with a bit of care,
educators can avoid overwhelming and frustrating learners with demands that they perform tasks that may seem
pointless and impossible to Stage 3 thinkers.
There is no guarantee that universal proficiency is possible, but educators still need to aim for this, and can
best do so by building on the skills which learners currently possess. Thus, we can achieve a populace capable of
critical thought. Modern ideals of democracy and freedom demand no less.
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Abstract: Many ELT experts believe that the inclusion of critical thinking
skills in English classes is necessary to improve students English competence. Students critical thinking skills will be optimally increased if meaning is prioritized in English lessons. Those two inter-related elements can be
implemented when teachers do collaborative activities stimulating students
thinking process and meaning negotiation. Yet, the realization might be
counter-productive if they are applied without careful consideration of task
purposes and of students roles. Based on the consideration, this paper is focused on presenting how critical thinking skills and meaning should be
properly incorporated in an English lesson.
Key words: critical thinking, critical thinking skills, meaning, collaborative
activities
Plato, was then applied by Descartes and was a theme in essays written by
Montesquieu and John Locke (Rfaner, 2006).
Critical thinking is the intelligently self-controlled process of actively and
skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating
information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection,
reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. It is based on
universal intellectual values that excel subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth,
breadth, and fairness (Scriven & Richard, 1987). In short, critical thinking is
that mode of thinking - about any subject, content, or problem - in which the
thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully taking charge of
the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon
them (The Critical Thinking Community, 2002).
At university level, critical thinking skills are essential abilities in using
intellectual tools by which one appropriately assesses thinking. In this case, by
utilizing critical thinking skills, students can use the intellectual tools that critical thinking offers concepts and principles that enable them to analyze, assess, and improve thinking. They will be able to work diligently to develop the
intellectual virtues of intellectual integrity, intellectual humility, intellectual civility, intellectual empathy, intellectual sense of justice and confidence in reason. To put it briefly, critical thinking skills are self-improvement in thinking
through intellectual tools that assess thinking (The Critical Thinking Community, 2009).
Critical thinking skills play significant roles not only in learners academic
achievements but also in their dynamic life of workforce after graduation. Hirose (1992) claims that numerous large corporations all over the globe deal
with the lack of basic thinking skills performed by recent college graduates in
their companies. He says that, Many of today's youth lack the basic skills to
function effectively when they enter the workforce. A common complaint is
that entry-level employees lack the reasoning and critical thinking abilities
needed to process and refine information (Hirose, 1992:1).
In the context of higher education in Indonesia, especially in English Department, the limited use of critical thinking skills and the lack of meaningful
activities are assumed to be the reasons why students in Indonesian universities
are often ineffective in exchanging ideas and writing in English critically. They
tend to accept opinions, especially on the current news of politics, corruption,
and education, without evaluating them appropriately. This is probably because
Masduqi, Critical Thinking Skills and Meaning in English Language Teaching 187
most of them previously studied at primary and secondary schools which typically applied too teacher-centered approach. Therefore, expressing ideas in
English both communicatively and critically is not always easy for English Department students.
Based on what have been stated above, this paper will focus on presenting
how critical thinking skills and meaning should be implemented in English
Language Teaching. To begin with, the writer will first discuss English Language Teaching in Indonesia in general perspectives and then clarify the reasons why critical thinking skills and meaning should be prioritized in English
classes. From this point on, the writer will suggest practical teaching stages incorporating critical thinking skills and meaning in an English lesson.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING IN INDONESIA
English has been taught at secondary schools in Indonesia since the era of
Dutch colonialism. The persistent, similar fact is that English has never been
positioned as an official language, as in Singapore, Malaysia, India, or other
nations where English has an important, influential status as a second language.
A possible reason is that the effect of British colonialism in Indonesia is practically invisible and United States had not been diplomatically close with the Indonesian government at that time (Dardjowidjojo, 1996).
Dardjowidjojo further states that the effort to establish English as a second
language in 1950s was also unsuccessful for at least two reasons. First, although Bahasa Indonesia is the national language, it is the second language for
most people since most Indonesians speak a vernacular before they learn the
national language. Second, triggered by the spirit of nationalism, Indonesian
leaders and people were not willing to consider English as a second language.
For these fundamental reasons, English remains as a foreign language in Indonesia.
The English language status gives significant impacts in all education levels. Even though English is a compulsory subject for students from Year 3 to
the first year in tertiary level, the time allotment for English subject is not sufficient considering basic communicative competence should be achieved by the
learners. At secondary schools, for instance, students only learn English for
twice a week, 45 minutes each time. English is not prioritized and treated in the
same way as other general subjects.
The condition is not even better at Indonesian universities. English in nonEnglish departments is only taught once or twice a week, each meeting is 100
minutes during the first two semesters. In few cases, English is even not taught
at all because it is not a part of core courses. This academic fact is disadvantageous for the students since a number of compulsory textbooks used by their
lecturers are in English.
In English Departments, students usually endure a number of adjustments
when they speak in English. Attending their first English class, most of them
face a perplexing fact that they have to be able to communicate in English. This
adjustment could be full of twists and turns because English is not a language
used by Indonesian people in daily life. The majority of the students have limited use of English in their societies and consequently, communicating in English is often challenging for them.
In the most recent development, however, some Indonesian universities
have started making a progressive step by giving more priority in English, such
as using English as a medium of instruction in international classes, asking students to regularly translate English materials in Indonesian, supporting the establishment of English clubs, having students speak in English for presenting
their theses, and so forth. Nevertheless, such a constructive effort has not been
widely received and conducted by other universities. This determination tends
to be successful only in state and elite private institutions in which the enrolled students bring quite good language proficiency from their previous education levels (Sukono, 2004). It is, therefore, an appropriate approach should be
immensely applied in English Language Teaching in Indonesia.
Communicative Approach was then expected to alter the English Language Teaching in Indonesia as it was chosen as an instructional approach in
the 1994 English curriculum. With Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)
in the curriculum, there seemed to be a crucial change in English teaching,
lessening grammatical and vocabulary emphases and moving to the new era in
which students ability to converse in English communicatively will receive
priority. Yet, due to the misinterpretation with oral-based language instructions
and controversies among educators, the same approach was redefined and
changed into Meaningfulness Approach in the 1999 Curriculum (Huda,
1999). Furthermore, Musthafa (2001, pp. 3-4) summarizes the coverage of the
approach as follows:
Masduqi, Critical Thinking Skills and Meaning in English Language Teaching 189
Masduqi, Critical Thinking Skills and Meaning in English Language Teaching 191
there should be a determination covering learning objectives, contents and progress, methods and techniques and evaluation which supports learners autonomy (Dardjowidjojo, 1997). Similar to the perspective, Richards and Rodgers
(2002) state that language teaching in a communicative approachbased class
should be learner-centered and responsive to the students needs and interests.
This method is potentially fruitful in western countries in which people highly
regard egalitarianism and democracy. Yet, the idea is almost impracticable in
Indonesia, particularly because teacher-student relations are much influenced
by local wisdom and cultural values.
Indonesian students, especially those from rural areas, are not accustomed
to the idea that learning activities are student-centered. The features of communicative competence discussed above seem to challenge the values and beliefs
in the dominant culture of this nation, which is heavily influenced by the Javanese tradition. For example, two famous Javanese philosophies such as manut
lan piturut (to obey and to follow) and ewuh-pakewuh (feeling uncomfortable
and uneasy) still dominantly exist in Indonesian peoples way of thinking. The
impact of these cultural principles in English classes is that good students are
generally those who follow their teacher's ideas without necessarily analyzing
or evaluating them. Even, if they oppose the teachers opinions, they tend to be
silent and seem to accept what the teacher says. Consequently, it is not easy to
expect the students to communicate and interact openly and critically with their
teachers. They might feel uncomfortable and uneasy to say something directly
to their teachers, to talk about controversial matters, and to disagree with them
(Setiono, 2004).
At last, generally English lecturers in Indonesia are not well-paid. Due the
low salary, many of them do side jobs to get extra income. This condition creates serious implications. With more and more energy being used for side jobs,
the lecturers are less motivated to do their main teaching job. They are not interested in conducting classroom research or pursue professional development
because there is no direct financial income from those kinds of academic endeavors.
To sum up, the emphases that are put in the latest curriculum clearly indicate the understanding of the current approach of English Language Teaching
and how the approach views the language teaching in foreign language contexts. Nevertheless, such a good theoretical notion is not well translated into
practice, particularly in the classrooms. This is because certain supportive conditions such as, the existence or good language models, a great deal of expo-
Masduqi, Critical Thinking Skills and Meaning in English Language Teaching 193
still have difficulties in revealing ideas in English communicatively and critically. Students critical thinking skills will be optimally enhanced if meaning is
treated as the first priority in English classes. Those two inter-related elements
can be more optimally implemented when teachers do collaborative activities
(pair work and group work) which stimulate students thinking process and
meaning negotiation in their classroom discussions.
THE REALIZATION OF CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS AND MEANING
In order to activate students critical thinking skills, English teachers need
to present alternatives, different ways of interpreting texts and different conceptions of the world. The importance of thinking in todays education requires
the main concept of critical thinking in which there is always more than one
way to see things and that it is always up to the individual to judge just where
the truth lies on any given issue (Mason and Washington, 1992).
Regarding the flexible nature of critical thinking, the writer proposes a
teaching practice that can be modified in different ways. This is because the
implementation of critical thinking skills and meaning in language teaching is
not new and an absolute format has not been recommended so far. The underlying principle is that language learning is improved through increased motivation and naturally seen in meaningful contexts. When learners are interested in
a topic and are given chances to negotiate meaning, they will be motivated to
discuss things critically and at the same time, acquire language to communicate
(Darn, 2006; Rfaner, 2006).
As stated in the introduction, both critical thinking skills and meaning can
be incorporated when teachers do collaborative activities, i.e., pair work and
group work. Therefore, the writer would illustrate teaching stages of an English
lesson that essentially integrate critical thinking skills and meaning. For practical reasons, the writer would apply a series of teaching stages in a reading lesson (adapted from CELTT 1 Handbook, 2008). The teaching of Reading is
chosen as an example since it provides ample opportunities to exploit students
skills in English learning arise through reading texts. In this case, the proposed
reading lesson draws on the lexical approach, encouraging learners to notice
language while reading followed by activities involving meaning discovery and
critical thinking skills. Accordingly, teachers can flexibly diversify methods
and forms of classroom teaching and learning, improve learners overall and
Masduqi, Critical Thinking Skills and Meaning in English Language Teaching 195
The objectives of this stage are to apply group work in order to negotiate meaning and to do skimming. Working in groups help fostering learning independence, and especially in ordering jumbled paragraphs, the students can exchange
information and negotiate meaning when discussing new vocabulary items and
ambiguous sentences. It is also expected that group work will be a motivating
element, as students skim the text together, share ideas, and argue with each
other constructively. This is a crucial stage of polishing up students critical
thinking skills in which the teacher should only monitor and not interfere much
in their classroom discussions.
(6) Listening for the right order
Play a cassette telling the right order of the story.
Ask students whether or not their prediction is correct.
This stage is aimed to provide the correct order and a reason for gist reading.
While students are listening to the cassette and matching their paragraphs order, they are indirectly reading the whole text and paying attention on pronunciation and grammatical forms in the text. This introduces the pupils to correct
pronunciation and grammatical constructions without making them a conscious
focus. This kind of inductive learning is more interesting, meaningful, and
natural than deductive learning, in which learners are presented with rules with
which they then go on to apply. It pays dividend in terms of the long-term
memory of these rules (Thornbury, 2006:102).
(7) Reading comprehension
Ask some short questions based on the story
The purpose of this stage is to focus on overall meaning and main ideas in the
text. This is a usual teaching stage in which the teacher commonly uses Whquestions to check whether or not the students are able to find out and understand main ideas and specific information in the text. In other words, Whquestions are utilized to make sure that the students grasp the overall meaning
of the text. It is advisable for the teacher to ask short questions that make students find the answers in and beyond the text. The teacher should not spend
Masduqi, Critical Thinking Skills and Meaning in English Language Teaching 197
much time on this task since the final task is also aimed at measuring students
comprehension.
(8) Acting out the story/Speaking
Put students into groups of 3, one person for each character in the story.
Ask them to act out the story or do a mini drama.
The objective of this stage is to measure students comprehension in a fun,
non-verbal way. In this final productive stage, the teacher can ask the learners
to discuss the most practical scenario before acting out the story. This extra
oral practice potentially strengthens the previous collaborative activities in a relaxed, enjoyable way. This is in line with Lightbown and Spadas ideas (2003)
that the more the students are provided with extra oral practice in a target language, the more they will be able to speak it communicatively.
By applying the eight teaching stages above, the writer expects English
teachers to consider that the realization of critical thinking skills and meaning
is feasible when teachers apply pair work and group work in which students
think actively and negotiate meaning. The stages of pair-work and group work
are also useful the students communicative competence. In the productive
stages, the students have more opportunities to get more language exposure and
practice (Moon, 2005). It would engage the learners talking to one another to
exchange information communicatively and critically. They talk in order to
communicate, activate thinking process, and exchange arguments, not just to
practice the language (Spratt et al., 2005).
CONCLUSION
The realization of critical thinking skills and meaning in English Language
Teaching is worth doing to improve students English competence. Those two
important elements can be incorporated in English lessons as long as teachers
do collaborative activities providing students sufficient exposure to thinking
process and meaning negotiation. The variety of classroom activities does not
only cater students communicative competence, but also create lively learning
atmosphere. Indeed, this is not an easy task because the teachers have to make
sure that the English lesson, involving both critical thinking skills and meaning,
is reasonably inter-related and suitable to the level and needs of their students.
REFERENCES
Cromwell, L. 1992. Teaching Critical Thinking in the Arts and Humanities.
Milwaukee: Alverno Productions.
Dardjowidjojo, S. 1996. The Socio-Political Aspects of English in Indonesia.
TEFLIN Journal, 3(1):1-13.
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Dardjowidjojo, S. 1997. Cultural Constraints in the Teaching of English in Indonesia. Paper presented at the TEFLIN 45th National Conference, 4-6
August 1997. Maranatha Christian University, Bandung.
Darn, S. 2006. Content and Language Integrated Learning, (Online),
(http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/lesson-plans/a-content-languageintegrated-learning-lesson), retrieved 5 August 2011.
Doff, A. 1998. Teach English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hirose, S., 1992. Critical Thinking in Community Colleges. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Reports, The George Washington University, ED348128.
Huda, N. 1999. Language Learning and Teaching: Issues and Trends. Malang:
IKIP Malang Publisher.
LAPIS-ELTIS Project. 2008. CELTT 1 Handbook. Bali: IALF Denpasar.
Lewis, M. 1997. Implementing the Lexical Approach. London: Language Teaching Publications.
Lightbown, P.M. & Spada, N. 2003. How Languages are Learned. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Marcellino, M. (2008). English Language Teaching in Indonesia: A Continuous Challenge in Education and Cultural Diversity. TEFLIN Journal,
19(1):57-69.
Masduqi, H. 2006. The CompetencyBased Curriculum of English Subject for
Senior High School in Indonesia: A Critical Evaluation. Humanitas Journal, 3(1):1-13.
Masduqi, H. 2008. The Integration of English Skills into One Lesson. Paper
presented at the National Linguistics Seminar at Brawijaya University,
Malang.
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Mason, J. and Washington, P. 1992. The Future of Thinking. London and New
York: Routledge.
Moon, J. 2005. Children Learning English. Oxford: Macmillan Education.
Moras, S. 2001. Teaching Vocabulary to Advanced Students: a Lexical Approach, (Online), (http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/lesson-plans/acontent-language-integrated-learning-lesson), retrieved 25 September
2011.
Renandya, W. A. 2004. Indonesia. In H. W. Kam & R. Y. L. Wong (Eds.),
Language Policies and Language Education: The Impact in East Asian
Countries in the Next Decade (pp.115-131). Singapore: Eastern University
Press.
Rfaner, S. 2006. Enhancing Thinking Skills in the Classroom. Humanity &
Social Sciences Journal, 1(1):28-36.
Richards, J.C., & Rodgers, T.S. 2001. Communicative Language Teaching. In
Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. (2nd Edition). New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Scriven, M & Richard, P. (1987). A Statement for the 8th Annual International
Conference on Critical Thinking and Education Reform, (Online), (http://
www.critical thinking.org/University/cthistory.htm), retrieved 13 June
2011.
Setiono, S. 2004. Competency-Based Learning: the Dreams and Realities,
(Online), (http://www.jakartapost.com), retrieved 13June 2011.
Spratt, M., et al., 2005. Teaching Knowledge Test. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sukono. 2004. Is CLT a Thing of the Past? Unpublished article. Melbourne:
Monash University.
The Critical Thinking Community. 2002. A Brief History of the Idea of Critical
Thinking, (Online), (http://www.critical thinking.org/University/ cthistory.htm), retrieved 14 June 2011.
138SocialBehaviouralSciences
ABSTRACT
As teachers, we are all aware that the students we teach
are individuals with unique learning needs who progress in
their own characteristic ways. Nevertheless, a good command
of English, irrespective of the students intelligence or type of
learning, implies a thorough understanding of how the human
mind operates. The teacher of English, as well as the colleagues
who teach other subjects, tries to develop in his or her learners
skills that will help them think in a critical manner:
interpretation, observation, explanation, analysis, etc. Critical
thinking is the process of thinking that questions assumptions
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking, retrieved on
23.02.2012]. This is a process of vital importance for education,
especially for the higher education, and for the profession of
officer. In the present paper we try to present some modalities
of developing the critical thinking skills of the students of
English, paying special attention to the specificity of the cadets
of the Nicolae Blcescu Land Forces Academy of Sibiu.
Introduction
The concept of critical thinking is a
very old one and defining it represents a
challenge to the specialists in the field. The
term critical thinking originates in the 20th
century. The National Council for Excellence
in Critical Thinking, 1987 defined this notion
in a statement by Michael Scriven & Richard
Paul at the 8th Annual International
Conference on Critical Thinking and
Education Reform, Summer 1987 as the
intellectually disciplined process of actively
and skillfully conceptualizing, applying,
analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating
information gathered from, or generated
by, observation, experience, reflection,
reasoning, or communication, as a guide to
belief and action [1].
SocialBehaviouralSciences139
140SocialBehaviouralSciences
SocialBehaviouralSciences141
Conclusion
The variety of methods used for
fostering critical thinking is infinite.
Nevertheless, we should keep in view the
mind from an intellectual perspective and
take into account the students stages of
thought development.
142SocialBehaviouralSciences
REFERENCES
1. http://www.sla.org/PDFs/SLA2009/ 2009_critical-thinking.pdf, retrieved on
22.03.2012.
2. http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/ critical-thinking-development-a-stage-theory/ 483,
retrieved on 23.01.2012.
3. Ibidem.
4. Ibidem.
5. Linda Elder and Richard Paul, Critical Thinking Development: A Stage Theory With
Implications for Instruction, http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/critical-thinking-developmenta-stage-theory/483, retrieved on 20.02.2012.
6. Ibidem.
7. http://www.csicop.org/si/show/field_guide_to_critical_thinking/, retrieved on 23.02.2012.
8. Linda Elder and Richard Paul, cited works.
9. Ibidem.
10. http://www.paulnoll.com/Books/Clear-English/debate-advice.html, retrieved on
23.02.2012.
11. http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articles/asking-questions, retrieved on 22.02.2012.
12. Ibidem.
13. Linda Elder and Richard Paul, cited works.
14. http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Critical-Thinking/399802, retrieved on 22.03.2012.
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Introduction
n order to increase interactions among students and faculty for online courses, online
discussions have been widely used to serve a critical role in online courses (Liang &
Alderman, 2007). Online discussions allow students to practice active thinking and provide
opportunities to interact with others (Salmon, 2005). Online discussions have been used not only
to promote learner-to-learner and/or learner-to-instructor interactions in online courses, but also
to evaluate students learning outcomes. Students may benefit from online discussions by being
able to construct their own knowledge, reflect the knowledge to the real world, and learn from
others by exchanging thoughts or ideas through online discussions (Hewitt, 2005).
Many instructors use online discussions as a measure of participation and count them toward
students grades. However, posting discussion threads and responding threads even with a few
sentences is time consuming. According to Coxs study (2011), many students indicate online
discussions are busy work and meaningless assignments. When assessing online discussions,
simply counting the frequency of postings does not lead to a good quality learning assessment
(Meyer, 2004). More importantly, not only does counting the frequency of postings defeat the
purpose of creating online interactions, but also provides no value for assessing students
learning outcomes. Thus, there are two important issues that online instructors face. The first
issue is how to promote meaningful online discussions. Counting the number of posting will
definitely demote meaningful online discussions. The second issue is how to assess the quality of
online discussions. The content of online discussions should exhibit a certain level of thinking
such as being able to recognize the problem, gather relevant information, explore possible
explanations or contradictions, synthesize ideas and create possible solutions, and finally being
able to apply or test solutions (Garrison et al., 2001).
However, according to Hsiaos (2012) study, critical thinking is not highly promoted in
online discussions. Thus, how to enhance critical thinking skill in online discussions becomes an
The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge, and Society
Volume 9, 2013, www.techandsoc.com, ISSN: 1832-3669
Common Ground, Wei-Ying Hsaio, Manfen Chen, and Hsing-Wen Hu,
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important issue in higher education. The purpose of this study is twofold: to identify the
elements/criteria of grading rubrics used to assess online discussions and to investigate whether
critical thinking can be promoted as a grading criterion for assessing online discussions. The
following questions are studied in this paper:
1.
What are grading criteria for assessing online discussions in higher education?
2.
Based on these grading criteria from question 1, what are five most important
grading criteria in higher education?
3.
4.
Literature Review
Online learning has over 15 years of history. More and more colleges join the online universe by
offering online courses. Emory University, Duke University, and Northwestern University
among other seven elite universities have created a consortium to offer online courses, starting
the fall semester of 2013, to students around the world (Diamond, 2012). Furthermore, according
to the 2012 report released by the Sloan Consortium, there are more than 6.7 million students
taking at least one online course in higher education. More and more courses are offered online.
Without the face-to-face interaction a traditional classroom setting provides, online discussions
play a critical role in assessing students learning and participation. Levenburg and Major (2000)
discuss the importance of assessing online discussions in order to evaluate students time
commitment and to encourage students efforts. Assessment criteria should guide students in
learning and should be used to evaluate students learning outcomes (Celentin, 2007). Gilbert and
Dabbagh (2005) indicate that grading criteria do play important roles as guidance to bring in
more meaningful discussions to benefit all participants. Arend (2009) also indicates that online
discussions can be used effectively in promoting and encouraging critical thinking.
The Critical Thinking Community defines critical thinking as the intellectually disciplined
process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or
evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection,
reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on
universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision,
consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness. (Scriven &
Paul, 2007, p. 1). John Dewey (1910) calls critical thinking reflective thinking. He defines
critical thinking as:
Active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of
knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to
which it tends. (Dewey, 1910, p.6)
Ennis (1987) defines critical thinking as reasonable, reflective thinking that is focused on
deciding what to believe or what to do (p.10).
The goal of applying the skill of critical thinking is to promote students to have deeper,
meaningful discussions, which, in turn, requires students to use higher order thinking skills to
apply, analyze, and synthesize new knowledge to reflect on the real world. Paul and Elder (2003)
indicate that the skill of critical thinking encourages students to learn how to analyze and assess
information. Williams (2005) recommends Halperns (1999) critical thinking model to address
the importance of questioning skills for both instructors and students. Critical thinking can also
16
enhance collaboration (Gokhale, 1995). Bissell and Lemons (2006) argue that the difficulty of
obtaining an appropriate measurement to assess critical thinking has hindered the inclusion of
critical thinking as one of criteria for assessing online discussions. Garrison et al. (2001) has
developed a model for assessing the critical thinking skill. The model includes four categories:
triggering, exploration, integration, and solution. (See Table 1)
Table 1: Critical Thinking Categories, Indicators, and Sociocognitive Processes
Category
Indicators
Sociocognitive Processes
Triggering
Sense of puzzlement
Exploration
Integration
Information exchange
Brainstorming Leaps to
conclusions
Convergence among group
members
Solution
Williams (2005) indicates that the lack of critical thinking in education may have a negative
effect on the development of the skill of problem solving. To improve online students skills of
critical thinking and problem solving, higher order thinking skills should be promoted in online
discussions. Higher order thinking skills include critical, logical, reflective, metacognitive, and
17
creative thinking (King, Goodson, & Rohani, 2013, p1). Bloom (1956) develops the initial
foundations of the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. He provides the definition of each
category: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation (See Table
2). These categories are arranged from the simplest to most complex; in other words, they are in
order of requiring lower order thinking skills to higher order thinking skills (Krathwohl, 2002).
The revised Blooms Taxonomy is proposed to support designing assessments (Anderson &
Krathwohl, 2001). Meyer (2004) conducted a study to analyze 278 postings from 17 different
online discussions posted by 20 doctoral students in educational leadership classes using
Garrisons (2001) critical thinking categories and revised Bloom Taxonomy of Educational
Objectives categories (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). The results of this study show that the
majority of 278 postings (59.4%) focus on exploring and integrating ideas based on Garrison et
el (2001)s model and 54% of the postings focus on analysis, syntheses, and evaluation based on
revised Blooms model (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). Meyer (2004) suggests that both
Garrison at el. (2001)s and revised Blooms (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) models are
frameworks to assess the level of analysis.
Table 2: The Six Categories of the Cognitive Process Dimensions and Related Cognitive
Processes
18
Data Analysis
Microsoft Excel 2010 is used to analyze the data for phase one, examining grading rubrics of
online discussions, and for phase two, analyzing the top five grading elements among 16
elements. Descriptive statistics is used to analyze the frequency usage of grading elements for
phase one and to analyze the frequency of the top five elements used to assess online discussions
for phase two.
Results
In phase one of this study, all 69 grading rubric are examined. A total of sixteen grading elements
(criteria) are identified from these grading rubrics for assessing online discussions. These grading
elements include content/focus on topic (68%), reflection/connections (64%), critical thinking
19
(35%), length (15%), new ideas/uniqueness (36%), timelines (46%), stylistics/writing (67%),
resources (46%), interaction/response (38%), organization (9%), frequency (61%), initial posting
(42%), clarity (28%), tone/positive words (23%), quality (16%), and integrity (1%). See Table 3
for all 16 elements, summary of indicators, and the percentage frequency for each indicator.
Of the 69 grading rubrics, 4 elements are identified as most frequently used criteria in
assessing online discussions (See Table 4). Three elements are often used in assessing online
discussions (See Table 5). Nine elements/criteria including the critical thinking skill are less
frequently used (< 40%) (See Table 6).
The results from the phase one study show that among these sixteen grading criteria, only
three of them are identified as categories of higher order thinking and critical thinking skills.
These include reflection/connections (64% reflective statement, reflect to professional
experiences), critical thinking (35% consistently analytical, thoughtful, perceptive, & provide
new ideas related to topic addressed, refutes bias), and new ideas/uniqueness (36% a new way of
thinking about the topic, depth and detail). Presumably, faculty members in higher education
should put a lot of emphasis on critical thinking. However, the results of our study suggest that
the skill of critical thinking is not frequently used to evaluate the quality of online discussions.
Table 3: Sixteen Elements of the Grading Rubrics and Indicators
Elements/Criteria
Clarity
%
28%
Content/Focus on Topic
68%
Critical Thinking
35%
Frequency/Follow up Posting
61%
Interaction/Response
38%
Initial Posting
42%
Integrity
1%
Length of Posting
15%
New Ideas/Uniqueness
36%
Organization
9%
Quality
16%
Reflection/Connections
64%
Resources
46%
Stylistics/Writing
67%
20
Indicators
Clear, concise comments formatted, easy to read
clear logic beliefs & thoughts
Understanding of the course materials and the
underlying concept being discussed.
Consistently analytical, thoughtful, perceptive, &
provide new insides related to topic addressed,
refutes bias
5-6 postings/week; 4-5 times/week, Analysis of
others posts & extending meaningful discussion
Interacting with a variety of participants,
Timelines
46%
Tone/Positive Words
23%
%
68%
67%
64%
61%
%
46%
46%
42%
%
38%
36%
35%
28%
23%
16%
15%
9%
1%
Phase two of this study is to identify the five most important grading criteria among these
sixteen criteria. Participants are requested to select five criteria that they believe to be the most
important criteria to assess online discussions. Surprisingly, the most important grading criteria
ranked by these participants is critical thinking (94%) followed by reflection/connections (83%),
content/focus on topic (61%), quality (61%), and new ideas/uniqueness (56%). See Figure 2 for
details. The results indicate that faculty members recognize the importance of critical thinking
but, in practice, critical thinking has not been used widely in assessing the quality of online
discussions.
21
100%
80%
60%
40%
Description of role/analysis
tone/positive words
timelines
stylistics/writing
resources
reflection/connections
quality
organization
New ideas/uniqueness
length
integrity
initial posting
Interaction/response
Frequency
Critical thinking
Content/Focus on topic
0%
Clarity
20%
Discussion
From the phase one of the study, only three out of sixteen grading criteria focus on skills of
higher order thinking and critical thinking (reflection/connections 64%, critical thinking 35%,
and new ideas/uniqueness 36%) based on revised Blooms (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001)
model. From the rest of sixteen grading criteria, two grading criteria, knowledge (content/focus
on topic 68%) and comprehensive (resources 46%), are classified as lower level thinking skills;
five of them focus on writing (stylistics/writing 67%, clarity 28%, quality 16%, length of posting
15%, and organization); two focus on time management and frequency (timeliness 46%,
frequency/follow up postings 61%, and initial posting 42%); and two focus on manners
(tone/positive/manners 23%, integrity 1%).
The results show that higher order thinking or critical thinking are not highly emphasized
(only 3 out of 18, 18.75%) in evaluating online discussions. Hurd (2013, p.1) suggests three
factors that result in the lack of implementation of critical thinking in higher education. First,
faculty members lack the concept of critical thinking. Second, faculty members assume naively
that the skill of critical thinking is embeded in their course teaching. Third, faculty members still
focus on the traditional teaching methods of spoon feeding knowledge and expect students to
memorize them.
22
The results of this study from phase one also show that writing style and organization are
heavily emphasized on the online grading criteria (5 out of 16, 31.25%). This brings up a major
issue of the purpose of online discussions. Is it for assessing writing skills or for assessing
learning outcomes? If the course is an English writing course, then one would think that online
discussions would emphasize writing. However, the grading rubrics gathered for this study are
across different disciplines and different subjects. Obviously, online discussions involve more
than just writing. The contents of the discussions may be evaluated too. For instance, online
discussions may include some of the followings: identify problems, make auguments based on
findings or research, express opinions, and create solutions and so on. Thus, higher order
thinking should be encouraged and evaluated in online discussions.
The results of this study from phase two suggest that it is highly possible to promote the
adoption of critical thinking as a grading criterion in higher education. The results show that only
35% of 69 grading rubrics include critical thinking as one of grading criteria; however, after a
presentation emphasizing the importance of critical thinking, 94% of faculty members who
participated in the discussion, recognize the necessity and importance of adopting critical
thinking as a grading criterion and rate critical thinking as the number one grading criterion. This
confirms Hurd (2013)s suggestions that faculty members lack the concept of critical thinking. A
wake-up call is necessary to draw facultys attention to integrating the skill of critical thinking
into the curriculum and use it as a measure of assurance learning. The implications of our results
indicate the importance of critical thinking can be promoted among faculty members and once
faculty members recognize the concept of critical thinking, it is highly possible that faculty
members will adopt the skill of critical thinking as a grading criterion.
Conclusions
The results of the paper indicate that: (1) critical thinking has not been the major grading
criterion for assessing online discussions in higher education, (2) critical thinking or higher order
thinking can be promoted as a grading criterion for assessing the quality of online discussions as
long as instructors are aware of the importance of critical thinking in online discussions.
23
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Anderson, L. W, & Krathwohl, D. R. (eds.) (2001). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and
Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. New York:
Longman
Arend, B. (2009). Encouraging Critical Thinking in Online Threaded Discussions. The journal of
Educators Online, 6 (1), 1-23
Bissell, A & Lemons, P. (2006). A New Method for Assessing Critical Thinking in the
Classroom. BioScience, 56(1), 66-72.
Bloom B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook 1: Cognitive
Domain. White Plains, New York.
Celentin (2007). Online education: Analysis of interaction and knowledge building patterns
among foreign language teachers. Journal of Distance Education, 21(3), 39-58.
Cox, T. (2011). The Absent Graduate Student: An A-B-A Single-Subject Experiment of Online
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Dewey, J. (1910), How we Think , D.C. Heath &Co Publishers, Boston, New York, Chicago.
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& J. J. Sternberg (Eds.), Teaching Thinking Skills: Theory and Practice (pp. 9-26). New
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Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., and Archer, W. (2001). Critical Thinking, Cognitive Presence, and
Computer Conferencing in Distance Education. The American Journal of Distance
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Discourse: A Case Study. British Journal of Educational Technology, 36(1), 5-18.
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Skills and Dispositions of a Critical Thinker. New Directions for Teaching and
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Hsiao, W.Y. (2012). An Analysis of Online Discussions Assessment. In P. Resta
(Ed.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education
International Conference 2012 (pp. 1842-1846). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.
Hurd, P. (2013). The State of Critical Thinking Today. Retrieved Feb 9, 2013 from
http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/the-state-of-critical-thinking-today/523
Jerald, C.D. (2009). Defining a 21st Century Education. Retrieved Feb 10, 2013 from
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King, F.J., Goodson, L., Rohani, F., (2013). Higher Order Thinking Sills: Definition, Teaching
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Krathwohl, D.R., (2002). A Revision of Blooms Taxonomy: An Overview. Theory Into
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online Postings and Time Spent Online on Achievement of Learning & Goals and
Objectives. Proceedings of the International Online Conference on Teaching Online in
24
25
Knowledge
Students will manage the
following concepts
art, cinema, beliefs, society,
culture, ideology, criticism,
learning, identity, pedagogical
options, motivation
Essential questions
1. Whats the impact of movies in shaping
cultural memory and vision?
2. How are movies and culture related?
3. Whats the relevance of becoming a
critical movie watcher?
4. How could the perspective of a Universal
Topic be affected by beliefs?
5. Whats the value of using movies in
TEFL/TESL? What are some
considerations to be taken into account at
the moment of using them?
Skills
Students are expected to develop the following
skills:
a. Understand details of the conversations in
movies.
b. Explain the plot and theme in a movie orally
and in writing.
c. Understand movies as a possible
interpretation of reality.
d. Analyze movies critically and express
supported opinions orally and in writing.
e. Compare different perspectives on a given
Universal Topic seen in movies.
f. Distinguish between facts and opinions.
g. Judge the value of using movies in
TEFL/TESOL.
h. Explain and describe the use of movies in the
teaching of English.
h. Propose an interpretation on a Universal
Topic.
Unit bibliography
April 6 -10 Comolli, J. and Narboni, J. (ND) Cinema, Ideology and Criticism
Movement! Action! Belief?
Pence, J, Cinema of the Sublime, Theorizing the Ineffable. : Part I and Part 2
Neale, S. (2014) Art Cinema as Institution.Harvard: England. Harvard university Press.
April 13 -17 Yoon, S. (2009) Neoliberal World Order. Seoul, Korea: Visual
Anthropology.
Shoham, H. (2011) Urban Zionism. Tel Aviv, Israel: Israel Studies Review, Vol 26, N
2
Denninson, S. and Lim, S. (2006) Remapping World Cinema: Identity, Culture and Politics in
Film. London and New York: Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies, Vol 5, N 1.
Gesamthoshschule, K. (2007) Film, authenticity and Language Teaching.London, England:
Kings College London.
April 20 - 24 Etemadi, A. (2012) Effects of Bimodal Subtitling of English Movies on Content
Comprehension and Vocabulary Recognition. Azad, Iran: International journal of English
Linguistics, Vol 2, N 1.
King, J. (2012) Using DVD Feature Films in the EFL Classroom. Azad, Iran: International
journal of English Linguistics, Vol 5, N 15.
King, J. (2010) Using Film Video and TV in the classroom Azad, Iran: International journal
of English Linguistics, Vol 15, N 5.
Casanave, C. and Simons, J. (1995) Pedagogical Perspectives of Using Films in Foreign
Language Classes Part 1 (pages 1-17) and Part 2: Pages 45-52). Fujisama, Japan:
Pedagogical Perspectives.
Integrated English
III
TASK 2
1. General outline
Form groups of 5 to 6.
Choose a movie that you like.
Watch it individually or as a group.
In your group discuss what the beliefs behind the theme (the point of view of a
given author on a Universal Topic) of the movie are.
Film the new version of the movie considering the following: Keep the plot and
make the movie visible, but adjust the theme to fit your own beliefs and film the
new version of the movie. You can use the scripts from the original movie and make
some interventions on it and/or change some scenes or add others.
The movie has to last 25 - 30 minutes, without including credits or extra features
that you may like to include. Please note these will not be assessed (bloopers,
credits, others).
Make sure everybody has a speaking part and appears physically in the movie for 5
full minutes EACH. Please distribute the times each member equally.
a) task objectives
1.
2.
3.
4.
b) Dates
The movie has to be presented in class submitted in a CD/DVD/ flash drive in
.avi
or .mpg. on Monday, April 27th at the beginning of the class (no later than 10
minutes after the time of the class) and all the members of the group have to be
present at this same time.
Also uploaded to YouTube, and share the link through Wordpress the latest
midnight on the same date.
e) Assessment
c) Considerations
If for any reason your have problems conforming a group with the number
of students required (5-6), you should approach your homeroom teacher to
request for an exception. The teacher will will discuss it with the rest of the
team and get back to you. Wait for the answer of your teacher before
starting your work.
You will receive an individual grade for your speaking performance in the
movie.
Videos with audio problems are not going to be evaluated
If you film in an open area, please take special care of the background noise.
Your voice has to be loud and clear. Make sure music is not louder than
voices. The evaluation will be focused on oral production.
If you fail to be present or you are late at the time of the presentation of the
movie and submission of your work, you will receive the minimum grade.
Do not forget that Plagiarism is a serious offence which will be severely
sanctioned. The first time work will be given a 1.0. If a second time occurs,
course suspension and program expulsion may take place (Reglamento
acadmico Ttulo VI, Art.21)
ANGEL AK I
journal of the theoretical humanities
volume 17 number 4 december 2012
I introduction
he founding gesture of Gilles Deleuzes
philosophy of cinema is that movies are the
first art to fully capture, celebrate, and be
constituted by a version of the very same movement of images that composes both physical
reality in the external world and psychic reality in
consciousness.1 The idea of movement-images as
the stuff of the world that are neither irreducibly
material (movement) nor irreducibly mental
(image) but an ontological joining of being and
appearance is the great idea Deleuze takes over
from Henri Bergson. Movies are pinned to this
idea. Movies are an art of immanence, bound to the
contingency of movements within what is finally a
cosmologically open system. What distinguishes
movies from other moving arts, say dance or
theatre, is that the camera, which is the stand-in
for consciousness, is itself mobile, like a general
equivalent of all the means of locomotion that it
shows or that it makes use of (C1 22); hence, the
condition for recording movement is itself in
movement, allowing us to experience the world as,
so to speak, movement all the way down. Our sense
that movies capture an intrinsically living, moving
world comes to eloquent fruition early on in the
history of cinema in Dziga Vertovs Man with a
Movie Camera in the remarkable freeze frame of
the white horse cantering down a Moscow street.
The accumulation of energetic movement leading
to this moment makes it unavoidable that we
experience the horses movement as abruptly
halted or stilled, where the stillness that results is
and is felt to be made possible only through
movement (the repeating again and again of the
same image): duration not the instant is primitive.2
The second gesture of Deleuzes philosophy of
cinema is that the distinction between classical
j.m. bernstein
MOVEMENT! ACTION!
BELIEF ?
notes for a critique of
deleuzes cinema
philosophy
Hollywood cinema and the modern cinema
represented
by
Orson
Welles,
Italian
Neorealism, and the French New Wave can
itself be captured in the ontological terms of
reference guiding the theory as a whole: in
classical cinema, time is subordinated to movement, to the ideals, needs and urgencies of action,
while in modern cinema, as significant action
becomes frustrated or increasingly impossible,
time is no longer subordinated to movement, to
the governance of action-orientations; it increasingly appears for itself and creates paradoxical
movements (C2 xi). Classifying the shift from
classical cinema to modern cinema as a shift from
the movement-image to the time-image is the
empirical realization of the original depiction of
77
78
bernstein
II from movement-image to
time-image: the problem of action
Although the time-image is more ontologically
perspicuous than the movement-image, its emergence comes at the cost of portraying a world in
which significant action is possible. So the kind of
cinema that makes ontological insight available in
some sense not only does but must occlude action
and with it the kind of sense-making attendant to
the lives of beings who are, essentially, agents,
the lives of humans as the life of action.3
Although it is not obvious from the cinema
books, there must be a primacy of the movementimage over the time-image in its capacity to
capture agential life, while for Deleuzes cinema
philosophy proper there is a philosophical primacy of the time-image over the movementimage. The philosophical primacy of the timeimage is the distortion that ruins Deleuzes
philosophy.
We can begin getting at this problem with the
thought that the original greatness of cinema for
Deleuze is that it captures the fact that the world
is composed of movement-images: the material
universe is, Deleuze says, the machine assemblage
of movement-images; hence the universe can be
interpreted as metacinema (C1 59). After making
this claim, Deleuze goes on to provide a grammatical deduction of the ordinary categories of
experience as emerging from a core conception
of the world as composed of images in motion (of
things in motion whose being (movement) and
appearing (image) to one another are ontologically joined). Movement is understood as a
quality when we treat a state as persisting while
awaiting the arrival of another state; grammatically qualities are adjectival. When movement is
understood in terms of what carries it out or
submits to it or bears it, we have the category of
body to which there corresponds the grammatical
form of nouns. Finally, when movement is
Framing
Shot
Montage
Action-image
Perception-image
Affection-image
Affection-image
79
Action-image
80
bernstein
our only link. The nature of cinematographic
illusion has often been considered. Restoring
belief in the world this is the power of modern
cinema (when it stops being bad) (C2 172;
emphasis added).7 There are moments in which
Deleuze lays out this thought as a version of
Kierkegaards leap of faith in which belief in the
world replaces belief in God.
To believe, not in a different world, but in a
link between man and the world, in love or
life, to believe in this as in the impossible, the
unthinkable, which none the less cannot but
be thought: something possible, otherwise I
will suffocate. [Irene (Ingrid Bergman) in
Europa 51.] It is this belief that makes the
unthought the specific power of thought,
through the absurd, by virtue of the absurd.
(C2 170)
81
82
bernstein
opticalsound image with the enormous forces
that are not those of a simply intellectual
consciousness, nor of the social one, but of a
profound, vital intuition (C2 22), hence an
image now which would be anterior to the
controlled flow of every action, yielding some
experience of a birth of the world that is not
completely restricted to the experience of our
motivity (C2 37; the last clause again following
Jean-Louis Schefers LHomme ordinaire du
cinema). This idea of a birth of the world in
images configured as independent from action
and its motivations is the idea of the time-image;
the time-image thus provides Deleuzes conception of how what is new becomes conceivable.
Arguably, the idea of sheets of past is the
conceptual core of the time-image: the present
exists only as an infinitely contracted past the
past contracted into the duree of this living
present; hence,
between the past as pre-existence in general
and the present as infinitely contracted past
there are, therefore, all the circles of the past
constituting so many stretched or shrunk
regions, strata, and sheets: each region
with its own characteristics, its tones, its
aspects, its singularities, its shining
points, and its dominant themes. (C2 99)
83
84
bernstein
Duras and Resnaiss idea, which fully corresponds to the Deleuzian thought of each persons
present being a contracted past, is that the woman
and the man can come into contact with their own
traumatic history only by fully encountering the
sheets of the others past, which, understood
aright, also belongs to their past. And cinematically this is just what occurs: as the woman
comes to more fully acknowledge her love of the
man, she simultaneously feels drawn to communicating with him her wartime experience, and as
she does so he obliquely but emphatically
becomes the German soldier for her, making
present the confusion between past and present
that had occurred as a flashback in the bedroom
scene. So the experience of acknowledging their
love for one another really is the becoming of the
indeterminacy between actual and virtual, present
(the Japanese man here in the bar facing her) and
past (the Japanese man merging with the German
soldier):
He: do you scream?
[The room at Nevers.]
She: Not in the beginning; no, I dont scream:
I call you softly.
He: But Im dead. (HMA 57)
85
86
bernstein
stone . . . Why deny the obvious necessity for
memory? (HMA 23)
87
88
bernstein
ethical or passionate faithfulness, but if that
fidelity is fantasized as a perfect return, as a
perfect melancholic absorption, then only death
in life can result.
89
community; not the overcoming of our isolation, but the sharing of that isolation not to
save the world out of love, but to save love for
the world, until it is responsive again.16
90
bernstein
exactly right for Bazin: it is the moment prior to
the construction of truth that his realism intends,
hence that moment in which we are positioned
with respect to an object as such and in general
that he is seeking. Compressing this claim into a
formula corresponding to those I gave for the
other arts: cinema provides an excess of the
existence of a thing imaged over the image of the
thing. And like the other arts, this formula
requires some unpacking in order to see how this
fragmented partiality yields an aesthetic enlivenment, remembering all the while that nothing
ensures the movies will yield in practice to their
constitutive excess.
The join between Bazins ontology of cinema
and his aesthetic commitments comes most
quickly into view in An Aesthetic of Reality:
Neorealism.20 In the opening pages we get the
usual piling up of realisms existential claiming:
Italian cinema is wondrous in the significance it
gives to the portrayal of actuality (ARN 20);
Italian Neorealist films never forget that the
world is, quite simply, before it is something to
be condemned (ARN 21); reduced to their plots,
these movies can be moralizing melodramas, but
on the screen everybody in the film is overwhelmingly real (ARN 21). Bazin begins to give
these assertions aesthetic meaning with his
remarks on Orson Welles discovery of deep
focus:
It is no longer the editing that selects what we
see, thus giving it an a priori significance, it is
the mind of the spectator which is forced to
discern, as in a sort of parallelepiped of reality
with the screen as its cross-section, the
dramatic spectrum proper to the scene.
(ARN 28)
91
notes
1 All references in the text to C1or C2 followed by
a page number are to: Gilles Deleuze,Cinema1:The
Movement-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and
Barbara Habberjam (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota
P, 2006); and idem,Cinema 2:TheTime-Image, trans.
Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta (Minneapolis:
U of Minnesota P, 2006).
Ontology
of
the
92
bernstein
fragmentary structure, the relation to other modernisms, and, above all its existentialism ^ are
already clearly grasped in the remarkable roundtable discussion with Eric Rohmer, Jean-Luc
Godard, Jacques Doniol-Valcrose, Jean Domarchi,
Pierre Kast, and Jacques Rivette that appears in
Cahiers du cinema 97 ( July 1959). An extract from
the round-table, translated by Liz Heron, appears
in the pamphlet accompanying the Criterion
Collection DVD of Hiroshima mon amour.
20 Collected in What is Cinema?, vol. II, trans.
Hugh Gray (Berkeley: U of California P, 1971).
References to this essay in the text are abbreviated ARN.
J.M. Bernstein
Department of Philosophy
New School for Social Research
6 East 16th Street
New York, NY 10003
USA
E-mail: bernstej@newschool.edu
Copyright of Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities is the property of Routledge and its content may
not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written
permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
Abstract Cinemas power to represent animate life, and produce a profound impression of reality, warrants and supports its other fascinating capacity, namely, to fabricate frank yet appealing illusions. In certain instances, audiences may respond to
the fantastic creations as if to a new reality. Cinematic realism thus raises questions
about the nature of belief and reality that are of perennial, yet acutely contemporary, interest in lm history. A genre of the spiritual lmdistinct from religious
lms that rely on traditional sources of religious authorityexplores these questions of being and the limits of the knowable. Recent lm criticism has inadequately
responded to this genre. Film studies has aligned itself in various ways behind Walter
Benjamins call for an iconoclasm that would sever arts connections with cultic traditions and contribute to social progress. The consequent suppression, or translation
to secular terms, of lms spiritual aspirations comes at great cost. Complex works
that address spiritual topics in form and content, such as Lars von Triers Breaking
the Waves (1996), are treated as evidence by a self-arming and secularizing critical
method. In neglecting the central concerns of such lms, critics are complicit with
the worst features of modernity. A criticism that evades an open engagement with the
limits of the knowable becomes instrumental; a criticism geared exclusively toward
demystication ultimately produces reication. A more proper analytic response is to
attend to the ways in which such lms produce experiences, and call for responses, at
the edge of the knowable. Such an approach begins with abandoning methodological certainty; the spiritual lm demands an alignment of perception that cannot be
An earlier version of this essay was delivered at the Third International Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference, June 2125, 2000, in Birmingham, United Kingdom. I would like
to thank Ann Hardy for her generous reading of an earlier draft and James A. Knapp for his
collaboration throughout this project.
Poetics Today 25:1 (Spring 2004). Copyright 2004 by the Porter Institute for Poetics and
Semiotics.
30
This mute, grey life nally begins to disturb and depress you. It
seems as though it carries a warning, fraught with a vague but sinister meaning that makes your heart grow faint. You are forgetting
where you are. Strange imaginings invade your mind and your consciousness begins to wane and grow dim.
Maxim Gorky, 1972 [1896]
Pence
31
ters with cinema have traditionally been derived form George Sadoul (1975
[1948]), whose own research and conclusions are dubious. These accounts
tend to repeat a standardized myth of the primitives traumatic introduction to modernity. As the Lumires train pulls into the station, the story
goes, the audience panics, screams, and rushes for the exits. However much
this scene of upheaval captures, metaphorically, the early viewers surprise,
what it describes never literally occurred. As Gunning (1999 [1989]: 819)
demonstrates, even Christian Metzs (1982) sophisticated theorizing of spectatorship depended on this easily debunked myth. Notably, Gorkys own
contemporary account downplays trauma or panic in favor of a rapidly
acquired skepticism, as shadows suggest something baseless, second-order,
illusionistic, and ultimately political about the royal display of power just
witnessed.1 Such an interpretation of Gorkys remark resonates with a dominant, and currently predominant, strain in the history of cinema studies.
Since Walter Benjamins The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction (1979 [1936]), cinema has been linked to the demise of cultish
understandings of art and the progress of critical reason, thanks to its capacity to represent and reveal reality in heretofore impossible ways. The
theory of cinemas nature as essentially realist, and uniquely qualied to
disclose the essentially real, was initially developed by Bla Balsz, Andr
Bazin, and Siegfried Kracauer.2 These critics emphasized and valued certain visual, aural, and editing conventionssuch as the close-up, location
sound, and long takes linked by elliptical transitions rather than continuity
editing. In these techniques, they found in cinema a unique correlation to
reality, the way things appear in everyday perception enhanced by suggestions of a meaningful depth, which habit, necessity, or even sensory limitation elide in actual life. Subsequent theoretical developments, not to mention lm history itself, abandoned the insistence of these theorists that only
certain techniques and forms are true to cinemas essence. Nevertheless,
more recent theories have explicitly retained an idea of realism that legiti1. Rachel O. Moore (2000) extends Gunnings work, and to some extent undermines his reliance on historicist procedures, by looking at cinema as a prime medium for negotiating the
relationship between the modern and the primitive more generally, as it combines technological progress with features understandable as magic.
2. For example, if, according to Kracauer (1965 [1960]: 3, 31), each medium has a specic
nature, then it is evident that the cinematic approach materializes in all lms which follow
the realist tendency. Balsz (1999 [1945]: 304) identied cinemas power with its capacity to
represent dimensions of reality either hitherto unknown or presumed to have been known:
We skim over the teeming substance of life.The camera has uncovered that cell-life. Finally,
Bazin (1999 [1945]: 196) famously declared the history of the plastic arts, which photography and cinema both complete and escape, to be essentially the story of resemblance, or, if
you will, of realism.
32
mates their own project, as a realist endeavor now oriented toward a social
or psychological reality barely discernible beneath ideology and illusion.
Kracauer is something of a hinge gure, albeit in reverse, in this change.
His major works relevant to this discussion, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (1947) and Theory of Film: The Redemption
of Physical Reality (1960), respectively take up cinemas expression of sociopsychological turmoil and its fundamental capability to establish physical
existence. That his work moves from an emphasis on historical and political interpretations to a more strictly formalist analysis, just prior to a more
general turn in the opposite direction in the study of lm, suggests that the
history of lm theory and criticism is not a narrative of progress. Instead,
this history is dened by an oscillation between interests and methods that
rest on dierent understandings of the relationship between lm and reality.
In one view, lm is part of a reality of social context, experience, and
conict, whether or not a particular lm evidences this fact deliberately or
symptomatically. Criticism here highlights the connections between lm
and historical reality in the interest of social understanding or progress.
In another view, the specicity of the lm medium may produce aesthetic experiences that impress audiences with a sense of reality, despite
the manifest dierence between the lm experience and normal experience. Criticism here considers what positive knowledge these encounters
may deliverwhether in regard to lm technique, to the pleasures and
desires of viewers impressionable in these ways, or even to the potential
signicance of these seemingly solid aspects of reality which are otherwise
invisible. The former approach is inherently modern, carrying on a tradition of critique established in the Enlightenment. It is skeptical of illusion
and the superstitious power of lm to fascinate, and therefore manipulate,
audiences.While one of the verities of postmodernism is that the emancipatory discourses subtending modern thought (Marxism and psychoanalysis
primarily) are neither objectively true nor superior perspectives on cultural
life, the tradition of critique remains the most important in contemporary
lm studies. As such, it also extends the anity of criticism with an Enlightenment notion of reason as a privileged, scientic process that will lead us
to truth. The latter approach, that of focusing on real-seeming cinematic
experiences, can be understood as carrying on an alternative tradition of
seeking and valuing dimensions of thought and perception that continue
to attract us, despite being irreconcilable with a strict denition of reason.
This approach extends the anity of art and criticism with features of religion that have been gradually marginalized in modernity. The oscillation
between alternative methods and interests that has dened cinema studies,
then, replays in miniature the oscillation in the modern West between sci-
Pence
33
34
then, cinema is either a force for historical change or a symptom of its containment. In this regard, the task of the critic has been to work against the
counter-utopian tendencies of lm institutions and conventions in order
to resurrect the critical and liberatory potential of original cinema, the
potential for representational world-shattering that critics have so often (if,
according to Gunning, erroneously) projected onto the mythic moment of
the initial encounter with lm as the embodiment of modernity.
Writing of the initial encounter with which I began, Gorky moves quickly
from meditating on the moving images unsettling of consciousness to a
radical restabilization of self-awareness on the grounds of material history
and politics. As the replication of a mute, grey life begins to unravel
the viewers perspective, Gorky (1972 [1896]: 7) displaces the concomitant
anxiety by imagining an alternative, shockingly literal, and more edifying lm depicting a poleaxed social villain. This abrupt translation of his
experience to the realm of everyday politics is, on the one hand, cognate
with interpretive tendencies that still govern much of critical practice today.
Whatever its motivational virtues, or even its (likely unmeasurable) ecacy
in the world of lived experience, the rapid default to everyday politics in
much cultural analysis reveals an anxiety about the value of engagement
with artworks if practical benet cannot at least be imagined. On the other
hand, in certain respects, Gorkys rush to construct a fantasy of social retribution inadequately recuperates the cognitive and aective densities of the
cinematic encounter he has just elaborated. In fact, one may read the grisly
scene he imagines as an inverted mirror of the feelings of disorientation he
registered when lost in a world of shadows, as if only a violent commitment
to the known world could counter the temptations of illusion.
This tendency also persists in our present scene. In a recent survey of
cinema studies, Dudley Andrew (2000) argues that forces of the academic
market have put wind to the sails of socially and historically oriented criticism, as, among other reasons, these modes oer more ecient ways to
produce and distribute a scholars work. I agree with him entirely while
wishing to insist that the resistance to the most challenging dimensions of
lm aestheticsthat impression of reality that simultaneously seduces and
provokes strange imaginings in spectatorsderives also from their resistance to interpretation, or at least to interpretations that arm the project
of criticism itself. The disjuncture between cinematic realisms potential
opening to a kingdom of shadows and a critical apparatus mainly devoted
to a model of problem solving invites a quick retreat to more familiar interpretive grounds. A kingdom of shadows suggests a realm of being other
than our own, yet one to which we seem magically connected.The disorientation Gorky describes only begins to register the impact of a lm world that
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forth. In contrast, actual lm productions (i.e., shooting sets) oer no perspective from which any witness could reasonably ignore such extraneous
accessories (ibid.) as photographic, lighting, and audio equipment as well
as the proliferating presence of crew, cast, and others. The conventions that
produce the illusion of realism in lm are the result of postproduction techniques. In the popular cinema, with which Benjamin is here concerned,
continuity editing illustrates such postproduction work. In this process, the
lm illusion that was impossible to perceive in isolation at the time and
place of production becomes manifestly visible to the precise extent that
every other trace of that scene of production is erased. Such techniques as
match on action editing, shot-reverse-shot sequencing, and extra-diegetic
music support codied structures of narrative causality and coherence in
order to convert the work of production into a naturalized product on the
screen. As a result, the equipment free aspect of reality represented in
lm has become the height of artice (ibid.). Cinemas seductive presentation of the real, then, seems profoundly unreal: the sight of immediate
reality has become the [unattainable] blue ower in the land of technology
(ibid.; interpolation in the original).
The blaue Blume here connects with Novalissthe quintessential symbol of romantic yearning for the unattainable (Sagarra and Skrine 1999:
96). Also implied in the longing that imbues this poignant image is desire
for more than unmediated reality, as if such an encounter would deliver
us to another dimension of being altogether. Novaliss Heinrich von Ofterdingen (1802) concerns both the sensory distractions of experience and intimations of something beyond; in the end, the novel shuns completion
as a negation of continuity and eternity (Sagarra and Skrine 1999: 96).
Whether or not Benjamin acknowledges the persistence of a desire for
something more than an unmediated glimpse of reality, or the theological
weight such a desire carries within it in the tradition he deliberately cites, is
far from clear. This stubborn desire for something connected to continuity
and eternity, for something auratic, must be addressed.
Benjamin attempts to make good on lms lack, its patently false impression of reality, by dialectically presenting this fact as progressive. The
analogy he employs here develops further the contrasts established between
theater and lm, two notoriously collaborative enterprises, by drawing
another comparison between painting and lm. On one side, representative of an earlier, cultic dispensation, is the art of painting, the painter as
singular creator and the magician as his or her role model. On the other
side, expressive of a modern moment, is the art of lm, the camera operator
as technician and the surgeon as his or her role model. Where contrasting
theater and lm also establishes a similarity between them as two collabora-
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of unmediated reality would be satised by this paradoxical, equipmentdriven presentation of an equipment-free reality. However, Benjamin (ibid.:
863) declares an end to such questioning because the paradox he has presented is what one is entitled to ask from a work of art. The authority
supporting this prescription is obscure. In any case, however, entitlement
need not animate all of the desires we bring to cinema. It seems equally
possible that a longing for an auratic blue ower could coexist, peacefully
or not, with this decisive secularism. On the one hand, the blue ower,
painting, and magic represent the ongoing traces of religious consciousness
and practice that continue after the Enlightenment, regardless of their loss
of unquestioned supremacy in organizing cultural life. On the other hand,
technology, cinema, and surgery represent the continuing power and prestige of rationality in governing cultural life. Neither of these alternatives
singly seems to satisfy all the investments we may bring to aesthetic experiences. Rather than arbitrarily arresting their dynamic relationship at one
or the other of these poles, as Benjamin does, we may imagine them as
inseparably connected, if only because each requires the other to provide
what it cannot. If an orientation toward artworks based on magic may not
be able to oer procedures of thought and interpretation that apply across
dierent aesthetic experiences, the methodical advantages of deliberative
reason in generating such protocols also comes at the expense of being able
to appreciate the singular, and potentially nonrational, dimensions of aesthetic desire and experience in certain situations.
3. Beyond Authority: Cinema and Spirituality
In its Hollywood and other commercial versions, and despite its technical
sundering of the auratics identication with singularity, twentieth-century
lm has evidenced a committed pursuit of the auratican investment in
representations of reality that seem phenomenologically if not materially
singular, redolent of ontological associations directly linked to traditions
of spiritual aspiration that Benjamin sought to marginalize as cultic. It
remains for lm critics, specically, and cultural analysts, generally, to
come to terms with cinemas own persistent interest in the auratic. Otherwise, such an interest may only be understood, in Benjamins terms, as
ultrareactionary (ibid.: 857). In fact, we barely have a language to begin
such a discussion.
As Dennis Taylor (1998: 3) writes of literature in a related context,
We live in an age of critical discourses that are expert in discussing the dimensions of class, gender, textuality, and historical context. Yet an important part
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Yet, in the encounter with the auratic in certain cultural texts, this otherwise
potent hermeneutic is cut athwart by another dimension:
What interrupts is not another system but something that challenges all systems,
something as questioning and unsettling as the best deconstructive scalpels of our
critics, but suggesting something unconditioned, all-demanding, and ultimately
unevadable. (Ibid.: 5)
Taylor notes the signicant challenges facing any eort to establish an ecacious discourse about such ineable disruptions of systematic thought.
Such disruptive events render referentiality problematic: another way of
phrasing the unconditioned, all-demanding, and ultimately unevadable
is as the unnameable. The nature of the disruption cannot t into predetermined cognitive or rhetorical categories; if it did, it would represent either
another system of meaning as yet unlearned or an internal variant in systems currently in eect.Taylor is clear that what we encounter is a challenge
to all systemswhich is to say something external to organized meaning as we understand it. Rather than give this encounter a name, which
tends to stabilize and organize identity, we may think of it as being with
a vector or trace, an indeterminate movement that slashes athwart the
more stable frameworks we operate through and within. Its energy derives,
to some extent, from this fact of being unknown and dynamic. This openendedness, in turn, makes any discourse oriented to the ineable susceptible to universal parody (ibid.: 17).
Taylor proceeds to imagine a tough critical language (ibid.) attuned to
the demanding uncertainty of experiences of the ineable but nonetheless
cognizable and consequential in the more familiar registers of critical and
reective consciousness. Although he does not supply this language (prolegomenon seems to be the primary genre of contemporary writing on these
topics), Taylor (ibid.: 14) identies its purpose as untangling the relation
of the religious and the spiritual; or, better perhaps, the religious and the
ethical, with the spiritual some kind of linking category. This untangling
that Taylor hints at requires some explanation.
The distinction between the spiritual and the religious positions the latter
as a determinant, and the former as a more indeterminant, understanding
of the nature of transcendent or ontological truth. Mieke Bal (2001: 242)
makes a similar distinction, and more straightforwardly reveals the stakes,
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when she identies two desires that I wish to disentangle: the desire for
spirituality and the desire for authority. In both formulations, the spiritual is seen as potentially, but not necessarily, confused with the interpretive
and institutional authority of religion. Instead, it seems, for Taylor, to oer
possibly unexpected connections between religious belief and ethical orientation; for Bal, spirituality ultimately becomes a generally exploratory
resistance to authority. In neither case is spirituality identical with the utilitarian and pragmatic calculations of a secular understanding of a social
contract. Instead, the spiritual, as the discourse for exploring experiences of
the ineable and orienting them toward consequence in the world of agency
and action, mediates between these otherwise opposed realms of transcendence and everydayness. It is a questioning of the possible meanings and
implications of encounters otherwise beyond our customary cognitive and
rhetorical categories of understanding; it speaks not strictly to the faculties
of reason but to that admixture of thought and aect more characteristic
of aesthetic experience and ethical inquiry.
Certain aesthetic and ethical encounters present subjects with strikingly
similar situations, with objects or experiences of vexing indeterminacy. The
open question of how to respond to the uncertain beauty before one, or
to the complex demand of responsibility, has a powerful aective dimension. On the one hand, beauty quickens . . . adrenalizes . . . makes the
heart beat faster (Scarry 1999: 24). On the other hand, facing ethical
alterity, the sense of responsibility toward an unknown other, even toward
the unknowable per se, elates the soul that, according to formal logic, it
should harm (Levinas 1999: 75). In both aesthetics and ethics, then, indeterminacy may generate interest, aective involvement, and new possibilities for thought. Our interpretive responses in these instances can be seen to
replenish more everyday experience by renovating the individuals capacities for thought and action. I am concerned here principally with dilemmas
of choice making at the edge of our understanding of what beauty and justice might be. Potentially, these situations may provide opportunities for
energizing and transforming the deliberative agents sense of what is possible both in the world and in judgment. It is equally true that such situations
may exceed our abilities to comprehend and respond to their challenges.
In neither case am I suggesting a wholesale conation of aesthetics and
ethics, which would, as Jane Bennett (2001: 132) warns, license the unruly
and selsh or, at best, morally indierent forces of appetite and will. The
inverse is also possiblethe aesthetic could then become a didactic extension of a moral certitude rather than a source of innovative experimentation. Instead, I insist here only on the parallels between the two realms, their
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vention that may be encountered in certain lms that engage with the ineffable. As such, both orientations are more properly self-arming methods
than dispositions enabling self-reection and refashioning in the face of difcult and indeterminate aesthetic works.
The realm of subjective experience is nite and bounded; any continuity
and coherence of subjective identity depends on the assumption of limits
dening who one is, what one knows, and what life one has lived. It is
no great diculty to extend this model from an individual to a collective
register, since the scale alone would change but not the principle. In contrast, we may conceive of the ineable as innite and unbounded. It represents alterity per se, that which one is not, what one does not know, the
experiences one has not had. And we can again easily conceive of ineffability regarding collective mentalities. However great the sample, the
group, there is always implied a greater exterior and dierentiated realm
against which the collectives identity is known. The structural binarism
operative here may become more perceptibly dynamic if we consider, following Plate, the spirituals role as a mediating term, as a way in which the
specic relationship between identity and experience, on the one hand, and
the ineable, on the other hand, changes in specic ways. The spiritual,
in this regard, introduces temporality, change, and possibility into a model
that may otherwise appear to bind our aspirations within its analytic terms.
This is precisely what thingor theoryoriented methods tend not
to oer, as they conrm their own procedures against the desires evident in
both aesthetic works and consumers for the possibility of something as yet
unknown to happen in spiritual lms.
How might we understand the spiritual as the mediating interval between the nite and the innite so dened? A strongly religious or mythic
perspective might view the spiritual as, to a greater or lesser extent, a transparency, granting visitations between the religious and experiential realms
with a corresponding diminishment of their distinction. A strong Enlightenment or rationalist perspective, in contrast, might see the spiritual as either
a mirror for the projection of values and taboos or an opaque lens through
which nothing is discernible. The one depends upon the miraculous, the
other upon its reduction. Both explanations disparage spiritualitys mediating roleas hardly necessary, on the one hand, and hardly possible, on
the other hand. As a realm in which experience is reected upon in order to
transform the subject in the interests of ethical self-management, the spiritual may instead be conceived in utilitarian fashion as a theater of counterfactual ideals, in which alternative modes of living are imagined.This pragmatic alternative can, however, easily be understood as a weaker version of
the Enlightenment or of the mythic perspective. It can be seen to follow the
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The easiest case to make for cinemas relationship to spirituality is circumstantial. According to Judith Wilts (1998: 331) survey of the uneven literature on the topic,
writers interested in lm and popular culture seem to feel, mixing approval with
disapproval, that lm itself, as the chief vessel of twentieth-century mass popular
culture, is religion in the sense that it does for the mass audience the cultural work
that religions have done, that is, supply models for ethical action and provide
grounding images for ideals and desires.
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An illusory projection of shadows and light accompanied by disembodied sound, cinema receives the audiences investments of attention, desire,
and faith. The audiences pleasurable experience of individual fascination
and collective absorption can suggest transcendence of normal experiences
of subjective and collective identity. That this transcendence is never fully
realized does not disqualify it from consideration. Indeed, the process of
provoking, frustrating, and reanimating spectatorial desire for an elusive
connectionwhether with the auratic, with an existentially deep aspect of
reality, or with some form of transcendencemay be understood as characteristic of lms capacity to mediate between material and immaterial
dimensions of reality. Thomas Carlson (1999: 40) argues that such a process also characterizes consumer capitalism, in which subjects desires are
by their very nature attenuated, their satisfaction innitely pursued and
postponed. Here, the deferral of any nal coincidence of material representation and spiritual aspiration actually links the material and immaterial
more closely:
a theological shadow . . . haunts the interplay of image and desire within consumer culturea play whose very movement and meaning feed on deferral and
on the radical expectation that deferral alone can sustain . . . signal[ing] both
a theological dimension of consuming culture and a consuming dimension of
theological desire.
Carlsons argument parallels and extends my earlier claim about the constitutive conceptual relationship between categories of the nite and innite
and between categories of experience and the ineable. Here, the interplay
of the material world of objects and experience and a range of desires that
exceed any such material satisfaction is seen to characterize contemporary
lifes most supercial and deep aspectsthat is, shopping and theology.
The material and the immaterial, or even the secular and the spiritual,
seem inseparable in this formulation. Treating this inseparable relationship
presents a challenge to a critical discourse that tends to rely on much rmer
distinctions between what is and is not knowable.
Contemporary analysts of lm and culture tend to reproduce in their
own work a methodological realism that functions along instrumental lines
that, consciously or not, mirror Heideggers notion of techne. For Heidegger, instrumentalist rationality, as a mode of revealing being within techne,
treats the entirety of nature and experience as a usable resource. Whether
an extractable mineral or data mined for a purpose, all elements within
the world have value only insofar as they can be organized into what Heidegger (1977 [1953]: 322) terms, in The Question concerning Technology,
a standing reserve of such resources. Such an ordering is aggressive, a
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setting upon nature that, to the extent it does reveal some aspect of being
by such force, is equally blind to other aspects of being that are not reducible to predetermined notions of use. Techne is inherently imperialistic,
crowding out other modes of revealing being, and ultimately subsumes even
humans who conceive of themselves as masters of instruments within its
logic. Under this sort of rationality, we ourselves become useful resources.
In suggesting that much cultural analysis operates under a logic of instrumentalism, I mean specically the tendency to develop and promulgate
methods that either ignore other possible modes of thought, expression, and
feeling or convert them violently into the methods own terms. I will address
examples of such criticism at length below; as the introductory essay to this
volume attests, however, such examples are far from atypical.
The spiritually oriented lm that serves as my example, Lars von Triers
Breaking the Waves, resists instrumental appropriation by such critical methods. The initial question of how to relate to a lm that confounds expectations becomes something larger, as our responses go to the very heart of
what cultural studies is or might be. The lm exaggerates conventions of
realistic representation to potent eect. However realistic the surface of the
lm, any critical attempt to tether this representational style to an actual
historical reality fails to account for the lms drive to exceed the particularities of its concrete setting. Michael Quinns (1999) attempt to situate the
lm in contemporary European politics, discussed further below, represents
such an interpretive move. Moreover, such attempts reveal the constrictive
hold of a certain cognitive and critical realismthe technology of representationon cultural studies. Such a mode of analysis easily moves from
demystication to reication, particularly when critique is directed solely at
the object of scrutiny and not turned on the analysts practice as well. A lm
that plays to, and then attempts to exceed, our customary sense of a lms
mimetic relationship to reality ought to provoke self-awareness about the
role of such a category of mimetic realism within critical practice. Otherwise, criticism risks hardening into predictable method. I am not calling
for a revival of an ahistorical formalism, much less for a willful gullibility
in the face of lms more grandiose features and claimssuch as Bazins
claim for the miraculous chemical nature of the medium itself. Rather, I
seek to highlight the ways in which the conventions of mimetic realism in
cinema may lead not strictly to secular concerns but to consideration of
equally profound, and potentially far more dicult, questions about aesthetic experiences relationship to the ineable.
Following Kracauer (1965 [1960]: 232, 233), cinema shares with the novel
a capacity for the rendering of life in its fullness, which in turn produces
a drive to transcend the boundedness of any particular representation by
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Aristotelian patterns of resolution produce pleasure for audiences, regardless of the specic desirability of any particular nal state of aairs revealed
4. In another register, this paradox runs through Helen Freshwaters contribution to this
volume; in particular, Freshwater points out that the archive seems to oer a record of the
quotidian totality of existence while necessarily containing only a tiny portion of the reality
toward which it gestures.
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in a representation. The reversal of fortune that precedes closure and catharsis is accompanied by an increase in knowledge that more than compensates for any anxieties viewers may have about the nature of the outcome
itself. Wilt emphasizes the audiences cognitive, aective, and aspirational
investment in the providential ordering of experience revealed in this form
of ending. Whether this investment is acknowledged or not, it clearly expresses religious, and specically teleological, desires.
In Crimes and Misdemeanors (directed by Woody Allen, 1989), Wilt nds
this teleological component of lm narrative accompanied by its opposite
namely, a failure to end:
The lm . . . produce[s] an eect both teleological (religious in the standard
sense) and unsettlingly ongoing, religious in the postmodern sense that gures
the sacred as the trace of the other, always elusive, always a challenge to
faith. (Ibid.: 352)
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divine are coded as a profoundly serious ethical self-searching, as Bess represents and challenges her own desires and duties. The lm establishes our
discovery of Bess as a central purpose. While the camera relentlessly scrutinizes every aspect of her face and body, the narrative frames her actions
and emotions with sensitive appreciation. Physically, sexually, emotionally,
and spiritually, Bess appears to couple an extraordinarily intense capacity
for feeling with exceptional fragility. As our perspective aligns with those of
the camera and narrative, either lovingly devoted to Bess, the lms mode
of address is fundamentally geared toward soliciting and deepening our
sympathy with her, even as her experiences become increasingly dicult
to appreciate. In this way, the lm pushes us not to view Bess as a victim of
a psychological disorder or social manipulation, as a depleted subject with
a weakened degree of agency and suspect powers of self-representation.
I would like to suggest we do the same with the lmnamely, take seriously its gambit for the sacred no matter how irrational this eort initially
appears.
As the lm begins, Bess weds a stranger to the communitys xenophobic theocracy, Jan, a Norwegian oil rigger. After Besss joyous emotional
and sexual awakening, Jan must return to work on a North Sea oil platform; this necessity devastates Bess. Material circumstances, tradition, and
her mothers threatening her with another psychiatric hospital stay enjoin
her to accept the restricted pleasures of a long-distance marriage; so, too,
does her own representation of Gods impatience with her selsh desire for
her husband. Nevertheless, Bess cannot accept Jans absence. Just after she
pleads with God for her husbands immediate return at any cost, an accident paralyzes Jan, who is rushed ashore in critical condition. For reasons
that remain unclear (at one point he warns that he is evil in his head and
should be left to die), Jan eventually asks Bess to pursue sexual encounters
with other men and tell him, as he lies paralyzed, the story of these experiences. Bess comes to believe that these actsself-destructive humiliations
in her conscience and communitywill save Jan. When Jans condition
worsens, she presses herself into more dangerous liaisons, ultimately being
assaulted horrically by men on a ship so notorious that the local prostitutes refuse to visit it. She dies in the same hospital in which Jan likewise
seems doomed, but he appears, wounded but mobile and healing, at the
subsequent inquest into her death. After claiming her body and taking it
oshore for burial at sea (and to save it from the local ministers curse),
Jan and his workmates hear bellsforbidden by the churchringing in
the sky, making good on Besss desire to combine religious devotion and
self-sacrice with joy and pleasure.
Director Lars von Trier is a signer of the manifesto of Dogme 95, a
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mock-serious group of Danish lmmakers devoted to correcting the decadence of contemporary lm via a vow of chastity (Dogme 95 Collective
1995). Forbidden indulgences include most articial lighting, tripods, nonsynchronous sound and music, noncontemporary settings and studio shooting, the importation of props onto locations, and the naming of the director in the credits. Breaking the Waves clearly does not qualify for the Dogme
certicate of authenticity ( jokingly oered for sale on the Internet). For
instance, the lm is set over twenty years in the past and features highly stylized panoramic scenes that introduce each chapter of the plot: they are
characterized by their tripod-dependent stability and evolving, computerenhanced visual richness, quite dierent from the relentless searching and
earthy palette of the handheld camera work elsewhere. These panoramas
are accompanied by extended samples of period pop music, which stands
against the lms normal reliance on diegetic sound.
As Stephen Heath (1998: 104) writes, The panorama scenes are a rest,
a tranquil third-person, lm-theology view of God. Heath (ibid.) rightly
indicates that these little moments of escape actually relieve us of the
rest of the lms frenzied groping for the incomprehensible, unlocalisable
[sic] range of God. Yet they also serve to foreground the introduction of
spirituality as the most apparent contradiction of Dogme 95s avowed naturalism. This unchaste lm nevertheless powerfully enacts the conventions
of cinma-vrit and centers on the physical expression of emotions by the
cast, both core production values of Dogme 95.The spiritual initially seems
opposed to conventional standards of realistic representation; ultimately,
however, they become inseparable in their denition of each other and the
audiences reactions. Stylistically, this symbiosis is apparent in the two elements that dominate our experience of the lm: Robby Mllers handheld
camera work and extraordinary palette of textures and colors suggests a
grounding in mimetic accuracy, while Emily Watsons stunningly persuasive performance of Bess (modeled on Renee Falconettis Jeanne dArc, frequently called the nest screen acting ever) suggests a reaching for dimensions of reality beyond or beneath normal apprehension. The lm operates
in two registers that support each other. A jerking camera, wild sound, and
undecorated faces and places bolster the overall plausibility of the screened
world. This plausibility extends its inuence to the exploration of spiritual questions, an extension ultimately warranted by the apparently literal
answering of Besss prayers. At that point, this formulation can also be
understood in a reverse fashion: the reality of the lms spiritual aspirations extends its authority to warrant the surface realism, now revealed as,
potentially, more than a set of conventionalized gestures.
The primary challenge that Breaking the Waves presents to audiences and
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The problem with the three readings I have given is, on the one hand,
their overreliance on a critical method that privileges that which is already
knownand hence the cognitive templates in which the already known is
framedover openness to the possibility of encountering the unexpected.
Broadly speaking, this critical method is a kind of conventional realism
expressing standards of recognition and protocols of reasonableness similar to those of a realistic aesthetic style. On the other hand, the problem
with these interpretations is their not being quite realistic enough.The rst,
psychological, reading arbitrarily selects one of the interpretive possibilities of the lm while suppressing others. After all, the bells are visible and
do ring out, as diegetic sound in the middle of the ocean upon Besss burial;
if her avowed perceptions reveal her as mad, then so do ours cast doubt
upon our own rationality. If such an interpretation depends upon importing an extraneous sense of what is authentic to clarify this lm, the second sort of reading, which explains identity, belief, and action historically,
does so even more obviously. Michael Quinn (1999), for instance, has discussed the lm as an expression of nationalist anxiety at the coming of the
European Union, with Jan and his international assortment of oil workers
representing the multifaceted miscegenation perceived to menace traditional European cultures dened by the borders of the nation-state. While
this reading is dexterously suggestive in its linking of global transformations and local struggles, it nevertheless comes at the enormous expense of
ignoring the real elephant in the room: the European Union has extraordinary powers but has yet to pull a single Norwegian back from the dead.
So unexpected as to qualify for consideration as a miracle, Jans recovery is
coded as a resurrection linked to Besss sacrice. The possibility of a power
greater than life and death outreaches any reading that seeks to localize
the lms meaning in well-understood social structures. Unless, that is, one
wishes to project on the new political organization of Europe the sort of
incredible power the lm suggests to be at work. The nal reading, which
acknowledges and then disavows or dismisses the lms spiritual aspect,
comes from Stephen Heaths God, Faith and Film (1998) and deserves
more attention.
Initially, Heath (1998: 94) accurately identies the lms attempt to yoke
together representation and the embodiment of the unrepresentable: it
seeks to depict and urge something about love at the same time that it wants
to stand forindeed beit. Hence the tension between love represented,
the romantic fuel of narrative cinema, and love embodied, an ideal that
no representation could satisfactorily capture. Approaching cinema as a
symbolic system, a language understood along Lacanian lines, Heath sees
the lms attempt to escape the limits of representation via stylistic exag-
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geration and aective implosion as a failure. If the love Von Trier seeks to
embody is an ideal, that ideal connects to a tradition of imagining God as
love: the lm aims impossibly at enjoyment of God (103). Responding to
the lms undecidability, Heath, one of the most important theoreticians
of lm form, aesthetics, and spectatorship, oddly resorts to journalism. In
interviews, Von Trier indicates no denite religious beliefs beyond an interest in Catholicism.6 On this basis, Heath (ibid.: 105) decides that Von Trier
treats the spiritual like a fetishist who pretends that something exists even
when he knows otherwise: Not believing but hoping is like the fetishists
knowing but refusing all the same to know. Heath thus nds that the lms
ending delivers something like a false miracle and a negative rearmation
of the ineables absolute remoteness. Von Trier
makes up with his lm a security of meaning against the knowledge that there
is no miracle, nothing to save reality. The lm overcomes its obstacle of religion . . . and produces its miracle; at the same time, what it knows against its
end (both close and purpose, the former given as the conrmation of the latter),
is the impossibility of completion, the limits against which it breaks throughout. . . . Possession of God would be exactly the loss of any sense . . . would be
the terrifying enjoyment of what cannot be integrated into symbolic order and
representation. (Ibid.)
Although the terms could not be more dierent, Heaths analysis shares
with Quinns an air of the orthodox. An established theory and method
meet a lm whose aesthetic, even spiritual, ambitions dier markedly from
their normal parameters; in the encounter, the established theory unsurprisingly tailors the thing to its own demands, ignoring or deriding the
irrecuperable features of the work.
Heath goes on to focus on Besss exclusion from her own miracle, seeing
in the lm a continuation of the gender politics of the represented world
itself. In his analysis, by contrast, Bess nds her rightful place in a Lacanian
allegory: The woman touches on this, the God-face, which is to say that
woman and God both gure and conceal the impossibility of this jouissance:
they edge on to, that is, but cover over the void of the non-existence of the
Otherthere is no answer, no ultimate signier, no nal guarantee to be
had (ibid.).
In its own terms, this reading has a persuasive force. The trouble is that
it is dicult to decide whether this force comes from its particular accuracy in this instance or from the internal coherence and rhetorical authority
6. I imagine Von Trier consciously imitating his great forbear, Carl Dreyer, here. Both Danes,
at either end of the century, produced extraordinary lms about nations and religions not
their own.
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of its method. Its conclusions seem applicable to virtually all cinema (for
what is lm, without sex and God?). After all, if the foundation of gender
disparities is immanent in language, then language itself is the ineluctable
foundation of the terms of human subject identity (ibid.). In this light,
Heath seems ultimately to accuse the lm of not being worldly enough, not
owning up to the manifest vacuity of all claims to experience or represent
the ineable. By this move, however, he becomes the mirror image of the
town patriarchs who condemn Bess to the everlasting lake of re, precisely
for being too worldly. Neither judging party has done justice to Besss gambit against orthodoxy. Doing justice to Bess and the lm requires a dierent
approach.
7. Reverse Fetishism: Knowledge against Belief
These various readings all fail because viewers must face an ending that is
comprehensible only in terms of the extraordinary, the transcendent, the
sublime: a sudden, shocking encounter with an order or magnitude of being
(such as the innite) that nearly outstrips our abilities to perceive and process it. According to Michael Bird in Film as Hierophany (1982), such
an experience is aective, deeply emotional, and potentially truthful in a
manner that need not be strictly rational. The nonrational need not equal
nonsense, since the binarism of instrumental reason does not necessarily
hold sway everywhere:
In spite of the triumph of determinant judgment in the contemporary world (in
the values of programming, forcasting [sic], eciency, security, computing, and
the like), other games or genres of discourse are available in which formulating a rule or pretending to give an explanation is irrelevant, even forbidden. In
particular this is the case with esthetic judgment. (Lyotard 1988: 21)
Pence
55
Tillich (1956) in erasing the distinction between these realms. If the material
world, governable by or at least cognizable by reason, presents us with
the limits of nitude and the awareness of nonbeing, it is this very emptiness that places us in a condition of openness to the Unconditioned (Bird
1982: 5). Far from excluding the miraculous as irrational, then, reason asks
for revelation, seeking an ultimate unity of its conicting and unresolved
polarities (ibid.: 4). Bird (ibid.: 6) emphasizes Tillichs notion of beliefful realism, located midway between a technological realism (which
recognizes only the immediately visible world) [and] a mystical realism
(which eliminates the material world as an obstacle to the ascending mind).
Instead of bifurcating the abstract and the actual, belief-ful realism captures a sense of nuance and paradox by which discernment of the transcendent is made possible by turning in the direction of the real (ibid.).
Belief-ful realism turns us away from a bipolar opposition of the particular and apprehensible, on the one hand, and the general and abstract,
on the other hand. Rather than set against each other, we can imagine
these alternative foci of thought and representation as commingled in a
process of mutual imbrication. In turn, this relationship illuminates, by
homology, the general concern of this essay and volume. Both argue against
the assumption that a fundamental conict between critical approaches
that privilege an orientation to either thing or theory demands our choosing
between them. Rather, a conceptual error of simplication produces and
exaggerates the opposition between these orientations. Furthermore, this
false dichotomy may be seen as the root cause of the sweeping oscillation in
recent criticism between these alternatives, since neither orientation alone
can account for aesthetic experience in any complete fashion. Throughout
its history, cinema has been understood and explored in a bipolar fashion, as a medium whose technological and textual features lend themselves
either to a transparent representation of reality or to the creation of illusions
that border on the magical. This binary conception of lm derives directly
from the nineteenth-century opposition of science and religion, reecting
the formers increasing public authority and the latters decline into private desire and behavior. Art was then conceived of as mediating between
the poles of science and religion, as a practice that could accurately reect
and transform reality while addressing the aspirations for greater or deeper
understanding of our existence that were at one time more reliably met by
religious institutions. Nevertheless, lm history and criticism reveals a tendency to downplay this mediating role in favor of focusing more strongly
on mimetic or fantastic concerns. The spiritual lm, in contrast, has always
foregrounded this mediating role.The remainder of this essay explores what
it would mean in practice to reectively abide in between the particular and
56
According to Bird, appreciating this alternative form of realism in art requires resisting the impulse to treat a work either as a self-sucient material
or a symbolic entity; I would add that we must also resist treating a work
as an allegorical unit metonymically linked to a larger realm. In the wake
of Mikel Dufrennes (1973 [1957]) phenomenology of aesthetic experience,
Bird (1982: 8) argues that this resistance entails attending to the sensuous
aspects of the artwork, not only or primarily its physical qualities but the
way in which it is feeling that enables an encounter with depth, rather than
merely the surface of reality. In this sense, he posits that the artwork must
be understood as more a subject than an object, one that elicits sensuous
reactions that are actually responses to demands.
Bird insists that the artwork functions as a subject in order to reorient our
treatment of it away from instrumentality and toward some more indeterminate receptivity. What sort of subject the artwork would be is less clear.
We might conceive of it as an extension of the agency of its creator. Perhaps a corollary conception of the artists creative agency as expressive of a
fundamental creative force in the universe could lead us through a particular artwork toward discernment of the transcendent. It is equally likely,
however, that, for good or ill, such a formula would redirect our attention
to the subjectivity of the artist as an end in itself. In that case, we would only
have (re)discovered a way to treat the artwork as evidence of something that
seems far from ineable. It is more productive, I think, to consider the artwork as having the form and function of a subject in a basic sense of its needing us, asking us for something, making demands that, however minimal
or dicult to discern, are greater than what we may impute to objects. If
the artwork needs something from us, then we need its solicitation; neither
the work, on the one hand, nor the consumers own paradigms of understanding, on the other hand, suciently dene the aesthetic engagement.
Their particular engagement may, in the instance of the spiritual lm, lead
toward something irreducible to either alone.
The artwork here can in no way be treated as mere evidence upon which
method can conrm its presuppositions. At the same time, the audiences
task is less a narrowly dened epistemic understanding or decoding than
it is an ethical alignment of their own aective and cognitive disposition
with the demands of the workindicated by the audiences own sensuous
responsesunderstood itself as a subject in form and function:
Pence
57
I must make myself conform to what feeling reveals to me and thus match its
depth with my own. For it is not a question of extending my having but rather
of listening in on a message. That is why, through feeling, I myself am put into
question. . . . To feel in a sense is to transcend. (Dufrenne 1973 [1957] quoted
in Bird 1982: 8)
58
In this situation, the openness of the subject in the face of the sublime permits an anity with the innite to emerge. Against Heath, it is possible
to imagine representation and aesthetic reception as less strictly bounded
Pence
59
60
Pence
61
Breaking the Waves paradigmatically, and the cinema of the sublime more
generally, oers the opportunity to imagine and take seriously alternate
forms of cultural practice which are not methodologically harmonious with
the tendency toward reication that typies both modernity and cultural
studies. Rather than centered around reason and transparent realism, this
lm and any analysis that would do it justice (by which I mean would
treat it as more than a system of von Triers madness) must foreground
other modes of apprehension and knowledge. The lm works because of
the way in which it utilizes and undermines our most familiar mode of cognition, representation, and critical interpretationwhich I gather under
the rubric of realism. The lm extends realism beyond the point at which
its short-term gains of exposing and disabling power relations have begun
to produce the negative eect of disenchanting the world by blinding us
to those features of experience that are unrecognizable in its terms. Breaking the Waves insists on the power of realistic technique to present a situation for the viewer that embodies, if only asymptotically, an encounter with
the ineable. Whether such an encounter is deferred indenitely or constitutively, following Carlson, or is only negatively cognizable, and thus by
either route fails to satisfy the demands of reason, seems to me to miss the
point altogether. We may learn here from Stanley Cavells explorations of
the ontology of cinema.
Like Benjamin, Cavell insists that to appreciate lms potency requires
acknowledging its technical capacity to frame an aspect of reality for our
scrutiny. Unlike Benjamin, Cavell argues that this scientic or rational element of cinema does not necessarily dene the medium in opposition to illusion, fantasy, or even magic. Rather, he writes, movies arise out of magic:
from below the world (Cavell 1979 [1971]: 39). The world here is inseparable from the templates of consciousness that frame this entity for comprehensible perception. As a medium generally, and within the genre of
the spiritual lm explicitly, movies reenact for our reection the process of
framing by which the innite possibilities of sensory perception and interpretation come together in a pragmatically coherent entity (the world). By
this reenactment, movies alert us to the prior and foundational existence of
that which is not yet framed as a world. Furthermore, they remind us of the
persistence of the as yet unknown, here gured as the ground of magic without which reason and representation would have no context or materials to
work with. In this light, we may read Breaking the Waves, and its miraculous
conclusion in particular, in an aectively intelligible manner dierent from
Heaths mere recognition of its impossibility.
For Cavell (ibid.: 102), modern sensibilities and conditions have produced
a situation in which our natural mode of perception is to view, feeling
unseen. We do not so much look at the world as look out at it, from behind
62
the self. Cinemas power lies in its automatic framing of the world for
us. In screening the world for us, lm also screens the world from us. Unlike
theater, lms unreel like events without witnesses. In accounting for why
this exclusion from the labor of framing the world would appeal to audiences, Cavell suggests that the lifting of our responsibility for such framing results in a draining of anxiety, and the possible emergence of a perceptive state similar to Lyotards notion of ascesis. Lyotard also links this
responsive openness to the Stoics disciplined pursuit of apatheia, or cultivated indierence. This latter disposition suggests a mode not simply of
resisting the potentially overwhelming stimulation of perception, but also
of transcending the grip of individuated perspective itself.7 Paradoxically,
this makes movies seem more natural than reality, as they permit the self
to be wakened, so that we may stop withdrawing our longing further inside
ourselves (ibid.).
The key to cinemas relation to the ineable, therefore, does not lie in its
subjecting the world to new standards of scrutiny. Rather, cinemas spirituality inheres in the eects produced in viewers freed to reect on powers
of perception and forms of desire which have been either diminished by, or
excluded from, conventions of thought and action, including those of criticism. Unlike Heath, Cavell imagines a certain alienation of the subject as a
given that may be assuaged; when this happens, the subject is not so much
delivered over to another realm than to the world that is normally ltered
and occluded by and for an alienated identity. There is a parallel here to
the situation of the camera as well as a broad dierence from Heaths representation of cinema and consciousness as more or less satisfying prison
houses of language. If the camera is outside its subject as I am outside my
language (ibid.: 127), then we can understand the disjunctive nal shot of
the bells pealing over the North Sea neither as a proxy point of view of God
nor as an ination of our own perspective. Instead, we peer from behind
this perspective, above the scene of Besss burial at sea. This vantage point
ought not be evaluated by a criterion of answering or failing to answer our
desire for times answer to the ineable . . . the wish for total intelligibility
(ibid.: 148).
If the nal, yaway shot of the lmoil platform and funeral below,
swinging bells abovebelongs to anyone, it is to Bess, who is no longer
either there or here. At best, we may peer from behind this ghostly perspective, imagining its implications for Bess, who imagined her implications for
7. If even our best students, or even ourselves, continue to be attracted by the thoughtless
bliss of cinema as against the cognitive pleasures of other pastimes, Cavell may here have
explained why this attraction is anything but a lapse of moral or working habits. Instead, it
goes to the very heart of what we desire from cinema.
Pence
63
64
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STEVE NEALE
12
1 John Ellis, 'Art,
Culture and
Quality
Terms for a
Cinema in the
Forties and
Seventies',
Screen, vol 19
no 3, Autumn
1978.
3 Ibid, p 36.
2 Geoffrey
Nowell-Smith,
'Radio On',
Screen, vol 20 no
3/4, Winter
1979/80.
13
importance of Leavisism in general and 'left' Leavisism in partiallar has often been mentioned in the context of the popular culture
debates, its contradictions leading on the one hand to a validation
of popular cinema and to a detailed attention to its styles, meanings and structures and on the other to fairly traditional notions
of authorship, traditions which, in turn, proved fruitful in producing a knowledge of Hollywood and its auteurs. This particular
ideology, however, was more interested in validating Hollywood's
artists than in examining its institutions and conditions. As such,
it was part of a wider project of engaging with the cinema's art
and artists, including its European variants: Robin Wood could
write books on Bergman and Antonioni as well as on Hitchcock,
Penn and Hawks. It is hence not surprising that there was never
any systematic attention given Art Cinema as an institution. There
was never any systematic analysis of its texts, its sources of
finance, its modes and circuits of production, distribution and
exhibition, its relationship to the state, the nature of the discourses used to support and promote it, the institutional basis
of these discourses, the relations within and across each of these
elements and the structure of the international film industry.
^^^^^^^^^^^
Barthes S/Z
Hill and Wang,
v YorK>
^HH^^^HH
14
15
will have in any case to differentiate themselves from those produced by Hollywood. One way of doing so is to turn to high art
and to the cultural traditions specific to the country involved.
Either way, the films will be shown in different cinemas and be
distributed by different distribution networks. And they will be
marked by different textual characteristics. In constructing and
sustaining such differences, the films will almost certainly tend to
coincide with and to become supported by discourses functioning
to define and perpetuate art and culture. The only reasons why
they may not do so is if they transgress the social, sexual, political
and aesthetic boundaries that these discourses construct. In which
cas they will find themselves in different institutional spheres of
circulation: the avant-garde, agit-prop, pornography, and so on.
The discourses of Art and Culture are hostile to Hollywood on
a variety of grounds and for a variety of reasons. Hence the
variety of Art films themselves: from Neo-Realism to Felliniesque
fantasy, from the austerity of Dreyer and Bergman to the plush
visual spectacles of Bertolucci and Chabrol, from the relatively
radical narrative experimentation of Antonioni, Godard and
Resnais to the conventional story-telling of Visconti, De Sica and
Truffaut, from the marxism of Bertolucci to the romantic humanism
of Truffaut, and so on. Equally, however, that variety is contained
both by the economic infrastructure of Art Cinema, its basis in
commodity-dominated modes of production, distribution and exhibition, and by the repetitions that tend to mark cultural discourses in general and the discourses of high art and culture in
particular. Hence the relative constancy of those features and
elements noted above. Even where the marks of enunciation themselves are heterogeneous, they tend to be unified and stabilised
within the space of an institution which reads and locates them
in a homogeneus way (each mark serving equally as the sign
of the author) and which mobilises that meaning in accordance
with commodity-based practices of production, distribution and
exhibition (the mark of the author is used as a kind of brand
name, to mark and to sell the filmic product).
16
World War. From here it will be possible both to pull out a set
of recurrent themes, issues and characteristics and to mark a set
of differences and specificities, adding one or two important
points not detailed in the sketches which follow, before relating
them finally to the current situation here in Britain as it affects
in particular the work and concerns of British independent cinema.
France
Although something in the nature of an Art Cinema existed in
France before the war in the form of Le Film d'Art, a company producing stage classics designed specifically to appeal to a middleclass audience, it was after the war and the consolidation and
spread of Hollywood's influence that, as in so many other European
countries, a diversification in national production began in conjunction both with a sustained intellectual interest in film (an interest
nearly always manifested as a theoretical concern with defining the
nature of film as a specific art form) and with the beginnings of
production of experimental forms.
Before the war, Pathe Freres had been one of the largest film
companies in the world. During the course of the war, however,
the German invasion diminished the home market and opened it
up to German films, while America seized the opportunity to pour
its films into France. The journalist Henri Diamant-Berger wrote
in the weekly magazine Le Film that 'British production is insignificant. Great Britain is no more than a colony to the American film
industry. If we don't take warning at this example, we shall undergo
the same fate.'5 Ten years or so later Leon Moussinac was simply
to write as follows: 'In 1914, 90 per cent of the films shown
throughout the world were French; by 1928, 85 per cent of them
were American.'8
17
18
7 Quoted in
Georges Sadoul,
Histoire Giniral
du Cinima, vol 6,
Denoel, Paris,
1946, p 525.
8 Roy Armes,
"Images of
France", The
Movie, no 16,
P 301.
19
9 Quoted in Paul
Leglise, 'La
Politique Fran?ais<
du Cine'ma*,
Cinima Aujourd'
Despite all this, it should be noted that the late 1950s (the
hui, nos 12/13
period of the emergence of the New Wave), was a period of crisis,
Autumn/Winter
with a sharp decline in cinema attendance from 1957 on. The
1977 p 21.
New Wave was partly a product of this crisis. What is interesting
and important to note about it is, first, that it grew directly out
of a school of critical writing, second, that it related itself to the 10 Quoted Ibid p 22.
re-construction of a national film-making tradition (with Vigo,
Cocteau and Renoir especially prominent), third, that it consisted in large part of a re-inscription of elements of Hollywood 11 Quoted Ibid p 22.
cinema across the terms of the art film, and finally that its emer-
a new system of finance and control was set up with the Comite
d'Organisation de lTndustrie Cinematographique. This was replaced
after liberation by the Comit6 de Liberation du Cinma Frangais,
itself dissolved and replaced in 1946 by the Centre National du
Cine'ma Frangais. The CNCF incorporated all the various production organisations involved in the French industry, and one of its
immediate aims was to protect it against an influx of foreign
especially Hollywood films by reinforcing its quota system. In
1949, the Loi d'Aide a l'lndustrie Cinematographique was passed,
giving aid on a non-selective basis to French producers through a
tax of 25 per cent on recipts from foreign films. This law expired
in 1953 and was replaced by the Loi de Developpement de l'lndustrie Cinematographique.
The importance of this law was that enormous stress was
placed on art, culture and education both in drafting the law and
in arguing and reporting it to the various state bodies involved.
Hence Jacques Debu-Bridel speaking to the Conseil 'de la
Republique: 'We affirm that in our eyes educative values have
more weight and more importance than exchange values';9 and Guy
Desson, speaking to the Assemblee Nationale: 'it must not be forgotten that while the cinema is undoubtedly an industry, it is
also, being a means of expression, an art.'10 Hence, too, the fact
that the jury involved in the allocation of funds comprised representatives from the fileds of art and education, as well as from
the industry itself. The feature films benefiting from this system
in a sense the product of its ideology included Marcel Camus'
Mort en Fraude (1956), Chabrol's Le Beau Serge (1958) and Louis
Malle's Ascenseur pour VEchafaud (1957). Short films, particularly
important for directors like Franju (who made nine before moving
into features) and Resnais (who made eleven), were also covered by
the law. Again, the emphasis in distributing funds was on quality
and culture ('quality', said Guy Desson, "must be fundamental to
films of this kind').11
20
This basic system continued through the 1960s and into the
1970s, though it was modified after the events and criticism of
May '68 specifically to encourage 16mm production and the work
of new film-makers. It continues to exist today after the essence
of its modes of financing was re-adopted in 1976. If, however, these
structures and practices continue to exist, so too does the problem
of the domination of Hollywood and American distributors. As a
final confirmation of this, it is worth noting that in 1977. the percentage of aid to distributors worked out so that the six companies distributing Hollywood films received 40%, the eleven commercial French distributors 44%, the 35 distributors of films d'art
et d'essai only 4% and the 63 independents 12%. Even within the
terms of the Art cinema problematic it can be seen there are considerable drawbacks, while the problematic itself, of course,
remains open to criticism that it erects a false distinction between
commerce and culture and that it tends to ghettoise the work of
film-makers whose films circulate only in the Art house nexus:
The whole economic and aesthetic evolution of French cinema
since 1958, in other words for the last twenty years, has served
only to accentuate the gap between commercial and 'cultural' production . . . This conception [ie Malraux's] which in effect counterposes culture and education, is based on an overvaluation of the
former and on the complete absence of consideration of the cultural needs of the public in its broadest sense.12
Aujoud'hui, 12/13
Autumn/Winter
1977 p 53.
Germany
As in so many other countries during the period of the early
1910s, Germany participated in the movement towards an early
form of Art Cinema based largely in 'classical' literature and
drama, both historical and contemporary. Following the Kineform
manifesto of 1910 (signed, among others, by Gerhart Hauptmann, Hermann Sudermann, Arthur Schnitzler and Paul Lindau),
Oskar Messter founded a subsidiary to Messter Film GmbH called
Autoren Film specifically to produce art films and Paul Davidson's
Projektion-AG Union began to involve established artists and
intellectuals (including, significantly. Max Reinhardt) in the planning and production of its films.
Foreign domination of the national market occurred very early
in Germany, with the number of German-produced films in distribution heavily outweighed by films imported from America and
(especially) Denmark and France. The 1914-18 war aided and
strengthened the domestic industry considerably, with the home
market closed to many foreign countries and the French industry
suffering from German occupation and war. It was towards the end
of the war, in 1917, that UFA was founded, funded in part by the
state and in part by large banking and industrial interests. UFA
was essentially an umbrella organisation, covering all three
spheres of production, distribution and exhibition, though for a
long time its primary concren was with distribution (it was only
officially registered as a production company in 1924).
21
12 Michel Marie,
'L'Art du Film en
France Depuis La
"Nouvelle
Vague"', Cinema
22
As Siegfried Kracauer has noted, it was a policy pursued in particular by Erich Pommer, producer of Caligari for Decla Bioscope
in 1919 and subsequent head of production at UFA.13 Indeed, apart
from features and its activities in distribution and exhibition,
UFA produced a whole series of documentaries whose generic title
was, precisely, the Kulturfilm, promoted by the slogan 'The
world is beautiful; its mirror is the Kulturfilm.'1*
UFA was by no means the only important film company in Germany at this time. The development of German Art Cinema
owed its existence also to a multitude of small independent commercial production companies: Phoebus, Gloria, Helios, Luna,
Terra, Nero, Rex, Neptune and so on. Because of its size and
because of its presence in the sphere of distribution, however,
UFA remained important, though it was forced in 1925 to sign away
much of its autonomy in an agreement with Paramount and
Metro-Goldwyn, following the Dawes plan and the stabilisation
13 See Siegfried
Kracauer, From
of the mark. With the introduction of a new monetary system,
Caligari to Hitler,
the previous currency could no longer be used to finance foreign
Princeton UP,
1971 p 65.
trade. UFA was then cut off from its export market. The Parufamet Agreement, as it was called, gave Paramount and MetroGoldwyn effective control of UFA's quota certificates and its
14 Ibid p 142.
movie theatres in exchange for loans. UFA, however, regained
some of its former autonomy when Hugenberg stepped in in
23
24
17 See Sheila
Johnston "The
Author as Public
Institution*,
Screen Education,
nos 32/33
Autumn/Winter
1979/80.
18 Elsaesser, op cit,
pp 13-14.
16 Thomas
Elsaesser, 'The
Postwar German
Cinema', in
Tony Rayns (ed)
Fassbinder, BFI,
London 1976.
-set of cultural criteria have caused severe problems for film- '
makers lacking the adroit opportunism of someone like Fassbinder.
Italy
In reply to the vogue for French Films d'Art (inaugurated by The
Assassination of the Duke de Guise), the Italian industry towards
the end of the first decade of the 1900s produced its own Sirie
d'Or, beginning with Luigi Maggi's The Last Days of Pompeii in
1908. The Last Days of Pompeii, a classical epic spectacle, was to
inaugurate a specially important and successful cycle which
included Quo Vadis? (in its numerous versions), Spartacus (1914),
and above all, in 1914, Cabiria. As well as epics, Italy drew upon
Shakespeare, Dante, Dumas and others in film versions of The
Three Musketeers, Hamlet, Macbeth, The Inferno and Joan of Arc.
PathS, the producers of Film d'Art, were so worried that they
established a subsidiary in Rome entitled the Film d'Arte Italiano
(FAI), while one of the epics, The Fall of Troy (1911) became so
well known internationally that it broke the American Motion
Picture Patents company's blockade on European independent
production.
25
19 Quoted in Jean
Mitry, Histoire du
Cinema vol 2,
Editions
Universitaires,"
Paris 1967, p 369.
The end of the war saw both the emergence of the Neo-Realist
movement and the swamping of the Italian market by American
movies. Neo-realism became the very paradigm of Art Cinema in
the period immediately following the war, from the late 1940s
through to the early 1950s. It embodied nearly all the elements and
qualities which John Ellis lists in his analysis of attempts to
establish a commercial Art Cinema in Britain during the same
period: realism, humanism, lack of spectacle, lack of excesses in
27
20 John Ellis, op cit.
21 Geoffrey
Nowell-Smith,
'Voyage to Italy:
Rossellini in
Context", Eye to
Eye, September/
October 1979.
22 Thomas Guback,
The International
Film Industry,
Indiana University
Press 1969, p 24.
23 The Italian
producer
Scalera speaking
in 1947, quoted in
Pierre Leprohon,
The Italian
Cinema, Seeker
and Warburg,
London 1972, p 97
25 Quoted in
Goffredo Fofi, II
Cinema Italiano:
Servi e Padroni,
Feltrinelli, Milan
1973 p 48.
26 Ibid p 48.
Like the Andreotti Law, the agreement with France was designed
specifically to aid the production of 'quality' films, and thus to
gain a niche within the world market:
Article 1 stated that the aim was to facilitate by all possible
means the coproduction of Quality Films, films which generally
require a high budget and whose costs are then distributed between
different producers; over and above this, it was specified that the
basic idea was to make films of such quality that they would
enable the expansion of French cinema and Italian cinema throughout the world.21
During the period that followed, up until the next major Aid
Law in 1965, the Italian Art Cinema flourished, with films by
Antonioni, Fellini, Pasolini and Bertolucci, among others, making
their critical and financial mark both nationally and internationally.
The Aid Law of 1965 largely strengthened both the systems of
state aid and the cultural ideology lying behind it. The law, indeed,
stated the importance of the social function of cinema as 'a means
of artistic expression, cultural information and social communication'.23 The production fund of the Banca del Lavoro was augmented by state funds, and producers were empowered to draw up
to 30% of their production costs at an interest rate of 3 % , the
fund being specifically designated as support for films 'inspired
by artistic and cultural aims'.28 There was also a system of prizes
offered for films of cultural merit.
The situation remains much the same today, with state funding channelled through the Banca del Lavoro (2 million lire in
1978 going to 'films of artistic and cultural merit'27 and with a
system of awards and prizes acting in conjunction with import
restrictions and co-productions to sustain the Italian industry as
a whole and its Art Film sector in particular.
There are one or two other points worth noting. One is the
powerful and influential role played by producers like Dino de
Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti. Another is the way in which a considerable portion of funding is reserved for promotional and cultural activities: festivals, conferences and the like. This is especially true of funding at a municipal level and is a result of interparty rivalry; the Christian Democrats and the PCI compete with
one another for cultural prestige. The third and final point to note
24 Claude Degand,
Le Cinema . . .
Cette Industrie.
Editions
Techniques et
Economiques,
1972 p 31.
market in Italy a great danger for the Italian film and even the
French film.2%
j
!
The mode and terrain of Art Cinema thus shifted during the
1920s, emerging as a strategy through which to counter Hollywood's dominance in line with the first acts of legislation (quota
laws and the like) designed to restrict the flood of Hollywood product. The 1920s in fact saw a considerable fragmentation and differentiation in production, distribution and exhibition with the
beginnings of the emergence of those distinct spaces of cinematic
activity we are used to today: entertainment, Art Cinema, the
avant-garde, agit-prop and political cinema, and so on. Where
previously figures like Chaplin and Griffith were able to embody
the virtues and features of entertainment, experimentation and art
together, the configuration of forces inside and outside the
cinematic institution began to fracture that unity into a set of
distinct spheres of practice, circulation, discussion and activity.
The coming of sound consolidated these distinctions (in effect
The rough pattern of the history of Art Cinema in these countries is thus as follows: following an early period in which the
cinema appealed to and addressed what would seem to have been
a largely proletarian audience, a number of countries, including
Germany, France, Italy and the United States (through Zukor's
distribution company Famous Plays by Famous Players) began
developing a cinema which sought an address to the bourgeoisie.
A process of change and differentiation was at work, but the shift
was less towards a bourgeois audience and away from the proletariat than a shift towards an address to the two together. The
war provided Hollywood with an opportunity to extend its share
of the world market and to challenge the prominence hitherto
enjoyed by France and Scandinavia in particular. Concomitantly,
through the work of Griffith especially, Hollywood films themselves succeeded in allying proletarian and bourgeois genres with
novelistic conventions of cinematic narration, thus producing a
unified and unifying mode of textual address, a genuinely popular
form of entertainment with a mass rather than a class-based
audience.
29
30
28 See Jean-Louis
Comolli, *A
Body Too Much',
Screen, vol 19 no
2, Summer 1978.
Comolli refers
only to La
Marseillaise but
similar remarks
apply also, in
certain respects, to
Naria, La Rigle
du Jeu, La
Grande Illusion,
The Golden Coach
and The Vanishing
Corporal.
31
32
was then) and the Hays Code as it applied to imported films, alternative distribution and exhibition circuits began to be formed
to show films from Europe including those which would previously
have been denied access to American screens.
With the opening of a market in America, European films were
able to trade more stably and commercially both upon their status
as 'adult' art and upon their reputation for 'explicit' representations
of sexuality. Hence the steady accumulation of these films through
the 1950s and into the 1960s: La Ronde (1950), Summer with
Monika (1952), And God Created Woman (1956), La Notte (1960),
L'Eclisse (1962), La Dolce Vita (1960), Les Amants (1958).
Viridiana (1961), The Silence (1963), S | (1963), Une Femme
Mariie (1964) and so on. Indeed, it could be maintained that from
the mid-1960s onward Art Cinema has stabilised itself around a
new genre: the soft-core art film. Hence Last Tango in Paris (1972),
Belle de ]our (1967), Pasolini's trilogy of The Arabian Nights
(1974), The Decameron (1970) and The Canterbury Tales (1971),
as well as Theorem (1969) and Salo (1975), VAmour Fou (1968),
La Bete (1975), Immoral Tales (1974), Casanova (1977) The Night
Porter (1973), Private Vices, Public Virtues (1976) and so on.
Where previously the history of Art Cinema had been, apart from its
authors, one of a series of unstable and short-lived movements
(expressionism, Poetic Realism, Neo-Realism, the New Wave), the
names of its authors, indeed, serving as the only conceptual means
by which to categorise its output consistently, it now appears that
there is a relatively permanent genre towards which Art Cinema
internationally has begun to gravitate, assured as it is of an international market, notoriety and (generally) a degree of cultural and
artistic prestige.29
29 It is in this
context that
Paul Willemen's
remarks on the
fourth look and
voyeurism with
respect to the art
film and
pornography
acquire a
particular
significance. See
'Letter to John',
Screen, vol 21 no
2, Summer 1980,
esp pp 57-8.
33
34
^^^^"^^^B
35
30 Nowell-Smith,
P cit> PP 17-18.
m^^^^^^^^^^m
their systematic inscription into the films produced under the aegis
of such policies. The films themselves thus participate actively and
systematically in the construction and reconstruction of particular
national identities while the marks of nationality with which they
are inscribed serve further to differentiate them from the films
produced "in Hollywood. (It is no accident, in this context, that
Geoffrey Nowell-Smith's review of Radio On touches on the particular issue of the way in which the film situates itself at an
iconographical level within the traditions of British realism, precisely the tradition appealed to so often as its-major artistic
heritage and hence, the potential basis upon which a native Art
Cinema could be built).30
There is also an important international dimension to Art
Cinema. Art films are produced for international distribution and
exhibition as well as for local consumption. Art Cinema is a niche
within the international film market, a sector that is not yet completely dominated by Hollywood (though it is one that Hollywood
has begun to take seriously, as its European co-productions and as
films by Altman, Coppola and others perhaps start to illustrate).
Art Cinema also, in its cultural and aesthetic aspirations, relies
heavily upon an appeal to the 'universal' values of culture and art.
And this is very much reflected in the existence of international
film festivals, where international distribution is sought for these
films, and where their status as 'Art' is confirmed and re-stated
through the existence of prizes and awards, themselves neatly
balancing the criteria of artistic merit and commercial potential.
This international aspect of Art Cinema is one reason why the
policies pursued by the fascist governments in Italy and Germany
during the 1930s and 1940s cannot simply and easily be seen
merely as extreme initial tendencies in what was to become a
general trend. In these instances the international dimension was
missing and the policies were elaborated within the context of
very specific nationalist ideologies.
36
There are a number of reasons for this. Concepts of art as individual expression are predominant within most cultural institutions
and discourses. And they are readily mobilised in marking and
conceptualising what is held up as a basic difference between
Hollywood and Art Cinema: that the former is the realm of impersonal profit-seeking and entertainment where the latter is the
realm of creativity, freedom and meaning. Authorship, moreover,
can perform other functions. It can exist as a means of accounting
for and unifying conceptually the multiplicity of differences that
can exist between Art films and Hollywood films, reducing that
plurality to a single homogeneous principle. The name of the
author can function as a 'brand name', a means of labelling and
selling a film and of orienting expectation and channelling meaning
and pleasure in the absence of generic boundaries and categories.
37
38
39
'We really feel the lack of a magazine of this kind in Great Britain.
If only there was a way of producing a monthly so packed with
information within a solid ideological perspective! Our monthlies
are really an embarassment in comparison, as so much to do with
'British' culture... The design is very distinctive ittlblends in
exceptionally well with the dynamic and gutsy cc^yage it
consistently affords.' (Framework 12, p. 48)
....IF Mty
\mrtreR
TO
200
201
because screenings during the high season earned greater points towards meeting the Screen Quota requirements. In other words Korean films, prior to 2006,
were required to occupy about one-third of the total screen time.
Ironically, the film industry faced its greatest challenge from neoliberalism
when military authority was demolished and a Korean civilian government
finally came to power in 1998. This initiated a period in which the Screen Quota
was threatened and big conglomerates and financial capital entered into the
Korean film market. Despite a very public resistance launched by the film industry, the government bowed to U.S. pressure, and the KoreaU.S. Free Trade
Agreement (FTA) signed in 2006 cut the number of days Korean films must be
shown by half, bringing the Screen Quota for Korean films down to 73 days a year.
At the same time, the Korean film business started to seek other ways besides
political resistance to enhance the domestic industry. The big-budget blockbuster
film was one such response. Internationalization in order to raise the budgets
required for such films was another. Presently Korean filmmakers consider international co-productions, particularly with Hollywood, to be a means to surmount
the crisis in the Korean cinema. This industrial=economic response also has ideological consequences. In my view, these neoliberal mechanisms have strengthened conservatism, particularly in the representation of women. As a case
study, this paper will analyze Never Forever [Kim Jina 2007], the only co-produced
film between Korea and the United States that has been released so far.
202
S. Yoon
(CCD), an appeal to the U.S.Korea FTA hearing at the House in the United
States arguing that USTRs requirement for reducing the Screen Quota was a
violation of the UNESCO convention.
These global struggles gained further visibility through international film
festivals, in particular, those instances where Korean films won awards, as at
Cannes, Venice and Berlin.1 Here film directors and actors turned their award
speeches into political commentary. Also the Pusan International Film Festival
(PIFF), which has within a decade emerged as the most important film festival
in Asia and the tenth largest in the world, has become a stage for garnering
international resistance against U.S. dominance. PIFF has consistently organized
seminars and protests against the undercutting of cultural diversity and the
Screen Quota.
However, the political struggle to protect the Screen Quota has had only a
half-way success as indicated by the cut of the Screen Quota to half in 2006.
The other side of the battle with Hollywood is a strategy of compromise, an
assimilation of its aesthetic and industry practices as a means to enter the global
and domestic U.S. market. The first aspect of this compromise is industrial: the
Korean blockbuster, which, as in Hollywood, has led to an enlargement in
the size of the movie at the cost of diminishing the number of productions [King
2000; Hozic 2001]. The budget of Korean films has been doubling each year since
the first Korean blockbuster Shwiri hit box office success 10 years ago. These
blockbusters have recovered 50 percent of the domestic market for the Korean
cinema and also led the Korean Wave=Hallyu in Asian countries.2 Nevertheless
the success of these big-budget films has reduced the likelihood of small-scale,
independent movies being produced these days.
The distribution system is also veering towards a monopolistic structure,
eroding the earlier decentralized system of ownership. Until the 1990s numerous
theater owners were involved in film distribution so that no central control had
worked effectively. However, since neoliberal restructuring two big companies
presently take up 80 percent of total film distribution [KOFIC 2007]. Since big
conglomerates have entered the film distribution market, they have established
vertical concentration, combining control over distribution, exhibition, and
production to drive out the independents. At the end of 2006, UIP, the international distributor of Paramount and Universal,3 left Korea after a decade since
first having come to do business in 1988, when Korean filmmakers and distributors brutally battled against them, even putting snakes in movie theaters. As a
result of monopolizing distribution, small-budget, independent films had only
6.0 percent of the total viewership although they accounted for 45.7 percent of
the total Korean film production [Korean Society for Filmmakers 2007]. While
Korean filmmakers have fought for diversity in the international market, they
are ironically losing that very battle at home. The director Kim Ki-duk, who
has won several awards in prestigious international film festivals, recently challenged the limits placed on independent cinema at home. He declared that he
would no longer show his films on domestic screens, accusing blockbuster
movies like The Host, which drew the highest number of Korean viewers
(13 million) in history and occupied 62 percent of the total screening [Cine 21,
2006], of benefiting from an unfair distribution system.
203
Moreover, Korean films have begun to imitate the forms and genres of
Hollywoods blockbuster cinema. Narratives have become simpler, and action
heroes emphasized. This is not to say that blockbusters in the two countries
are exactly the same, because Koreans are trying to defend their film culture
against Hollywood by developing domestic issues and stories. For instance, it
was popularly held that the huge success of Shwiri was based on the fact that
it was grounded in the Korean social context (i.e., conflict between North and
South Korea). Yet the style of the film was similar to Hollywoods. One can easily
find, quite literally in films of this genre, direct lift-offs from Hollywood. For the
purposes of marketing as well, Korean movies frequently emphasize that they
use the same technology, items and staff as certain Hollywood productions.
In these films, one can also observe a conservatism regarding female characters, who are trivialized and portrayed as passive in comparison to the male
action figures. Since Shwiri (6 million viewers), the biggest blockbuster hits have
had male action heroes. For instance, in Friends (8 million), Silmido (10 million),
Taegukgi: Brotherhood of War (12 million), The Host (13 million)all box office
record setterswomen are mostly reduced to auxiliary or dependent roles.
At first glance, the woman protagonist of Shwiri [Kang Jaekyu, 1998], a North
Korean spy, is a unique female character in Korean cinema. The film, a love story,
revolves around the relationship she develops with an intelligence officer of the
KCIA whom she had initially approached in order to destabilize him. Instead she
falls in love with him and is killed in the end. The film traces the collapse of this
woman, who in spite of her training and talents as an assassin is shown to be an
alcoholic femme fatale who is so confused and neurotic that she ends up sacrificing
herself (and her nation and faith). The hero, her lover, on the other hand emerges
as the center of the films moralityhe shoots and kills her in a face-to-face
encounter in which she had actually turned her gun upon others in a bid to save
him. In the end, her character is summarized as Hydra, citing the Greek myth
whose protagonist is a monstrous femme fatale destined to be punished.
Since this film, the representation of women in Korean blockbusters has
become progressively problematic. In the movie Friends [Kwak Kyungtaek
2001], female characters were trivialized and represented as targets of sexual
conquest amongst gangsters. Overall, women remained peripheral to a plot
fully taken up with friendship and betrayal amongst men.
Silmido [Kang Useuk 2003] took this masculinist logic to an extreme. Its setting
in spy-training ruled out having any main female characters. Based on a true
story, the film is set in the military government practice of training felons to serve
as spies in North Korea. The film is full of male bodies undergoing dreadful
training and torture. Two men escape from the island to the town where they
brutally rape a civilian woman. The scene, played out in graphic detail, is the
only instance when a woman appears on the screen. Silmido offers no humanizing sketch of this victim to counter its lingering examination of the torn-up
female body left by the two men. Taegukgi: Brotherhood of War [Kang Jaekyu,
2003] also minimized female characters while emphasizing realistic descriptions
of the battlefields of the Korean War and brotherhood amongst men. The movie
is a tragic tale of two brothers who are separated by the Korean War. The elder
brother goes to fight the war in order to protect his younger brother. He becomes
204
S. Yoon
a war hero and a killing machine, leaving the younger brother to reconcile with
the memory of his tragic death. The women in the film are weak and vulnerable,
merely there to further the plot. The main female character is the lover of the
elder brother. She is accused of being a prostitute and sacrificed to a death
despite her innocence and self-sacrifice. The Host [Bong Junho 2006] presented
greater complexity in its portrayal of women, as it also combined diverse genres.
This film is about a monster born due to pollution of the Han River and a family
that tries to save their teenage daughter who has been kidnapped by this monster. There are two main female characters: one is the kidnapped teenage girl
and the other is her aunt, who eventually shoots down the monster with an
arrow. Yet the girl is portrayed stereotypically as the ultimate bait of the monster
and the aunts defensive attack is shown to be humorously weak and outdated.
In contrast to the male characters in the film who act, discuss and even cause
trouble, these women remain largely silent props. Moreover, the other images
of women in the film are as victims of the monsters brutal attacks with no means
to act in their self-defense. Men are also attacked, but womens fatalities are
rendered in far greater dramatic detail. In sum, the patriarchal submission of
women is not an invention of the blockbuster film nor is it new to Korean cinema.
However, Korean blockbusters have aggravated the problem with the magnified
scale of visual effect and presentation.
205
executed. The film Never Forever [Kim Jina 2007] is the first example made as a
KoreanAmerican co-production. It was not made by a major Hollywood studio
but by an American independent film company, Vol. 3. It has been released both
in Korea and some European countries, and got fairly good reviews.5 Yet it has
not been distributed in the United States yet.
The basic story line of Never Forever is a melodrama featuring an illegal
KoreanAmerican immigrant (Jiha) and an upper middle-class American woman
(Sophie) whose husband (Andrew) is a successful lawyer and a secondgeneration Korean. The film opens on Sophies cultural maladjustment and
psychological instability, framing her alienation from the Korean community in
a funeral service where she sits isolated from the others. Sophies alienation is
compounded by her husbands deep depression and repeated suicide attempts.
She blames herself for this and believes that Andrew would be cured of it if only
she could have a baby.
Subsequently, she hires a Korean-American illegal immigrant, Jiha, a laborer in
the Chinatown of New York City who had tried to sell his sperm but had been
rejected on account of his illegal status. What starts off as a contractual sexual
relationship between the two ends up as true love. Although the movie shows
a contrast between two classes, its main focus, according to the film director, is
their love story.6 The love story is, in my view, distinctly patriarchal as the
womans body becomes the site of violation and intimidation and is separate
from the individuality of the character, Sophie.
Sophie voluntarily commodifies her body, treating it as a childbearing entity in
the service of so-called Confucian values and the happiness of her husband and
his family. Pure and passionless, she considers her sexuality too as belonging to
others; a point the film drives home by showing Andrews mothers coldness
towards her until her pregnancy. Andrew too shares a similar disregard for
her person. He makes sexual demands on her without consideration of her
desires. It is within this cultural context that the film explains the extreme lengths
to which Sophie is willing to go in order to please her husband, including seeking
another man to free her from the guilt of childlessness.
The movie shows that the immigrants male body is commercialized as well.
Jiha has no choice but to sell his body in order to survive as an illegal immigrant
in the United States. The first part of the movie shows Jihas toil and labor in Chinatown as Sophie chases him and spies on him without his knowledge. Jiha is in
search of the American dream, to free himself from poverty and bring over his
girlfriend from Korea. Well integrated into the neoliberal world trade in human
labor, Jiha is in deadlock, trapped in a cosmopolitan society with no other means
of production at his disposal but his body. His American dream appears realizable when he meets Sophie, a blonde American with blue eyes.
Some critics have appreciated this film for its discovery of the eroticism of the
Asian male, which has been so far quite understated in Western society.7 However, Sophie does not desire Jihas body. She is merely paying for it as the source
of semen. She is repulsed by the commercial nature of the relationship even as
she starts to get sexually involved. For instance, she puts the clothes she brings
with her to Jihas apartment in plastic bags, symbolizing the disgust she feels
towards her sexual involvement. Once during sex, Jiha looks down on Sophie
206
S. Yoon
and says Shit, why your eyes are so blue? He sarcastically tells Sophie that
you are the American dream that everyone dreams of. Additionally he asks
out of jealousy, after seeing her husband, Is this your first time to pay for
sex? The womans body is described here both as the target of desire and
conquest. At the same time, it is also denigrated and put down as filthy and
responsible for male humiliation. It reflects patriarchy and male narcissism.
The plot takes a new turn after Sophie experiences sexual ecstasy. At this
moment, she breaks into tears and falls in love with Jiha, desiring him as a willful
human being. In turn she herself becomes a subjective being able to express and
pursue sexual desire. She breaks her contract and keeps on the relationship with
Jiha after becoming pregnant. The dirty house in Chinatown now becomes a
paradise for her. In this new stage in the relationship they start to talk to each
other. The first dialogue between the two is What do you wish? Sophie replies
My wish? I hope for happiness of everybody around me. Jiha urges her to have
a wish for her own. He helps her to discover her dreams. According to the
tradition of melodrama, she finds her wish fulfilled in sexual desire. Obsessed
by Jiha, she takes every opportunity to meet him until she is found out and brutally punished by her husband who hits her and also reports Jihas illegal status to
the police. Sophie refuses to comply with her husbands demands or social norms
and leaves home. It is certainly possible to see this narrative as a feminist tale of a
womans self-realization but one must ask, why does she need a man to complete
her bid at self-realization? The film can in fact be seen as just another variant of
the Cinderella myth; except that in this case the prince offers sexual ecstasy
rather than riches as a means for the woman to come into her own. The film
is structured along the typical Korean melodramatic portrayals of women as
passive victims.
In an interview, the films director, Kim Jina, a Korean-American woman,
explained that she was fascinated by the 1970s Korean melodramas, which in
her view showed beauty even in mundane love stories.8 In my view, the comparison this sets up between Never Forever and the 1970s films is not quite inaccurate,
or better stated, the former lacks the political subtext which informed the latter.
The popular melodramas from the 1970s typically featured stories of pure
women from the countryside who would fall in love with a man and end up
as prostitutes after being betrayed by him. However, this genre had appeared
in the midst of an otherwise extremely repressive militaristic and bureaucratic
regime in the 1970s. It was therefore both a product of and a protest against
the military government. On the one hand, the military government encouraged
greater sexual depiction by deregulating censorship, leading to the birth of a new
genre, hostess (meaning prostitute) movies in Korean film history. On the
other, filmmakers used the prostitute figure as a metaphor for social resistance
against an economic order, which turned working-class men and womens
bodies into commodities. The prostitute also symbolized the utter helplessness
against a military dictatorship.
While Sophie is like the heroines of these earlier melodramas cast as passive
and sacrificial she is in fact a rather odd choice for such a casting. She is the only
white woman among Korean immigrants. She belongs to the upper middle class
and is a well educated woman who lives in New York City. In contrast to the
207
CONCLUSION
In its bid to fight the objective pressures of the U.S.-initiated Free Trade Agreement, Korean cinema is ironically imitating the Hollywood system more than
ever before [Miller 2001; Maltby and Stokes 2004]. The production, distribution
and exhibition of Korean films have become increasingly monopolistic. As
Korean blockbusters dominate the domestic film market and big conglomerates proceed with centralizing film distribution, diversity has dwindled and film
production homogenized, both in terms of content as well as in industrial structure. Moreover, Korean blockbusters tend to reproduce patriarchal ideology, presenting it as a nationalist resistance to neoliberal globalization. Last year was no
208
S. Yoon
exception: in the 130 minutes of that years biggest hit, The Good, the Bad and the
Weird [Kim Jiun 2008], no womens role of any substance could be found.
This analysis discloses diverse dimensions of power in contemporary cultural
products. The recent co-produced film, Never Forever, shares certain conventions
with 1970s Korean melodramas. But it has pulled those conventions out of their
social context and constructed an asocial image of femininity. The film substitutes the social critique of the former with a language of personal choice, i.e.,
neoliberal ideology. Furthermore, patriarchal representations of women as
objects and targets of sexual desire or social violence have returned in the new
blockbuster films. In other words, conservative and patriarchal ideology have
found a vehicle in the culture of the free market.
NOTES
1. Korean films have been feted in prestigious film festivals since 2002. Starting with Best
Director award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002 for Chiwhasun (director Im
Kwontaek), Oasis (Lee Changdong) was awarded the Best Director in Venice. Samaria
(Kim Ki-duk) got the Best Director award in Berlin in 2004. Old Bo (Park Chanuk)
got the jurors award in Cannes. 3iron (Kim Ki-duk) in Venice in the same year, and
Cybor 2006 (Park Chanuk) was awarded the Alfred Bauer in Berlin 2007.
2. Korean Wave refers to the popularity of Korean cultural products in Asia which started
the onset of the 21st century. It began with television shows and music in East Asian
countries. Now it tends to expand all over the world. Particularly, Korean films draw
attention in the famous film festivals.
3. In 2006, Columbia and Disney distributors were merged and established Korean Sony
Pictures, releasing Buena Vista in order to build up competitiveness against local distributors. CJ, a local distributor, took up Paramount in Korea [Hanguerae Daily, Jan. 11,
2007].
4. Interview with the director Lee, March 17, 2007.
5. Cahiers du cinema, Oct 15, 2007, Telerama, Oct 17, 2007.
6. Chungmooro attacks the U.S., Interview with the director Kim Jina, Cine 21, Oct 20,
2006. Chungmooro refers to the center of the Korean film industry.
7. Andrian Gonbo, a journalist at Positive, wrote that Never Forever discovered the Asian
male body for the first time since Alain Resnaiss Hiroshima Mon Amour. Cine, 21,
Dec l3, 2007. Director Kim agreed to this point in an interview; Cine 21, June, 20, 2007.
8. Moon: Chungmooro attacks the U.S. Cine 21, Oct. 20, 2006. In another interview, she
appreciated Douglas Sirk as the role model of her melodrama: Jang, Cine 2l, June 20, 2007.
REFERENCES
Ashcroft, Bill, ed.
1995 The Postcolonial Studies Reader. London: Routledge Ashcroft.
Ashcroft, Bill, et al.
2000 Post-colonial Studies: The Key Concepts. New York: Routledge.
Bhaba, Homi
1994 The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
Cho, Haejung
1998 Alternative Culture. Seoul: Yonsei.
209
210
S. Yoon
FILMOGRAPHY
Agresti, Alejandro
2006 Lake House. Los Angeles: Warner Brothers.
Bong, Junho
2006 The Host. Seoul: Chunguram.
Kang, Jaekyu
1998 Shwiri. Seoul: Kang Jaekyu Film.
2003 Taegukgi: Brotherhood of War. Seoul: Kang Jaekyu Film.
Kang, Useok
2003 Silmido. Seoul: Hanmaek Film.
Kim, Giwoon
2008 The Good, the Bad and the Weird. Seoul: Geurim Film.
Kim, Jina
2007 Never Forever. New York, Seoul: Vox3, Now Film.
Kwak, Kyungtaek
2001 Friends. Seoul: Cineline.
WEBSITES
Film Magazine Cine21. www.cine21.com
Korean Association for Film Art Industry. www.kafai.or.kr
Korean Film Commission, KOFIC. www.kofic.or.kr
Screen Quota Cultural Ties. www.screenquota.com
ARTICLES
warrior (Feldstein 2009; N. Gertz 1998), and views the frontier as the focus
of Zionist drama. In the two films discussed here, urban space is included
in the national space, revealing a complicated relationship between rural
and urban space in early Hebrew cinema, which in turn discloses a rather
complex approach to the city in Zionist ideology.
Vayehi Bimey
The silent short film Vayehi Bimey (In the Days of Yore) (1932, Tel Aviv)4
was the first to be entirely produced in Palestine. Although the technology of talking cinema had been in existence as early as 1927, the film was
silent due to lack of funds and equipment: the entire budget was between
25 and 28 Palestinian pounds (see Halachmi 1995: 105). This film is a short
(18-minute) comedy of errors about mix-ups at the Tel Aviv Purim carnival
among three couples who represent different backgrounds: ultra-Orthodox, American bourgeois, and rural pioneer. The couples become involved
in a series of mistaken-identity incidents in which they are masked and
exchanged with each other.
The main plot line is focused on the ultra-Orthodox couple and the
struggle of Mendel the tailor for liberation from his obsessive and domineering wife. As part of this effort, he runs away from home, dresses
himself as a pioneer, gets drunk, and sings and dances, while she searches
for him all over the city. The other two couples try to identify each others
costumes, but since they are wearing face masks, they almost marry the
wrong person when they eventually meet at the office of the rabbinate.
However, thanks to a rabbi who forces them to remove their masks, Mendels wife forgives him, and the other two couples find each other and
live happily ever after. Between the staged scenes of the movies plot, the
producers added documentary footage (18 percent of the entire film) from
the actual Tel Aviv Purim carnival (Bursztyn 1990: 4044; Feldstein 2009:
7277; Halachmi 1995: 114; Tryster 1995: 155160).
The film conveys a classic carnivalesque picture, reflecting the rich and
imaginative literary and theatrical tradition of Yiddish satires and farces.
This tradition also had a degree of cinematic continuity, which can be seen,
for example, in the Soviet-Yiddish film Jewish Luck (1925) (Hoberman 1991:
9296). In the Days of Yore made extensive use of carnival-type props, such
as costumes, face masks, and alcohol, and carnival themes, such as the war
of the sexes (including the almost inevitable misogyny) and drunkenness,
which distorts the perception of physical space. For example, the visual
effect of upside-down camera movement shows the world of the drunken
Mendel turned upside down. Consequently, it seems to subvert bourgeois
family values, as it implies that Mendel was actually looking for sexual
excitement while wandering through the city streets. The carnivalesque
space distorts the clear judgment of all the participants, who fall victim to
material lusts, disguises, and fiascos of misidentification.
Strangely enough, the real Purim carnival in Tel Aviv of the 1920s and
1930s was quite different from the one portrayed in the film. Unlike historical, wild, premodern Purim celebrations, the Tel Aviv carnival was a
respectable tourist event that had been imported to British Palestine from
contemporary Mediterranean/Southern European carnivals, comparable
to those traditionally held in Monte Carlo, Venice, and similar locales. In
addition to its economic function, the Tel Aviv carnival also had a nationalist function, that is, to demonstrate Jewish control over the urban space
through the visual presence of Jewish masses in the streets (Shoham 2009).
Accordingly, it was perfectly organized, with careful attention to public order. City officials, let alone British rulers, were highly intolerant of
chaos. Still, the maintenance of order at the event was not only a result of
law enforcement, but also a consequence of a bourgeois values system that
stressed civility (Carmiel 1999; Helman 2006).
Three subversive, classical carnivalesque themes were key elements of
pre-Zionist Purim, especially among Eastern European Jewry: (1) public
drunkenness and gluttony; (2) wild sexuality and the war of the sexes,
which were specifically characteristic of early modern Jewish Purimspiels,
as well as the biblical book of Esther itself; and (3) violence, such as the
centrality of the hanging of Haman as a key scene in the biblical text as
well as in street performances stretching back hundreds of years (Belkin 2002; Hanegbi 1998; Horowitz 2006). All of these cultural elements
rituals of violence, vulgar language, role reversals by men and women,
rude sexuality, drunkenness, and grotesque eatingwere conspicuously
absent from Tel Avivs carnival. The carnivalesque space of Tel Aviv during Purim was thus all but carnivalesque, if we understand this term, in
keeping with Bakhtins (1968) definition, as subversive, disguising, and
space-distorting (see also Hayman 1983).
Since documentary footage composed only 18 percent of the film, this
gap between image and reality was concealed in the sequencing of the
scenes. The film, with its farces and disguises, appears to be a historical
oddity. Its intended audience had first-hand knowledge of the real Purim
carnival and knew, for example, that the celebrants did not wear face
masks. It is worth mentioning that the film was generally well-received
by its audience of Palestinian Jews, and the commentators in contemporaneous media, who were generally very sensitive to unrealistic cinematic
representations during this period, did not remark on this misrepresentation of the carnival and generally liked the film.5
resolution of the conflict in the office of the rabbinate, that is, within the
bourgeois institution of marriage.
The imagined loosening of the moral reins during the carnival results
in greater harmony on the collective level and thus, at the end, serves
to enhance the social order. The carnivalesque space represents concord
among different groups in Jewish society: the Orthodox religious circles,
the rural pioneers, and the bourgeoisie. This fictional depiction of Tel Aviv
refers directly to its most notable myth, the first Hebrew city, recreating
and empowering it, depicting the collective Jewish body as flourishing in
the urban space. Since nothing in the cityscape is particularly Hebrew or
Jewish, its Jewishness is more of a discursive and demographic fact than
a physical or cultural statement (Helman 2008). Thus, the film in no way
treats the city as an unavoidable evil, as cities are often viewed by Zionist
institutions. The ability to imagine an entire physical space as having a flexible Jewish identity was the greatest achievement of In the Days of Yore.
The film contained no nationalistic lectures about the greatness of the
nation, let alone direct (or even indirect) advocacy of national sacrifice. But
in terms of spatial images, it offered a specific image of a particular urban
space as Jewish (and bourgeois). In doing so, it thus established a positive
link between space and identity, a necessary step in order for the Jewish
community of Palestine to imagine itself as a modern nation.
Zot Hi Haaretz
In its day, the film Zot Hi Haaretz (This Is the Land) (1935, Tel Aviv)7 attracted
great interest, both in the Yishuv and throughout the Jewish world, as the
first Hebrew non-silent film to be produced in Palestine (the films that had
preceded it were shot in Palestine but edited and produced elsewhere).
The film describes 50 years of Zionist colonization in Palestine, which had
begun in the 1880s, combining documentary footage from the daily newsreels of Aga Film (owned by the films producers, the brothers Baruch and
Yitzhak Agadati) with staged scenesa format that commentators now
designate as docu-drama (Schnitzer 1994: 34).
Unlike In the Days of Yore, This Is the Land depicts the Zionist story as
an epic drama of the human struggle against the wilderness, presenting
a vibrant montage of the Zionist project with its varied components: agriculture, settlement, handicraft, industry, and culture. Thematically, it lacks
individual protagonists with names and faces, reflecting the influence of
some of the works of the Soviet montage school, in which the main protagonist was the masses (Eisenstein 1988: 5964).8 The film makes extensive use of innovative contemporaneous editing techniques, such as the
simultaneous display of several shots or images and the gradual dissolving of one shot into another. These techniques, and the philosophy behind
them, were also largely derived from the Soviet montage school. Hence, in
contrast with my discussion of In the Days of Yore, in which the focus was
the films theme, the following discussion will combine theme and style.
This Is the Land was privately produced by the Agadati brothers with no
assistance from Zionist institutions or any other public funds. The brothers
bore the full production cost in anticipation of significant profit. Film elements that would be defined today as ideologically motivated or as propaganda were present, but not as the outcome of any external pressure.
The film presented the Zionist grand narrative, which was understood
by the films creators and viewers as a gripping drama with commercial
potential (Feldstein 2009: 117; Gross and Gross 1991: 151160).
Almost immediately after its first showing in theaters, these great expectations were deflated by harsh criticism, which raised several important
issues. First, Arabs were completely absent from the films Zionist drama.
This was an artistic choice emanating from an Orientalist worldview, which
associated Arabs with the wilderness. In this film, the wilderness would
be identified with, and overcome by, the collective Zionist protagonist.
Hence, Arabs were only indirectly representedby camels in the opening
sequence.9 As we shall see, the omission of Arabs also derived from the
desire to imagine Palestine as a Jewish space. Another important issue
raised by critics was the absence of basic cinematic elements, such as plot
line and protagonists, or at least the faces of actors and actresses, which
might have strengthened the loose links between the scenes and created a
sense of continuity. Another valid point was the persistent preference for
dramatic lectures over the visual representation of Zionism (Gross and
Gross 1991: 140150; Zimmerman 2001: 142158).
This Is the Land indeed lacks a plot line; instead, it presents a coherent
historical narrative from the early immigration of the 1880s through the
hardships of World War I, the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and the rapid
development that took place during the British Mandate. A few staged
scenes fictively recreate historical events, such as the establishment of
the colony of Rishon Le-Zion in 1882, the foundation of Akhuzat-Bayit
(considered to be Tel Avivs first neighborhood) in 1909, and the Balfour
Declaration. The scenes of early Zionism are portrayed in light of the contemporaneous reality (1935), which exceeded the most optimistic expectations. A few sequences present the first pioneers as a vanguard of macho
men who made the revolutionary decision to come to Palestine, confront
the wilderness, and change their lives (Talmon 2001: 80, 106). Women are
almost absent from the film and, except for a few dancers and one singer,
appear as shrieking mothers and wives.10
M: You are not a laborer yet. You still dont know how to hold a turiya.
W [close-up on his face]: Ehh if not today, I will learn tomorrow. But please
dont interrupt. Look. I look around and I see communes, villages, kibbutzim. Beit-Alfa, Ein-Harod, Tel Yosef, Deganya. I see the new Hebrew nation.
And I see these young fellows who left everything, who revolutionized their
lives, who left all they had and followed the shovel and the plow. But let me
ask you: why dont the new immigrants go to the villages, and why do they
want to stay only in the city? What is it? [He wrinkles his forehead]. We ran
away from the city. Do we really want to create a ghetto here?
[Tense silence; the fingers of the worker nervously tap the turiya.]
M [again in a wide frame]: Heyyou pioneer! [pats the workers shoulder]
You dont understand a thing! The Hebrew city in the land of Israel is a
great creation. The Hebrew city is a hub of industry, a center for commerce,
handicrafts, and culture, of course. Schools, a Technion, a university. Above
all, the city is important for us, for the village. The cityit buys our products
in short [puts his hand again on the workers shoulder], without the city,
the village cannot exist. Do you understand, cucumber?
[As the manager speaks, the worker scrapes clods from his turiya, removes
his hat, and scratches his head while nodding.]
W: Yes, I understandand dont [at that moment, the manager removes
his hand from the workers shoulder] but it is advisable to see a city.
Indeed, I have never seen a city in the Land of Israel [again, taps the turiya
with a metallic sound].
M: Here, we will have a day off. We will take a trip, and then we will see the
first Hebrew city.
W: OK [pats the managers chest].
M: Nu, and nowto work, to work! [sends him back with many pats].
From this point to the end of the film, only Hebrew agriculture is depicted,
while the song is played in the background or sung by Yosef Goland,
standing on a carriage and traveling to the village.
presentation of an indisputable rural ethos, which does not leave room for
doubts or indecisiveness. The film thus returns from the vibrant montage
of urban life to the long pastoral shots of the rural landscapes.
The first scene breaks down the Zionist narrative into multiple components, whereas the second one reclaims the narratives unity. The portrayal of another Zionist narrative also frames the main narrative as
one possibility among others. The subsequent monologue is supposed
to silence the questions of the green cucumber and to turn the narrative
away from the city. Since the narrative frame was already unpacked and
diversified, a fierce action is needed to bring the audience back to that
meta-narrative. In other words, the city could indeed be part and parcel
of a Zionist narrative, but only if this narrative is pluralistic and the metanarrative undermined. The city introduces internal tensions into Zionist
meta-narrative because it provides the films only indicator of the option
of more complicated and non-linear developments, unpredictable and
uncontrolled, in the story of the redemption of the land.
Although the narrative appears to be repacked, the spatial representation remains plural. The film contains various and different subspaces
within its imagery of national space (i.e., the homeland), which is experienced by the audience as being composed of different sub-societies. This
diversifying role of the city is not accidental. The culturally uncontrolled
urban space of the capitalist-industrial city exemplifies human multiplicity and diversity (Low 1996), not abstractly, but sensually, through the
experience of walking in the city (Certeau 2000) or, alternatively, through
visual representations of the urban masses on screen. On the other hand,
the industrial city emerges as a main arena of socio-cultural and political disputes and, at the same time, a central site for collective identity
construction (Lefebvre 1996: 68). The emergence of the urban Yishuv in
inter-war Palestine represented the national space as diversified, despite
nationalist doctrines that advocated otherwise.
However, this diversity itself made a noteworthy, although controversial,
contribution to the imagery of the city as a Jewish space. Although rural
space is depicted as ethically superior to urban space, it is presented as aesthetically inferior. Thus, there is a disparity between style and themes in the
film, which implies that the dual nature of the rural and the urban does not
undermine the power of Zionist ideology conveyed in This Is the Land. Contrary to Bursztyn (1990), Zionist ideology does not become a caricature just
because the green cucumber taps his turiya and his manager teases him; it
is displayed as an authentic expression of a real life form, rather than as a
one-dimensional placard. Among the staged scenes in the film, the dialogical scene is, more or less, the only one with which the viewers can identify
to some degree. It is the only scene to describe an element of pioneering life
in Palestine that reflects a real issue that the settlers encounter and the only
one that includes (a bit) more than dramatic lectures.
Conclusion
Anderson (1983) emphasized the notion of empty, homogeneous time
in which modern narratives take place (in journalism and novels) and
give expression to nationalist imagery. Although this is true with regard
to cinema, films also allow for the simultaneous imagery of multiple subspaces, which are far from being homogeneous or empty. Sequenced in
the film in a narrative structure, the heterogeneous spaces diversify the
homogeneous meta-narrative. However, diversifying the homogeneous
nationalist narrative does not necessarily mean its deconstruction. The
multiple spaces can sometimes coalesce to create one social space that has
its own imagined unityJewishthanks to (and not in spite of) its ability
to contain collisions of different narratives.
Although urban space was not favored by Zionist ideology, the rapid
urban development of inter-war Palestine forced itself on Zionist spatial
imagery. The contradictory appearances of urban scenarios and cityscapes in the films discussed above reflect various inner tensions of the
Zionist project: vanguard versus mass society, overdramatization versus prosaic life, asceticism versus celebrating the body, unity versus
multiplicity in space design and nation-building. Whereas in the film
In the Days of Yore, the city appears as the only actual Jewish life form
in Palestine, in This Is the Land, it is one among other optionsbut it is
the one that introduces diversity into the national space. Ironically, the
multiculturalism and polyphony of the city, which so threatened Zionist
ideologues, were vital for the domination of Zionist ideology and the
ability of various Jewish communities to imagine Palestine as a Jewish
space. The Jewish cityTel Avivwas the only place in which the new
Jewish mass society in Palestine emerged as a historical entity with a
physical and visible presence, both in the street and on the screen. Only
the urban mass society could indeed be convincingly designated by the
pretentious term nation.
Acknowledgments
The article was written thanks to the Program for Judaic Studies at Yale
University, where I served as a Postdoctoral Associate between 2008 and
2010. I am particularly indebted to Steven Fraade and Paula Hyman for
their constant support. I wish to thank Miri Talmon, Barbara Mann, and
Olga Gershenson; the editors and the reviewers of Israel Studies Review;
and, above all, my friend Nava Dushi for useful comments on this article.
Hizky Shoham teaches at Tel Aviv University and is a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies at the Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem. His research interests include the cultural history of Zionism and
cultural theory. His book Mordechai Is Riding a Horse: Purim Celebrations in
Tel Aviv (19081936) and the Building of a New Nation (in Hebrew) is about
to be published by Bar-Ilan University Press.
Notes
1. For more on this topic in Judaic studies, see Brauch, Lipphardt, and Nocke
(2008), Fonrobert (2009), Mann (2006: 125).
2. On the national imagery of space, see Gellner (1983: 102108) and Portugali
(1993). For more about the unique role of cinema, see Shohat and Stam (1994:
100104) and Smith (2000: 56).
3. The concept of national cinema in not taken here to represent a particular
local cinema (French, Italian, etc.), which is characterized by a unique style
or cinematic language, or a protectionist cinema in the local language, as
opposed to a globalizing Hollywood cinema (see Hjort and Petrie 2007; Jarvie
2000; Walsh 1996).
4. Vayehi Bimey (1932) Palestine Production Company, Tel Aviv: screenwriting
and shooting, Natan Axelrod; staging, Hayim Halachmi. Steven Spielberg
Jewish Film Archive, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, VT DA016. I thank Mr.
Yosef Halachmi for allowing me to possess a copy of the film.
5. See critiques of the film quoted in Feldstein (2009: 7277) and Halachmi
(1995: 114).
6. On comedies and national identity, see Keeler (2008) and King (2008). On
pioneers theatre, see Ofrat (1980: 120127).
7. Zot Hi Haaretz (1935), Aga Film, Tel Aviv: producers, Baruch and Yitzhak Agadati. Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive, Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
VT DA330.
8. See Gross and Gross (1991: 136) on the influence of Soviet cinema on the Agadati brothers.
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Shavit, Yaacov, and Shoshana Sitton. 2004. Staging and Stagers in Modern Jewish
Palestine: The Creation of Festive Lore in a New Culture, 18821948. Trans. by
Chaya Naor. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University.
Shavit, Yaakov, and Gideon Bigger. 2001. The History of Tel Aviv: From Neighborhoods to City, 19091936. [In Hebrew.] Tel Aviv: Ramot.
Shoham, Hizky. 2009. A Huge National Assemblage: Tel Aviv as a Pilgrimage Site in Purim Celebrations (19201935). Journal of Israeli History 28, no. 1:
120.
______. Forthcoming a. Mordechai Is Riding a Horse: Purim Celebrations in Tel Aviv
(19081936) and the Building of a New Nation. [In Hebrew.] Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan
University Press.
______. Forthcoming b. Tel-Avivs Foundation Myth: A Constructive Perspective. In Tel-Aviv, the First Century: Visions, Designs, Actualities, ed. Maoz
Azaryahu and S. Ilan Troen. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Shohat, Ella, and Robert Stam. 1994. Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and
the Media. London: Routledge.
Simmel, George. 1997. The Metropolis and Mental Life. Pp. 174185 in Simmel
on Culture, ed. David Frisby and Mike Featherstone. London: Sage.
Copyright of Israel Studies Review is the property of Berghahn Books and its content may not be copied or
emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission.
However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
REVIEW
Stephanie Dennison and Song Hwee Lim. Remapping World Cinema: Identity,
Culture and Politics in Film, Wallflower Press, London and New York, 2006,
203 pp. ISBN 1-904764-62-2.
THE SOUBRIQUET world cinema is an amorphous phrase, frequently used to
describeadiversearrayofcinemawhileevadinganyclearcutdefinitionofwhatthis
category actually entails. While this is understandable, it has often had the
unfortunate sideeffect of creating a theoretical vacuum for analysing and
approachingfilmswhichfallintothiselusivecategory.Inresponsetothisambiguity,
itisnotuncommonforworldcinematobereductivelyatomisedandreducedtoa
category comprised of individuated national cinemas. Thus world cinema is
concretised by a conceptual orthodoxy one that appeals to the palate of the
cosmopolitan cinephile by constructing a cinema that displays the requisites of the
diverse,theexoticandaboveall,theforeign.
In Remapping World Cinema: Identity, Culture and Politics in Film, editors
StephanieDennisonandSongHweeLimattempttoaddresswhatistantamounttoa
deceptively simple question: What is world cinema? 1 Fortunately, both they and
the various contributors to this collection acknowledge the futility of seeking
definitive answers and choose instead to provide a cautious, considered account of
how world cinema is both discursively and empirically constituted. As a result,
fifteen wellcrafted, rigorous essays analysing an assortment of films have been
collatedinthisvolume.Diversetheoreticalapproachesarethoughtfullyfieldedinan
attempt to interrogate and reconfigure existing orthodoxies of world cinema
predicatedonthenotionofnationalisedfilms.
Letmenotbecoy.Westillparsetheworldbynations,notesDudleyAndrew
inAnAtlasofWorldCinema. 2 Thisobservationisparticularlycriticaloftherigid,
often nationalistic cartographies currently maintained in film studies. Not only is
Andrewconcernedwithredefiningfilmstudiesasanacademicdiscipline,butheis
simultaneously attentive to issues of pedagogical practice. Consequently, he
advocatesadeparturefrompanopticpracticesthatmerelysurveytheforeign,while
moving towards a pedagogy of localised engagement which may subsequently
disorientandevendiscomfortthestudentoraudience:Displacement,notcoverage,
mattersmost;letustravelwherewewill,solongaseverylocalcinemaisexamined
withaneyetoitscomplexecology.3
Andrews use of political, demographic, and linguistic maps not only lends
concisiontothedilemmaofhowworldcinemamightbeapproached,butalsooffers
alternative models of reconceptualisation. In his essay the term orientation, for
example, refers to the emergence of a localglobal nexus in which film displays a
perspective that is firmly situated in the local, yet remains outwardlooking and
interactive. Drawing on DeleuzeGuattaris The Nomad, Andrew contemplates
marginalised practices of production and distribution that are situated beyond
Westernepistemes.
89
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methods of the more obscure East German comic assiduously receives the lions
share of analysis. Valentins ability to wed high art or the avantgarde to the
Volkssanger or folk tradition culminated in his portrayal of a Hanswurst a
harlequinesque figure who evoked covert strategies of absurdity and
defamiliarisationinordertoprovideahumorouslyveiledsocialcritique.BothRobb
and Preuss introduce a detailed and welcome element of class analysis to the
collection. This draws attention to a cinema that reflected (German) national
boundaries and spoke to internal social stratification, thus further redrawing the
conceptuallinesofworldcinema.
Whilemostofthevolumeattemptstodispensewithnationallinesofcinematic
production,allowingforthetitularremappingofcinema,itinadvertentlyoccludes
entiregeographiesoffilmicimaginationfromitsanalysis.Althoughworldcinemais
remappedacrosstheseessays,itisnoteworthythatthisbravenewcartographyfails
to feature any cinema external to established national sites of film production and
distribution within the freefloating categories of third and world cinema. Thus
Pacific, Australasian, and Middle Eastern cinema along with any Asian film
industriesunfortunateenoughtobepositionedbeyondthecinematictrinityofChina,
JapanandIndia,areconspicuousbytheirpronouncedabsencefromtheworldstage,
leading to a poverty of representation. The category of Fourth cinema is similarly
excluded, thus foregoing any consideration of cinematic perspectives and practices
thatlieperipheral,parallelorincontradistinctiontothenotionofthenationstateas
logical site of cinematic production. In all fairness, these omissions will be partly
attributabletopragmaticconsiderationssuchasthewriterstimenottomentionthe
space available in this collection. Ultimately however, thedecision to exclude these
regions ofcinemarestswithDennison and Limand it is an editorial oversightthat
somewhatdiminishesthiscollection.
Nevertheless, the aforementioned absences leave a glaring swathe of cinema
excised from the proceedings. Furthermore, a clear inequity exists among those
cinemas that do receive representation. A glimpse of the Caribbean and Basque
countryiscapturedthroughRobStonescomparisonofthefilms,SoyCubaandAma
Lur. Discussion of Ama Lur in particular provides Remapping World Cinema with
perhaps the only chapter to truly contemplate uniquely cultural and indigenous
modes offilmicexpression.Stonesoverarchinginterest however, lies inexamining
contrastingmodesofMarxistrhetoricthatarepresentinbothfilms.SouthAmerican
cinemaisavitalpresence,whileAfricaismentioned,butonlyasafigmentofthe
Westernimaginary,ratherthananextantsiteofcinematiccreativity.
Directtovideo films in Nigeria are promising filmic territory that receive the
mostcursory,thoughadmittedlytantalising,ofglancesinthelatterstagesofDudley
Andrews contribution. Africa is revisited by both Keith Richards and Rosanna
Maule in cogent analyses of the postcolonial works of Claire Denis and Pier Paolo
Pasolinirespectively.Bothessaysidentifythemyriadwaysinwhichthecontinent
functionsasahighlymeditative,selfreflexivesiteforbothEuropeandirectors.While
theseessaysareinteresting,accessibleandaboontoanystudentorreaderinterested
in both the insights and problems of the Western ethnographic gaze, scant if any
attentionisaffordedtocinemaactuallycraftedbyAfricanfilmmakers.
It is unfortunate that Lcia Nagibs provocative proposal for, a method in
which Hollywood and the West would cease to be the centre of film history
91
SparkleAnneGIBBS
UniversityofAuckland
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NOTES
StephanieDennisonandSongHweeLim,Introduction:Situatingworldcinemaasatheoretical
problem,inStephanieDennisonandSongHweeLim,eds,RemappingWorldCinema:Identity,Culture
andPoliticsinFilm,WallflowerPress,LondonandNewYork,2006,p.1.
2DudleyAndrew,AnAtlasofWorldCinemainStephanieDennisonandSongHweeLim,eds,
RemappingWorldCinema:Identity,CultureandPoliticsinFilm,WallflowerPress,LondonandNewYork,
2006,p.26.
3ibid.,p.19.
4DavidRobb,CarnivalesquemeetsmodernityinthefilmsofKarlValentinandCharlieChaplinin
StephanieDennisonandSongHweeLim,eds,RemappingWorldCinema:Identity,CultureandPoliticsin
Film,WallflowerPress,LondonandNewYork,2006,p.94.
5LciaNagib,TowardsaPositiveDefinitionofWorldCinemainStephanieDennisonandSong
HweeLim,eds,RemappingWorldCinema:Identity,CultureandPoliticsinFilm,WallflowerPress,London
andNewYork,2006,p.34.
6RachelHutchinson,Orientalismoroccidentalism?DynamicsofappropriationinAkiraKurosawa
inStephanieDennisonandSongHweeLim,eds,RemappingWorldCinema:Identity,CultureandPoliticsin
Film,WallflowerPress,LondonandNewYork,2006,p.176.
1
93
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may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express
written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
Gesamthochschule Kassel
Published online: 06 Aug 2007.
To cite this article: Barry Baddock (1991) Film, authenticity and language teaching, The Language Learning Journal, 3:1,
16-18, DOI: 10.1080/09571739185200061
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09571739185200061
Inlroduction
To the film enthusiast (in contrast to the language teacher), an
"authentic film is one which accurately and realistically recreates
a particular period or environment. Take, for example, David
Lean's A Passage to India (1984). Although it was based on a work
of fiction and made 60 years after that work was published, it is
authentic insofar as it recaptures the idiom, atmosphere and behaviour of life in 1920s British India. Cinematic authenticity is
not the open-ended realism of the pure documentary, but the selective image-making of the film-maker. Pierre Sorlin develops
the point in assessing the 1939 epic Gone With the Wind:
Authenticity, constantly reaffirmed, is d r a w n from general
and individual behaxa'our. I am not claiming that Scarlett's
story is given as a 'true story', but that 'the true history" of the
war is presented as a mixture of general massacre and individual suffering. The Civil War is an accumulation of private
misfortunes and disasters - all of them gathered together in
a general o v e r t h r o w . . . (w)e are not looking at 'war in itself"
but at images of war?
As we shall see, cinematic authenticity - the accuracy of
"general and individual behaviour" portrayed - is important
from a language learning perspective too.
We may feel that a documentary film, characterised by unscripted, 'real-life' dialogue, offers a stronger guarantee of authenticity than a feature film. But this assumes that a more
accurate record of reality is to be found in the documen T
In
fact, a documentary-maker, just like a feature film-maker, uses
techniques of selection and arrangement which project his own
interpretation of reality. Furthermore, the range of the documentary film is limited by its very realism - limited, that is, to those
real-life situations which can be genuinely filmed. By contrast,
feature films, being products of the imagination and capable of
using the talents of actors, can portray and present a wider range
of "general and individual behaviour" - and the language which
belongs to it. The film theorist Siegfried Kracauer saw the proper
film form as "a balance between the documentary which tries to
follow the r a n d o m flow of nature a n d the story film which
strives to pull nature into a human shape"? In other words, a
film will ideally contain a mixture of realistic and formative techniques - to both record and reveal the culture being portrayed.
tion and layout are retained"?3Any effort to make language simpler, or more structured, for the student will automatically make
it different from the ways native speakers use it in real life. So
(the reasoning goes) materials artificially prepared for language
students will delay or retard the learning of authentic language.'
Languagetasks
Are we asking the student to do something with the material
which (s)he would want or need to do in real life? This is a question of the "appropriacy" of the task. Authenticity in this sense,
means that the important factor "is not the text itself but the
reader and whether he has the necessary k n o w l e d g e . . , to interp r e t it correctly, t h a t is, be c a p a b l e of the ' a p p r o p r i a t e
response'"? Authentidty, here, is a matter of what the student
does (or is asked to do) with the materials, and depends, really,
on his or her attitude to them.
D u r i n g t h e 1970s, l a n g u a g e c a m e to b e s e e n in w i d e
socio-cultural contexts. This led, in turn, to wider approaches in
language teaching. The main objective became 'communicative
competence' - the ability to use language appropriately in various socio-cultural cL,rumstances. It was not enough for students
to put words together to make sentences, and to master an abstract linguistic system. It was necessar~ too, to practise the language in realistic contexts. So the question of authenticity moved
to centre stage: how could we be sure that students would learn
language as used in the real world for real purposes, rather than
language 'invented' by linguists and textbook writers? One kind
of guarantee, it was felt, would be to base classroom activities on
'authentic' materials - materials, that is, produced by native
speakers for native speakers' use.
During the debate which followed, t]uee kinds of authenticity came to be seen as important to language learning:
Let us now see how film use in class is compatible with these
three kinds of authentidty:
Languagematerial
Is the material "the real thing", in the sense just described? Is it
true of the language samples in a textbook, for example, "that
nothing of the original text is changed and also that its pl~senta16
Languagematerial
Is the language of a scripted film "the real thing'? Is it legitimate
at all to r e g a r d the p r o d u c t s of the cinematic i n d u s t r y as
'authentic materials'? After all, a fllmscript contains artifidal language, as in a drama or a novel - fictional dialogue, which was
never spoken in real life. The comparison with literature is apt.
Some literary works are fine representations of life and language
- and some are not. The abundance of (in this sense) un-authentic literature does not deter us, as language teachers, from selecting and using texts which are good reflections of life, language
and relationships. The same is true of films: there is profit in
seeking out the best of them for teaching purposes.
Another objection to film dialogue is that it is often too difficult or too rapid for language students to follow. But this is really
a question of how to use the film - a question of tasks. The fact
remains that any film produced by native speakers for a nativespeaker audience is authentic language material, and is not artitidally produced for language students. It will not lack any of
Language tasks
It has been suggested that there can be no such thing as an
authentic text in language teaching since an authentic text is one
speaker/writer's communication to a partioflar audience at a
given moment?
Extending this, we can say that a film is authentic, in cultural
and sociolinguistic tenm, only to a certain native.speaker group
- the producer of a French film did not have ~
or F~gli.~h
viewers in mind. Sometimes, a student's awareness that (s)he is
outside the intended audience can affect motivation. The student
"may simply not feel himself in any way engaged by the text
being presented to him and so may refuse to authenticate it by
taking an interest?
This danger exists with any learning material. There is nothing which has a universal appeal, and every film will be
unattractive and unmotivating to some students. But we can try
to anticipate this problem by asking: what kind of learning tasks
are authentic when using film? More specifically, what tasks are
"appropriate" to students seeing a foreign language film?
Clearly, the receptive tasks of listening and (to a certain extent)
reading are. ~ But can film go further than this, and provide conditions for genuine communication to take place? One commentator has s u g g e s t e d that, for this to h a p p e n , a g e n u i n e
'information gap" is needed, with the necessary elements of unpredictability, freedom of choice (concerning what to say and
how to say i0, meaningful context and purposeful use of language? z At first sight, film does not seem to provide these conditions, o n e writer has described an activity involving someone in
a phone box describing the movements of someone else to a
third person. This has been suggested as a meaningful interaction on the basis that it occurs frequently in detective films!~ This
is reminiscent of Kracauer's view of the "sleuthing motif' as an
exemplary cinematic story form. "Here a conventional literary
plot device (the detective seeking out the truth) drives both the
film-maker and the spectator back into the raw material of life in
search of significant clues" and thereby "forces us to use, not
play with, our imaginations in seeking out the meaning of the
world around us."" I think that examples like these are far from
convincing descriptions of "meaningful contexts" leading to
"purposeful use of language".
Instead, let us consider the abilities which a viewer authenticaUy uses in order to make sense of a foreign language film.
First, (s)he can transfer "native' communicative skills to the task,
such as recognising significant features of behaviour (gestures
and body language) or deciding what kind of meaning a halfheard utterance must have had. Second, the student-viewer will
also have, through familiarity, an understanding of film conventions and techniques. When these abilities are used in the effort
to understand a foreign language film, then "given' abilities are
assisting in the task of learning new ones.
But we can go further than this: understanding a film is a creative process in which the spectator contributes much more than
k n o w h o w about communication and understanding of film
techniques. '5 Consider the information gaps which the viewer
has to cross in the effort to make sense of a foreign film, and to
impose logic and order on it. (S)he has somehow to deal with the
lack of that background knowledge (about social types, jokes,
class differences, folk sayings, family customs and the like)
which the film-maker shares with the "native" viewer. A 'non-native" viewer, though, brings a different combination of experience
and knowledge to the task. Though there will be elements the
viewer will not recognise, (s)he will try to make sense of the film,
and to understand it. (S)he does this by contributing something
from his or her own experience and knowledge in order, so to
speak, to creatively fill the gaps.
What kind of 'understanding' is at work here? How does the
'non-native" viewer make sense of a film which reflects (behaviourial, socio-cultural, political and psychological) realities of
another culture? We do not know exactl3~ But we can say that the
task of understanding a film is partly a creative effort on the part
of the viewer - a psychological process in which (s)he tries to impose order and a logic on what is seen. Whatever the filmmaker's original intentions, the viewer cannot be prevented
from making a contribution in this creative way. By merely
putting together a series of images, the film-maker leads the
viewer to answer questions like "Why these shots rather than
others? why does this follow that?' The viewer on his or her own
tries to give to the images some kind of meaning and human significance.
This creative effort is essentiadly an internal one. The question
is: how to get the student to go on to do something with the material (here: the film) which (s)he would want or need to do in
real life? What communicative activity would be 'appropriate'?
A frequent tactic in language teaching is to try "relating the task
to (the student's) own life a n d . . , providing a purpose for undertaking the activi~. "16 Here, the necessary conditions - information gap, unpredictability, freedom of choice, meaningful
context, p u r ~ e f u l use of language should stem from the student's desire to express opinions based on his or her own experience.
In certain circumstances, 'film talk' can provide these conditions. Custen, investigating native (American) speakers' responses to film, found that they did not talk like critics, seeking
out the "message" of the film, or "decoding" the film-maker's
intended "meaning". 17Instead, they related parts of the film to
their personal lives and circumstances. There was no evidence of
interpretational skills. The speakers mentioned a particular scene
they liked, because i t reminded them of a car they owned or
something which happened to them yesterday. In other words,
spectators tended to "reach inside and outside the film to make
it understandable and meaningful. ''8
This research was not conducted among language students,
but it does suggest a lead for teachers to follow. Students could
be encouraged to relate what they saw to their personal experience, to discuss what they liked or found difficult in the film,
and how they viewed this or that scene. To get students to expand formal knowledge of language into overall communicative
ability, we have to ask them to do tasks which they would want
or need to do in real life. Film talk, as a catalyst for personal response on the part of students, can provide this kind of task.
Conclusions
Though feature films are likely to be among the most economical
and available of teaching aids, their uses as "authentic materials'
have not been fully assessed. When we say a firm is authentic,
we normally mean that it satisfyingly recreates the idiom, atmosphere and appearance of a particular period or environment. In
language teaching terms, though, 'authentic' is a term describing
(a) language material made by native speakers for native speakers" use. (b) learning tasks which can be based on this material
and (c) the educational value of the material as a mirror of the
culture. I hope I have indicated how film can meet all these criteria, and offered bases for further thought and discussion on the
use of film in language classrooms.
FRANCOPHONIE
O , ~ . m b e r 1990
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Tel: 98-91-730-7799
Received: October 13, 2011
doi:10.5539/ijel.v2n1p239
E-mail: aidasweet24@yahoo.com
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v2n1p239
Abstract
This thesis is an attempt to study the impact of bimodal subtitling on content comprehension of English movies
and vocabulary recognition. Forty four senior undergraduate students studying at Shiraz Islamic Azad University
were selected from two intact classes of Tapes and Films Translation course. Two BBC documentary movies
(Dangerous knowledge and Wheres my robot?), one with English subtitles and the other without subtitles were
selected based on the content and level of difficulty of the language. First, both classes watched the same movies,
but class 1 first watched Dangerous knowledge with English subtitling and then Wheres my robot? without
subtitling. To counteract the order effect class 2 first watched wheres my robot? and then Dangerous
knowledge. After viewing the movies, the participants answered the relevant multiple choice vocabulary and
content comprehension questions. The data gathered were subjected to the statistical procedure of paired samples
t-test. The results clearly indicated that bimodal subtitling had a positive impact on content comprehension of
English movies. It can be said that the participants comprehend the subtitled movie better than the one without
subtitle. However, for some reasons bimodal subtitling did not have an effect on participants vocabulary
recognition.
Keywords: English movies, Bimodal subtitling, Content comprehension, Vocabulary recognition
1. Introduction
English movies are available in many countries around the world and are a popular form of entertainment with
many students learning English as a foreign language (EFL). Using films to teach a foreign language can help
motivate students and remove some of the anxiety of not knowing the language. However, they are not just
entertainment; they are also a valuable language teaching tool. The use of movies as a teaching tool is not new in
the field of foreign language teaching and learning. Movies not only allow the teacher to introduce variety and
reality into the classroom, but discussions based on movie content allow students to bring their own background
knowledge and experiences into the discussion. Furthermore, almost everyone finds watching films pleasurable
and enjoys talking about them. From a motivational perspective, it seems that movies are a perfect choice for use
in a language learning classroom. However, the burden is on the teacher to find ways to make movies an
educationally valuable tool for instruction. This medium provides not only rich aural input, but also, the use of
subtitles can expose learners to visual input as well. It is the latter type of input which this study will address. As
Kusumarasdyati (2005) states, teachers play such movies without subtitles and ask learners to view them while
attempting to comprehend the conversations spoken in the target language. However, it is also possible to
present movies with subtitles in the native language. With advances in technology, options of how one can watch
movies become numerous. Not only can the sound and images be adopted, but the subtitles of various languages
are also called for assisting comprehension and language learning.
Subtitles in any language are wonderful tools that let people enjoy films from other cultures and countries, but
for language learners subtitles might offer a new path to language comprehension. The National Center for
Technology Innovative and Center for Implementing Technology in Education (2010) asserts that for students
who are learning English (or another language), subtitled movies can have benefits. The use of subtitled movies
has been proved to be more effective at improving overall listening comprehension than non-subtitled movies.
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Students who watch subtitled movies to learn a foreign language have shown improvement in reading and
listening comprehension, word recognition, decoding skills, motivation and vocabulary acquisition.
The reading of subtitles must be separated from the normal reading of words and sentences printed on a page.
Seeing subtitles is perhaps closer to the act of listening than that of reading. The words are shown once, then
gone away. The viewer has no chance to go back and refer to an earlier part in the text. Not only do students
need to rely on their ability to take in printed material, but also they need to do it very quickly. The addition of
subtitled movies to classroom instruction has a further benefit of shifting watching typical classroom movies
from a picture-viewing activity to a reading activity, supplying struggling readers with additional reading
practice. (National Center for Technology Innovation & Center for Implementing Technology in Education, 2010,
para. 10).
The National Center for Technology Innovative and Center for Implementing Technology in Education (2010)
asserts that research has shown that watching movie appears to have a positive impact on comprehension skills,
and combining viewing with text, i.e. subtitles, appears to boost vocabulary acquisition. Though most students do
well with subtitled movies, the speed of subtitles could pose a problem for very young children or struggling
readers. For particularly low-level readers, teachers should consider using subtitled movies where vocabulary is
less likely to be difficult. These programs may include those where the main characters are children or teenagers,
animated movies, family programs, or movies with young children in the cast. (para. 7).
In the EFL classroom, the use of foreign language subtitles projected on the screen during viewings of
English-spoken movies is common. However, DVD technology now provides the powerful function of selecting
various subtitles that can facilitate the listening comprehension of learners with different levels of proficiency
and enhance their motivation toward learning the target language. Katchen, Lin, Fox and Chun (2002)
characterize six combinations of subtitles as presented in the following sections:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
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there are a number of studies that investigated the effectiveness of subtitles on vocabulary recognition. Therefore,
this study could have significant implication for both teachers and students.
2. Review of Literature
2.1 The effect of subtitles on language learning
Various studies have investigated the different aspects of the effect of subtitling on second/foreign language
learning. Zanon (2006) investigated the contribution of computer-based subtitling to language learning and
concluded that subtitling could motivate learners to appreciate the huge amount of content of the film that does
not reach the audience when it is presented to them dubbed. In the same vein, Kusumarasdyati (2005) studied the
effect of subtitled movie DVDs and found them an effective teaching device to develop the EFL learners'
listening skills.
Borras & Lafayette (1994) incorporated subtitles into short video segments that were integrated into an
interactive multimedia course. The participants were able to see and control a video segment with or without
same language subtitles. Results indicated that having the opportunity to see and control subtitles positively
influences both comprehension and production of language.
Grgurovic & Hegelheimer (2007) used a multimedia listening activity containing a video of an academic lecture
to compare the effect of second language subtitles and lecture transcripts on the comprehension of the lecture. It
turned out that students preferred subtitles and used them more than the transcript.
To study the effect of subtitles on film understanding, Grignon, Lavaur, & Blanc (2005) compared three versions
of a film sequence (that is, dubbed, subtitled, and original versions). They found that the dubbed and subtitled
versions lead to better performance than the original version.
2.2 Effect of subtitles on vocabulary learning
A number of studies have more specifically focused on the effect of subtitles on vocabulary learning. Bird and
Williams (2002) conducted two studies examining the effect of single modality (sound or text) and bimodal
(sound and text) presentation on word learning. Both experiments led to the conclusion that subtitling can
improve the learning of novel words.
In a study, Koolstra and Beentjes (1999) investigated whether children in two primary school grades in the
Netherlands would learn English vocabulary through watching a television program with an English soundtrack
and Dutch subtitles. They concluded that vocabulary acquisition was highest in the subtitled condition. Two
hundred and forty-six Dutch children in Grades 4 and 6 (aged 9+ and 11+) watched a 15-minute documentary
having been assigned to one of three experimental conditions: (i) program about grizzly bears with an English
soundtrack and Dutch subtitles, (ii) the same program with an English soundtrack but without subtitles, and (iii)
a Dutch language television program about prairie dogs (a control condition to establish a baseline of English
vocabulary knowledge). These grades were chosen as English classes start in Grade 5, so in Grade 4, they would
have had no formal English lessons, while in Grade 6, they would have already had English on a regular basis.
Vocabulary scores for those watching with subtitles were higher than for those watching without subtitles and
scores in this latter group were higher than those in the control group. Grade 6 children performed better than
those in Grade 4. More words were recognized after watching the subtitled documentary than the non-subtitled
version, and, again, Grade 6 children outperformed Grade 4. Children with a high frequency of watching
subtitled programs at home had significantly higher English vocabulary scores than children with a low
frequency and medium frequency of watching subtitled programs. The findings confirm the many anecdotal
accounts that children can acquire elements of a foreign language through watching subtitled television programs.
Vocabulary acquisition was also found in children who watched the condition without Dutch subtitles. The
findings provided further evidence that the subtitles do not distract from hearing the words.
Stewart & Pertusa (2004) explored gains in vocabulary recognition made by intermediate students viewing films
in Spanish with English subtitles and others watching the same films with Spanish subtitles. They reported that
intralingual subtitles are more effective in enhancing vocabulary recognition.
Markham (1999) also examined the effect of subtitles on aural word recognition skills and found that the
availability of subtitles significantly improved the participants' ability to identify the key words when they
subsequently heard them again (p: 323-4).
2.3 Effect of subtitles on movie comprehension
Hinkin, Michael (2009) Performed Two studies to investigate the effects of subtitled movies on the
comprehension of movie content. Both investigations involved the presentation of 10-minute movie clips from A
Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education
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Few Good Men and See No Evil, Hear No Evil. Participants completed three types of multiple-choice
recognition questions for each movie, including: pictorial-only questions, verbal-only questions and
combined-information questions. Experiment 1 was designed to investigate the difference between levels of
comprehension, when verbal information was presented only in the participants native language (i.e. English
soundtrack and/or subtitles). Results of Experiment 1 indicate that participants performed significantly better on
verbal-only and combined-information questions when their native language was present in the subtitles as
opposed to the soundtrack. These findings confirm previous findings that reading verbal information in subtitles
is more efficient than listening to the soundtrack. Comparison of performance on the pictorial-only questions
across presentation formats in Experiment 1 showed participants in the English soundtrack with no subtitles
condition performed significantly better than all other conditions. Although Experiment 1 provides a basic
understanding of how native language soundtracks and subtitles influence comprehension of movies, subtitled
media are primarily used when viewing a movie with verbal information from a foreign language. Experiment 2
built on the results of Experiment 1 by incorporating an unfamiliar language (i.e. French). The question sets used
in Experiment 1 were also used in Experiment 2; however, two French vocabulary tests were also used in
Experiment 2 to measure incidental foreign language acquisition. Consistent with the results of Experiment 1,
participants performed significantly better on verbal-only and combined-information questions when their native
language was in the subtitles. This finding extended the conclusion that native language verbal information
presented visually (i.e. subtitles) yields better performance on questions requiring verbal cues than native
language verbal information presented orally (i.e. soundtrack) to foreign language material. Comparison of
performance on the pictorial-only questions across presentation formats in Experiment 2 showed no significant
differences. Comparison across the two experiments reflected a distraction effect associated with the presence of
a foreign language. Performance on the French vocabulary tests was very poor across all conditions and yielded
no significant differences, suggesting that the tasks may have been too difficult.
In a study, published in the open-access journal PLoS One, Mitterer and McQueen (2009) investigated whether
subtitles, which provide lexical information, support perceptual learning about foreign speech. Dutch participants,
unfamiliar with Scottish and Australian regional accents of English, watched Scottish or Australian English
movies with Dutch, English or no subtitles, and then repeated audio fragments of both accents. Repetition of
novel fragments was worse after viewing movies with Dutch-subtitle but better after watching movies with
English-subtitle. Native-language subtitles appear to create lexical interference, but foreign-language subtitles
assist speech learning by indicating which words (and sound) are being spoken.
A study by Hayati and Mohmedi (2009) represented a preliminary effort to empirically examine the efficacy of
subtitled movie on listening comprehension of intermediate English as Foreign Language students. To achieve
this purpose, out of a total of 200 intermediate students, 90 were picked based on a proficiency test. The material
consisted of six episodes (approximately 5 minutes each) of a DVD entitled Wild Weather. The students viewed
only one of the three treatment conditions: English subtitles, Persian subtitles, no subtitles. After each viewing
session, six sets of multiple-choice tests were administered to examine listening comprehension rates. The results
revealed that the English subtitles group performed at a considerably higher level than the Persian subtitles group,
which in turn performed at a substantially higher level than the no subtitle group on the listening test.
To summarize, most of the studies mentioned so far, seem to confirm that subtitles can improve language
learning, vocabulary acquisition and content comprehension.
3. Methodology
3.1 Participants
This study involved 44 undergraduate students aged between 20-27 selected from senior students in the autumn
semester of 2010. They were both male and female and were English Translation majors from two intact classes of
Tapes and Films Translation course at Shiraz Islamic Azad University. Common to all of the participants was at
least six years of exposure to EFL instruction during which they had learned English. With regard to nationality
and language background no difference existed among the participants; all were Iranians and their mother tongue
was Persian. Furthermore, none of the participants had lived in any English speaking country.
3.2 Materials
Two BBC documentary movies, one with English subtitles and the other without subtitles, were selected for this
investigation. The one with subtitles was Dangerous Knowledge, about a mathematics professor, Georg Cantor,
who started a revolution he never really meant to start. It eventually threatened to shake the whole of
mathematics and science on its foundations. He started this revolution by asking himself a simple question: How
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big is infinity?. This movie took about thirty minutes to play. The other movie without subtitling was called
Wheres my robot?, which introduced different kinds of robots. The duration of this film was twenty minutes.
The movies were selected based on the content to be interesting, the level of difficulty of the language to be
appropriate for the participants and the duration of the films to be less than thirty minutes.
3.3 Instruments
Two different tests were used for each movie to collect the data. A set of ten multiple choice comprehension
questions and another ten multiple choice vocabulary questions were developed by the researcher for each movie.
These are four-choice questions and were extracted from the movies (Appendices A & B). For the
comprehension questions, first the researcher had to watch the whole movies to realize the theme and the subject.
Then, she watched them carefully part by part to pose the comprehension four-choice questions. The advanced
vocabulary was chosen from the movies for the vocabulary questions. Some of the sentences for the related
vocabulary were extracted from Cambridge and Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary. To estimate the
reliability of the tests, SPSS was used. The reliability for the comprehension and vocabulary items (subtitle and
without) was calculated as .756 which is acceptable for a test of this kind.
3.4 Procedure
3.4.1 Data Collection
The participants were informed about the research project before the administration so as to stir motivation and
interest. First, both classes watched the same movies, but group 1 first watched Dangerous knowledge with
English subtitling and then wheres my robot? without subtitling. To counteract the order effect the second
group first watched wheres my robot? without subtitling, then Dangerous knowledge with English subtitling.
The movies were presented in one session. Then, after watching the movies, the participants of both classes
received tests of vocabulary and content comprehension. After the first movie was played, students received a set
of twenty multiple choice comprehension and vocabulary questions related to the movie, they had 15 minutes to
answer the questions. Then, the second movie was played and following it the related questions were answered
in 15 minutes.
3.4.2 Scoring and Data analysis
Data in this study consisted of the answers to the multiple choice comprehension and vocabulary recognition
questions. The participants received one point for each item answered correctly. The data gathered were
subjected to the statistical procedures of SPSS. First the scores were computed. Each participant had two scores,
one for the movie with subtitle, and the other for the one without subtitle. Then, these two scores were
categorized into four groups, including comprehension / vocabulary, and subtitle / without subtitle. In order to
compare each participants grade in one subcategory to their grade in another subcategory paired samples t-test
was run to calculate the significance of the difference between the means of the two sets of scores. The four
categories were total scores, comprehension with subtitle scores and comprehension without subtitle scores,
vocabulary with subtitle scores and vocabulary without subtitle scores. In the following chapter the results of the
analysis will be presented and discussed.
3.5 Design of the Study
The design of this research is one-shot case study; since, there was only one group without control one and also
no pretest was run.
4. Results and Discussion
4.1 Results
To understand the participants performance on the experimental task of the study, the statistical program of
SPSS was used. Paired samples t-test was run to calculate the significance of the difference between the means
of two sets of scores among three categories as presented below:
Subtitle and without subtitle scores, comprehension with subtitle scores and comprehension without subtitle
scores, vocabulary with subtitle scores and vocabulary without subtitle scores.
4.2 Discussion
Referring to Table 1 the main effect obtained is that the participants performed better when the movie was
played with bimodal subtitling. This includes total vocabulary and comprehension questions. The second row of
this table deals with comprehension questions; in this row the results are better than the total. It can be said that
the participants did actually perform better on comprehending the English movie with subtitle than the one
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without subtitle. However, there isnt any significant difference between watching a movie with subtitle and
without for understanding the vocabulary of the movies. Therefore, our participants were more successful in
comprehending the English movie with bimodal subtitling than without subtitling, since the written forms of the
dialogues were presented to them. However, in the case of vocabulary viewing movie with subtitle had no
particular effect, due to the fact that learning vocabulary from subtitled movies may need watching the film more
than once.
5. Conclusion
This research on watching English movies with bimodal subtitling has shown that films are not only a means of
motivation to entertain students, but also they could assist learners to comprehend the language as spoken in
various accents. That is, EFL learners in general are exposed to the authentic language uttered by people with
different accents in various parts of the United States and United Kingdom. Therefore, it is hard for learners to
hear every single word, because they are used to the Standard English. Furthermore, this is a useful practice to
get acquainted with different accents of English around the world, and bimodal subtitling is a perfect choice to
assist the comprehension of the movies.
However, in this research bimodal subtitling had no effect on L2 vocabulary recognition, due to the fact that
expose to the film once had probably no effect on vocabulary learning. Since, as Koolstra and Beentjes (1999)
claimed, for learning vocabulary from subtitled movies students have to watch them with high frequency. It can
be assumed that subtitled movies could have an effect on vocabulary recognition if learners watch the movie
more than once. Viewing the movie twice or more may help students recognize vocabulary and they may learn
new expressions and idioms.
References
Bird, S. A. & Williams, J. N. (2002). The effect of bimodal input on implicit and explicit memory: An
investigation into the benefits of within-language subtitling. Applied Psycholinguistics, 23(4), 509-533. [Online]
Available: http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/jnw12/subtitling.pdf (September 26, 2010)
Borras, I. & R.G. Lafayette. (1994). Effects of multimedia courseware subtitling on the speaking performance of
college students of French. The Modern Language Journal, 78(1), 66-75. [Online] Available:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/329253 (September 26, 2010)
Grgurovi, M. & Hegelheimer, V. (2007). Help options and multimedia listening: Students' use of subtitles and
the
transcript.
Language
Learning
&
Technology,
11(1),
45-66.
[Online]
Available:
http://llt.msu.edu/vol11num1/pdf/grgurovic.pdf (September 26, 2010)
Grignon, P., J. M. Lavaur & N. Blanc. (2005). The effect of subtitles on film understanding. [Online] Available:
sites.google.com/site/jeanmarclavaur/grigronlavaurblanc2007.pdf (April 29, 2010)
Hayati, M. & Mohmedi, F. (2009). The effect of films with and without subtitles on listening comprehension of
EFL learners. British Journal of Educational Technology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.01004.x
Hinkin, M. (2009). Comprehension of multiple channel messages: Are subtitles more beneficial than soundtracks?
[Online] Available: http://krex.kstate.edu/dspace/bitstream/2097/1679/1/MichaelHinkin2009.pdf (September 26,
2010)
Katchen, J. E., Lin, L. Y., Fox, T. & Chun, V. (2002). Developments in Digital Video. [Online] Available:
http://mx.nthu.edu.tw/~katchen/professional/developments%20in%20digital%20video.htm (August 11, 2010)
King, J. (2002, February). Using DVD feature films in the EFL classroom. ELT Newsletter, The weekly column,
Article 88. [Online] Available: http://www.eltnewsletter.com/back/February2002/art882002.htm (January 5,
2010)
Koolstra, C. M. & J. W. J. Beentjes. (1999). Children's vocabulary acquisition in a foreign language through
watching subtitled television programs at home. Educational Technology Research and Development, 47(1),
51-60. [Online] Available: http://www.springerlink.com/content/7951541774721423/ (August 11, 2010)
Kusumarasdyati. (2005). Subtitled Movie DVDs in Foreign Language Classes. Monash University. [Online]
Available: http://www.aare.edu.au/06pap/kus06105.pdf (April 29, 2010)
Mitterer, H. & McQueen, J. M. (2009). Foreign subtitles help but native-language subtitles harm foreign speech
perception. [Online] Available: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0007785 (January
5, 2010)
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National Center for Technology Innovation and Center for Implementing Technology in Education (CITEd).
(2010). Captioned Media: Literacy Support for Diverse Learners. [Online] Available:
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/35793 (September 26, 2010)
Stewart, M. & Pertusa, I. (2004). Gains to language learners from viewing target language closed-captioned
films. Foreign Language Annals, 37(3), 438-447. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-9720.2004.tb02701.x
Zanon, N. T. (2006). Using subtitles to enhance foreign language learning. Porta Linguarum 6. [Online]
Available: http://www.ugr.es/~portalin/articulos/PL_numero6/talavan.pdf (September 29, 2010)
Appendix A
Part A: Comprehension
1. Who was Georg Cantor?
a) A philosopher
c) A mathematician
b) A physicist
d) A scientist
c) Continuum hypothesis
b) Infinite theory
d) Modern mathematics
b) In the Alps
b) a math sicker
d) a great scientist
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b) tinge
c) pursuit
d) haste
2. When questioned by the police, the suspect, who had actually committed the crime, gave his
questioners ., insubstantial answer.
a) elusive
b) reticent
c) furtive
d) rudimentary
b) grasp
c) deter
d) glance
b) hatred
c) havoc
d) humility
b) launch
c) abolish
d) alter
6. Most of the students living in the dormitory in Iran have many adversities, which they have to overcome.
a) nuances
b) differences
c) pretexts
d) difficulties
b) brutality
c) audacity
d) brevity
b) profoundly
c) indiscriminately
d) pragmatically
b) budget
c) homage
d) blunder
10. Weve got a long way to go before we unravel the secrets of genetics.
a) abandon
b) conceal
c) reveal
d) blend
Appendix B
Part A: Comprehension
1. What did Danny quest for?
The .. robot.
a) beautiful
c) perfect
b) intelligent
d) walking
c) HRP3
b) Domo
d) Robotic 101
c) forgot to do so
Because he .. .
Because .. .
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To indicate that .. .
Because .
c) In construction
b) In surgery
d) In the laboratory
b) permanently
c) inexorably
d) promptly
c) quiver
d) endure
b) embrace
The talks ended abruptly when one of the delegates walked out in protest.
a) unexceptionally
b) unfoundedly
c) unexpectedly
d) unfairly
Thats weird, I thought Id left my keys on the table but theyre not there.
a) funny
b) interesting
c) odd
d) annoying
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a) fend
b) feud
c) flay
d) fetch
c) clique
d) baffle
b) bump
b) depiction
c) estimation
d) detection
b) besiege
c) bidding
d) binding
Take care when you walk on that path, the paving stones are rather .
a) unformed
b) unbroken
c) uncovered
d) uneven
b) critic
c) fringe
d) cripple
Table 1. t values for the difference between the means of participants two sets of scores
Mean difference
Pair 1
total
Pair 2
Pair 3
1.02273
1.47727
-.45455
df
Sig. (2-tailed)
2.475
43
.017
4.650
43
.000
-1.690
43
.098
According to Table 1 the value of t for total vocabulary and comprehension questions was statistically significant
(t = 2.475 p< .017). It means that there is a significant difference between the two means. In other words
participants answered the subtitled movie questions better than the questions of the movie without subtitle.
Based on this table the value of t for comprehension was more statistically significant than total (t = 4.650
p< .000). These results showed that participants comprehended the subtitled movie better than the one without
subtitle. However, there isnt any significant difference between the two means for vocabulary.
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To cite this article: Jane King (2002) Using DVD Feature Films in the EFL Classroom,
Computer Assisted Language Learning, 15:5, 509-523
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1076/call.15.5.509.13468
0958-8221/02/1505509$16.00
# Swets & Zeitlinger
FORUM
Jane King
Soochow University, Taiwan, R.O. China
ABSTRACT
DVDs have substantially replaced traditional VHS videotapes as the movie medium of the new
millennium. In addition to their compactness and availability, there are a variety of special
features offered on DVDs, including interactive menus, theatrical trailers, behind-the-scenes
commentary, foreign languages, captions and subtitles, and immediate scene access. With these
special features, DVD feature films provide a wide array of pedagogical options and represent a
rich resource of intrinsically motivating materials for learners. This study is three-fold in nature:
the first part is devoted to a discussion of film-viewing approaches; it then provides an
assessment on the use of closed-captioned and non-closed-captioned DVD feature films for
different levels of learners. Finally, suggestions are provided for choosing appropriate films to
promote active viewing and interaction in order to maximize classroom application of DVD
feature films.
1. INTRODUCTION
When commercially available video serials, explicitly designed for ESL/EFL,
were first utilized in the classroom, the student response was positive. Video is
a much more dynamic medium than a static text or an audio recording. In spite
of its promise, however, within a relatively short time span the use of videos as
a teaching medium failed to sustain student interest. Watching the same few
video actors and actresses appear in episode after episode became a dull and
uninspiring routine for most learners. Such classroom-styled videos were
Address correspondence to: Jane King, Soochow University, Taiwan, RO China. E-mail:
jane@mail.scu.edu.tw
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Fair use rules for videotapes/DVDs: Each country has its own video/DVD copyright laws and
adopts the provisions of international treaties as it sees fit. In the US, Section 110 (1) of the
Copyright Act of 1976 specifies that the following is permitted: Performance or display of a
work by instructors or pupils in the course of face-to-face teaching activities of a nonprofit
educational institution, in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction (Simons, 1995). In
Asia, teachers need to purchase films in public viewing version from distributors who charge
about US$100 per film.
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DVDs offer subtitles and closed captions, selectable without the aid of a
caption decoder. Closed captions not only provide the visible text for spoken
audio, but also identify all the sounds, different speakers, music and lyrics.
The audience can easily get a clear image of related dynamic verbs and sound
effect words which appear in brackets on the screen, synchronized with
corresponding actions and sounds such as a phone ringing. Unlike closed
captions, subtitles translate only the spoken word (Johnston, 2000). Furthermore, DVD closed captions and subtitles are different from TV captions
because they will not appear in a black box.
DVD subtitles and closed captions also can be turned on and off via the
DVD menu or remote. The teacher is not forced to use just one mode all the
time. A given film can be viewed with English subtitles the first time to get an
understanding of the whole film and then viewed without subtitles to focus on
listening comprehension.
6.1. English Closed-Captioned Films
Teachers are sometimes fraught with uncertainty as to whether first
language subtitles help or hindrance students English learning (Katchen,
1996b; Lin, 2001). Should teachers show a film with or without
closed captioning? Which way will benefit their students most? The answer
is that each one serves different purposes depending on the teaching
objectives.
As this interest in closed-captioned materials is increasing, abundant
research in the field indicates that closed-captioned videos/films are more
positive and effective than non-closed-captioned videos/films in terms of
improving learning motivation and attitude, overall listening comprehension,
vocabulary development, oral fluency, and in helping EFL students comprehension ability (Borras & Lafayette, 1994; Garza, 1991; Kikuchi, 1997).
From my experience and observation, the value and benefits of using closedcaptioned films for language learners can be summarized as helping
students to:
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movie critics too wordy, confusing and difficult to comprehend. The teacher
should first screen film review websites and recommend easy reading ones for
them. Audience reviews are more comprehensible than professional ones. In
addition, reading each others discussion questions is another activity that
satisfies students curiosity about their classmates opinions about a film.
Writing
A bi-weekly film review and discussion can also be done in journal writing.
Students write personal reviews or a summary of an assigned movie as
homework and in class share them with classmates by employing a clocksharing mode. In this mode, students sit face to face in two rows. Members of
one row remain seated while the others, starting with the first person, move
down the row after each reading. In this way, students have the opportunity to
read their classmates reviews. In addition, students can write an article
reporting the events in a film or write a letter to one of the film characters. In
this way, students have the opportunity to read their classmates reviews. In
addition, students can write an article reporting the events in a film or write a
letter to one of the film characters.
8. CONCLUSION
DVD feature films provide enjoyable language learning opportunities for
students if the teacher chooses appropriate films, which are purposeful and
tailored to students learning needs and proficiency level. The closed captions
selection feature benefits students in various ways. English closed-captioned
films are a rich source of instructional materials that provide examples and
content in oral communication. Non-closed-captioned English films are
challenging and can be exploited for listening comprehension practice, even if
the comprehension is limited to advanced students. A teacher might work at
different purposes, and aim overtly at different aspects of language, by using
both closed captions and non-closed-captions alternatively.
An instructors initial attempt to implement the teaching of DVD feature
films in the classroom may be overwhelming. However, with each successive
attempt and increasing teaching experience, teaching DVD feature films can
turn into a rewarding experience for both students and teachers. When
students are provided with well-structured activities designed to promote
active viewing and stimulate involvement for making the most of learning
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opportunities from films, there is no doubt that DVD feature films are the most
stimulating and enjoyable learning material for the e-generation.
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Shea, D. (1995). Whole movies and engaged response in the Japanese university ESL
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Stempleski, S. (2000, March/April). Video in the ESL classroom: Making the most of the
movies. ESL Magazine, 1012.
Stempleski, S., & Tomalin, B. (1990). Video in action: Recipes for using video in language
teaching. NY: Prentice Hall.
Wood, D. (1995). Film communication in TEFL. Video Rising: Newsletter of the Japan Assoc.
for Language Teaching, 7(1).
523
APPENDIX A
APPENDIX B
Websites
http://us.imdb.com (internet movie data base).
http://mrqe.com (movie review quest engine).
http://www.cinemachine.com
http://screentalk.org
http://www.teachwithmovies.org (organize films by theme and by genre).
http://www.eslnotes.com (provide definitions of words and idioms).
http://www.dailyscript.com
http://www.script-o-rama.com (scripts).
http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html.(DVD FAQ)
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ERIC 01,0
2
2
Digests
ED300848 1988-00-00 Using Film, Video, and TV in the Classroom. ERIC Digest
Number 11.
Page 1 of 7
www.eric.ed.gov
The use of film in the classroom has become more popular since the arrival of the
videocassette recorder (VCR) with its relative economy and ease of operation. The
opinion of one teacher probably echoes the opinion of many others: "The VCR gave us
flexibility. We could watch the first exciting twenty minutes, stop the tape and discuss
elements of introduction, mood, suspense, and characterization -and view it
again....The VCR is simple to operate, portable, and less expensive." (Farmer, 1987)
Another educator who has considered the potential of the VCR believes that "one of the
pedagogical tasks of the next decade may well be discovering the most efficacious
ways of employing this omnipresent piece of technology." (Gallagher, 1987) Another
teacher pinpoints a reason for the potential: "Because students live in a media-oriented
world, they consider sight and sound as 'user friendly." (Post, 1987)
Page 2 of 7
ED300848 1988-00-00 Using Film, Video, and TV in the Classroom. ERIC Digest
Number 11.
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political spheres: "The Last Hurrah" (local), "All the King's Men" (state), "Advise and
Consent" (national), and "Fail-Safe" (international). Following an overview of a novel or
film, specific scenes and passages are discussed and are related to real-world politics.
Classes meet for 2 1/2 hours once a week, so that more than one discipline can be
dealt with and sufficient time for movie viewing is available.
Another example of more focused use of film and television in the classroom is found in
a course on the Holocaust (Michalczyk, 1982). A review of Holocaust films yielded
material in various popular genres--newsreels (both German and Allied),
documentaries, fiction films, and TV docudramas; the value of the particular type of
media in teaching about the recent past was considered along with the content of each
piece. Michalczyk had Holocaust survivors and educators evaluate the diverse films and
their potential for teaching the Holocaust as an historical event with profound
implications for humanity; and their reactions and experiences were incorporated into
the course material.
Page 3 of 7
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adaptable for secondary school students. They concentrate on advertising images but
also use movies, monthly magazines, and television series to help foster critical thinking
while writing. The work-shop is built around a sequence of analogies between what
students already know experientially as viewers of film and television and what they
need to know as writers of essays.
Another approach to teaching college composition classes (Masiello, 1985) organizes
brainstorming sessions around themes from popular movies--for example, talking about
family relationships as portrayed in "Breaking Away," "The Deer Hunter," "The
Godfather," "Saturday Night Fever," and "Terms of Endearment." He finds that the film
viewing helps students learn to observe carefully and often results in sharper writing
skills.
Moss (1987) uses the lowly, elemental daytime soap opera as a vehicle for teaching
remedial writing in the SEEK program in New York City colleges. Using a VCR so that
everyone can watch the episode at the same time (and filling in gaps in plot lines by
reading "Soap Opera Digest"), he begins by asking the students to write on the most
elementary level. The assignment is intended to tap into their passionate devotion to
"the soaps"--which characters do they like the best, the least, and why? Then the class
members discuss the acting and begin to impose certain critical criteria on the material.
A short lesson on genres establishes appropriate aesthetic categories, and the students
can begin to dissect the narrative in a composition.
Jeremiah (1987) outlines an instructional model for using television news and
documentaries for writing instruction in the secondary and postsecondary classroom.
He believes that the structure and content of news presentations mirrors the practice of
essay writing, and thus can serve as a writing project that effectively serves instruction.
A step-by-step examination of a selected TV program can be undertaken in a single
class period, using the following strategies: 1) as a warm-up mechanism, the teacher
introduces the writing skill (for example, to provide information or to persuade); 2)
students are allowed time for questions and comments; 3) the news segment or
documentary is shown; 4) students produce an outline for the news report they will write
in response to the stimulus; and 5) the outlines are assessed for organization. The
outlines are collected at the end of the class period to minimize any external influences;
and the students produce a full-length essay during the next class period, after their
outlines have been returned.
The instruction using this model and the evaluation of the products that result should
stress that the news treatment of a topic should include an introduction and adequate
supporting detail and explanation. If the aim is to persuade, the writing should include
adequate argumentation. Both formal and informal mechanisms should be used for
evaluation, and the students should be given opportunity to revise.
A novel approach in the use of film in generating enthusiasm for writing in the
Page 4 of 7
ED300848 1988-00-00 Using Film, Video, and TV in the Classroom. ERIC Digest
Number 11.
www.eric.ed.gov
Journal, 76 (1), January 1987, pp. 51-53. Dyer, Joyce. "Rural America in film and
literature,"
English Journal, 76 (1), January 1987, pp. 54-57. Farmer, David L. "The VCR: 'Raiders'
as a teaching
tool," English Journal, 76 (1), January 1987, p. 31. Gallagher, Brian. "Film study in the
English language
arts." In Report by the NCTE Committee on Film Study in the English
Language Arts, 1987. 23 pp. [ED 287 165] Jeremiah, Milford A. "Using television news
and documentaries
for writing instruction." Paper presented at the 38th
ED300848 1988-00-00 Using Film, Video, and TV in the Classroom. ERIC Digest
Number 11.
Page 5 of 7
www.eric.ed.gov
in the English Language Arts, 1987. 23 pp. [ED 287 165] Masiello, Frank. "The lessons
of popcorn." In Spielberger,
Jeffrey (Ed.), Images and Words: Using Film to Teach
Writing, 1985, pp. 56-59. 93 pp. [ED 260 393] Michalczyk, John J. "Teaching the
Holocaust through film."
Paper presented at the Modern Language Association Meeting,
1982. 20 pp. [ED 240 011] Moss, Robert F. "The next episode: Soap operas as a bridge
to improved verbal skills," English Journal, 76 (1), January
1987, pp. 35-41. Post, Linda Williams. "Frankly, my dear," English Journal,
76 (1), January 1987, pp. 28-30. Rebhorn, Marlette. "Hollywood films as a teaching
tool,"
1987. 6 pp. [ED 286 815] Simpson, Jeanette. "A writing contest? Why bother,"
Exercise Exchange, 26 (2), Spring 1982, pp. 47-48. White, Kathy. "Teaching about
women and violence," 1985.
14 pp. [ED 268 528] ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skills
Indiana University 2805 East Tenth Street, Suite 150 Bloomington, IN 47408
This publication was prepared with funding from the Office of Educational Research and
Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, under contract no. RI88062001.
Contractors undertaking such projects under government sponsorship are encouraged
to express freely their judgment in professional and technical matters. Points of view or
opinions, however, do not necessarily represent the official view or opinions of the
Office of Educational Research and Improvement.
Title: Using Film, Video, and TV in the Classroom. ERIC Digest Number 11.
Document Type: Information Analyses---ERIC Information Analysis Products (IAPs)
(071); Information Analyses---ERIC Digests (Selected) in Full Text (073);
Target Audience: Teachers, Practitioners
Descriptors: Elementary Secondary Education, Films, Higher Education, Instructional
Materials, Interdisciplinary Approach, Mass Media Role, Television, Videotape
Recordings
Identifiers: ERIC Digests
###
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Classroom Techniques; College Instruction; *Copyrights;
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CONTRIBUTORS
Jeffrey Cady
Christine Pearson Casanave
David Freedman
Naomi K. Fujishima
Thomas Hardy
David P. Shea
Yoko Shimizu
J. David Simons
Yoshiko Takahashi
Sae Yamada
March 1995
i21114M**-AMER
>
Table of Contents
Introduction
ii
Whole Movies and Engaged Response in the Japanese University ESL Classroom
David P. Shea
18
Jeffrey Cady
28
40
Yoko Shimizu
45
Sae Yamada
52
Naomi K. Fujishirna
63
71
Thomas Hardy
78
J. David Simons
Author Biostatements
91
INTRODUCTION
Christine Pearson Casanave and J. David Simons
In preparing this monograph, eight teachers and two students came together in an
extraordinarily rewarding collaborative undertaking to produce a collection of papers on
various aspects of how and why we use films in classes of English as a foreign language.
When we began this project, we knew only that many of us used films in language
teaching and learning, and that as a theme for our mongraph, the topic of films would
thus allow a maximum number of people to contribute essays to the volume. However,
we did not expect the rich variety of perspectives, approaches, and writing styles that
now characterize the finished publication. As a result of this variety, the monograph has
content and those who use them as linguistic resources; for those who want to know how
films can be used in classes to those who want to know how students respond to films as
they are used in those classes.
Some of the papers address common or complementary issues. We have grouped
these papers together so that they may be read in sequence, if readers so desire. The first
two papers, for example, deal with two different views on the question of how films can
be used in the language class. David Shea argues persuasively that films are best used
holistically, as content for critical thinking. Not fully convinced by the point of view
presented in Shea's paper, Jeff Cady struggles with the issue of whether to use films
primarily as content or as resources for focused language instruction. Christine Casanave
and David Freedman then describe a film presentation project for their intermediate
English students in which films were used holistically to help students learn to view films
critically and to present their views to a real audience. While the authors remain
committed to a holistic use of films, they also recognize the need to provide students with
sufficient language support to complete the tasks that teachers assign.
The next two papers look at the holistic use of film in the language class from the
student's perspective. The positions taken in the two student essays represent two (of
potentially many) different responses, and remind readers that students do not respond in
uniform ways to films as the primary source of content. Yoko Shimizu did have a
positive experience, describing a "conversion" experience that changed her from a person
who viewed films solely as entertainment to one who now views films as texts to be
5
li
engaged with at deeper analytical and personal levels. Sae Yamada, on the other hand,
found that the way films were used in her English class could not engage her mind in
critical and imaginative thinking to the same extent that reading does. In a less holistic,
more narrowly focused approach to film in the English class, practicing teacher, Naomi
information about Western culture. Thomas Hardy, on the other hand, finds that
American and Japanese films can productively be used to help students recognize the
stereotypes they hold about Americans, and to then reflect their new understanding back
on themselves. The result is not just that students learn something about American
culture, but that, more importantly, they come to know their own culture in more
perceptive and critical ways.
The monograph ends with a very practical look at the complex and little-understood
issue of copyright law regarding the use of film and video in the classroom. In a
discussion of the copyright laws in both Japan and the United States, David Simons takes
readers through a number of scenarios that classroom language teachers might face as
they prepare lessons using films and videos, noting the legal and ethical dilemmas that
arise.
consider these and other issues in the context of their own teaching. The process of
writing and then reviewing each other's essays has done that for the authors who have
contributed to this monograph, and helped us appreciate the value of diversity in our
approaches to language teaching.
Ill
occurred a couple of years ago when getting on an elevator. I'd just finished class and
was returning to my office with an arm full of papers and the video I was showing at the
time, Chariots of Fire. As I stepped onto the lift, I ran into a fellow teacher, a British
chap whom I'll call Nigel for the sake of argument.2 Nigel was holding in his hands a
copy of the video Tootsie. "Oh, so you're using movies too?" I asked, thinking to pick
up a few tips about using film in the ESL classroom. "Oh yes," he said, "but only for
five minutes."
"Five minutes?"
"Of course," he replied confidently. "ESL teachers too often misuse videos. They
simply turn on the television set and sit back to enjoy the movie. Students don't
understand the words and fail to grasp what's being said. They just watch the gestures
and scenery in the background and try to figure out what's going on without the
vocabulary or grammar or any linguistic features whatsoever. It goes in one eye and
comes out the other and doesn't even reach the ears!" Nigel chortled.
I was mortified. Nigel's description of irresponsible ESL methodology pretty well
summed up the way I had just run my class. Always susceptible to self-doubt, I thought
I'd better find out more about Nigel's view of language pedagogy, so I followed him out
of the elevator and into the teachers' room.
"I show a five minute segment of a video," he explained. "Then we review critical
language used in one five minute segment, we watch the next selection, working our way
selectively through the movie."
1This paper is a substantially revised version of a presentation made at the SFC Symposium on Videos
in the EFL Classroom, Keio University SFC, January, 1993. I am grateful to Yoshiko Takahashi for the
original invitation to participate in the conference, and to Chris Casanave and J. David Simons for their
many helpful suggestions and criticisms during the revision process.
20riginally Nigel was a real person, but I have changed his name and put words in his mouth. He did,
however, express reservations about the misuse of videos as we rode the lift.
movies. What more could I say? My confidence shaken, I went home to think about my
approach to teaching. I also went to class the next day and asked my students what they
thought about my approach to teaching and, after a good deal of reflection, some more
questioning and a little research, I'm willing not only to admit I have continued using
"whole" full-length movies in my classroom over the past two years, but also to argue
that it's a reasonably good idea. It even serves, in some contexts, to facilitate successful
language acquisition, but of course that depends on what you mean by language
acquisition and why students go about the endeavor in the first place.
harrowing months. It's the only way to go, especially if you've got other things to do
and don't really mind teetering on the brink of exhaustion. The FALCON program is the
brainchild of Professor Eleanor Jorden, who has very clear ideas about using videos in
the language classroom. Jorden (1991), for example, believes that videos should be
(among other things) linguistically sound (i.e., structurally driven), ordered (i.e., based
on frequency), and "clean" (i.e., building on what has already been mastered), rather than
humorous skits where the focus is on a story instead of language. Full length movies are
out of the question. They aren't structurally driven, they're certainly not clean, and
there's no apparent linguistic order to the dialogue.
But FALCON is for high-flying language birds, intent on where they're going and
willing to sacrifice much of themselves (including most of their time) to get there. There
is also a "washout valve" (Schumann, 1978) which allows slow-moving slaggards who,
for one reason or other, don't work to be "flushed," so to speak, out of the program.
Moreover, most of Jorden's (1991) comments are focused on start-from-the-beginning
students, not the "false beginners" at Japanese universities who not only have already
extensively studied structural aspects of the language, but also routinely expect to pass
English whether they come to class and do any of the assignments or not. Not to mention
other overwhelming constraints on actually studying English at the university: two hour a
day commutes to campus on crowded trains, eight to ten classes per semester, thirty five
3Callal FALCON for Far East Asian Language Concentration, presently directed by Robert Sukle.
2
falcon feathers. That is to say, on one hand Nigel wants to focus on language, its
structure and form, in the interests of successful and effective acquisition. On the other
hand, Nigel seems to be rigorously unprincipled about the linguistic aspects of the movies
he introduces, and he's willing to use entertainment as a teaching tool. Jorden argues that
serious language pedagogy and entertainment don't mix, which seems especially true for
learners at initial stages. Nigel appears to be sitting on a theoretical fence, as robins are
wont to do, between movie aficionados in their ground-floor seats and falcons circling
high in the rarefied linguistic air above.
Although I too feel that a clean, structurally driven approach is probably the most
efficient and linguistically sound way to use videos in the ESL language classroom, I
don't feel that it's necessarily the most appropriate pedagogy in every context of study.
There are obviously other contexts imaginable, such as my freshmen and sophomore
Japanese university students who have already studied a good deal of English grammar in
rather artificial, test-driven situations, and who have some very definite, though not
always congenial ideas about what English is and where they stand in personal relation to
it. A grammar-centric approach is inherently based on small classes of highly motivated,
begin-at-the-beginning students with a lot of time on their hands to do things like devote
much of it to study.
The issue is not simply that the structure of the curriculum in Japanese universities
doesn't allow for rigorous, efficient, intensive language practice. The issue primarily
concerns the six to seven year odyssey Japanese students typically make through the
hellishly intricate grammatical maze that's called English education in this country. Some
have gone so far as to compare the effort to battling the monster Godzilla (McCornick,
1992). By the time they enter the university, most Japanese students have already
memorized, if not learned, a good deal of English grammar and vocabulary, even though
in most cases they can't articulate that fact themselves. We must be careful, then, about
assuming that language acquisition takes place in a sterile vacuum which involves
linguistic ability measured on a test, unaffected by extraneous variables such as the social
fabric in which English is woven. It is critical to recognize that language study is not
simply about the linguistic facts of English, especially when much of language is not
about linguistics anyway, but about culturally situated thoughts, ideas, and feelings
which are related to things that might be best defined as the social world. From the
student point d view, however, English has few moorings in the social nature of
communication. Language study is more often anchored in a berth of alienating
frustration.
students, can be acquired in the course of trying to understand wilat's going on and
what's being said. Watching movies, students are exposed to new idioms and
vocabulary items, different accents and rhythms, as well pragmatic routines (both
formulaic and otherwise) of doing things with words. But even if this natural account of
language acquisition is true, it is only half the story (if that much) of what I'm trying to
accomplish in English class by using films.
Actually, I use popular movies as much to stimulate interest in English as to provide
input of pragmatic and linguistic features of the language to be learned. Movies are
narratives that, like literature (and even, in fact, conversation), tell a story about the
world, presenting imaginative slices of reality, mini-worlds in which viewers are invited
to enter and take part. In the case of popular movies,4 the dynamics of the narrative are
intriguing and compelling to many people, not just English teachers who are paid to be
compelled about language and indeed go so far as to spend their spare time thinking about
it. The popular movie is a proven hit, an intrinsic motivator guaranteed to capture the
attention spans of even large groups of ordinary people, and it is this arresting act of
arousal which can draw jaded university students into the "world" of English as a second
language, thus transforming it from an alien, dusty academic subject into a matter of
personal significance worthy of attention, engagement, and sometimes even excitement.
In other words, the emotional wallop of film serves to stimulate responsive engagement,
which is at the heart of authentic communication, even though it's characteristically absent
in the traditional English classroom.
I don't completely reject the notion of attention to form as a component of language
acquisition (e.g., van Lier, 1989; Schmidt, 1994). I admit that I do ask students to
approach the story as language students, to watch the movie, for example, with their
hands as well as their brains, taking notes on word use, recording unfamiliar vocabulary
and expressions, in addition to noticing various aspects of the literary structure of the
41 would distinguish between popular movies and vapid movies without substance. That is, I would admit
that some movies, though popular would not be appropriate for an ESL class. While beauty is admittedly
in the eye of the beholder, I exclude gratuitous violence and pornography from use in class.
4
10
narrative.5 And as an orientational prop before the movie begins, I often present general
background information that includes such relevant details as the names of central
characters, the time frame and location where the action takes place, and a broad overview
of major themes. I also ask leading questions. For example, I might say, "Do you like
rock music? You know the Beatles, of course. But did you know that the Beatles were
influenced by Black music from America?" in order to introduce the concept of "Soul" in
The Commitments, which is a story about Irish working-class lads who play the music of
African Americans because they consider themselves the "Niggers of Europe."
However, my central focus is not a unidirectional concern with stimulating interest,
whether it's in the service of comprehending the general meaning of a communicative
message or noticing the grammatical structure of linguistic form. In either case, such an
approach captures only part of what it means to develop fluency (or "literacy") in English
the second language. To stop there would be, in effect, to adopt the transmission model
of pedagogy Freire (1970) has called "banking" education. Students aren't empty
receptacles into which teachers rich in knowledge transfer facts and information, making
linguistic deposits into mental bank accounts. Even though the transmission model of
education is widely accepted, perhaps even expected, in Japan, it's important to avoid the
recipient way students are positioned in discussions of language "acquisition" as
consumers of language merchandise, as if they were accumulating fashionable vocabulary
apparel and grammatical accessories.
form of social activity in the world. In other words, language "acquisition" is located in
active, creative response to what other people say (both in conversation and in film), and
that's where it derives its energy (and "success," too). Through articulating what they
think and expressing their feelings and opinions, students "acquire" language by making
it their own and using it to understand what's going around around them.
It's not easy to make sense of the world, and not just because inscrutable government
bureaucrats and crooked politicians devise arcane rules and obstruct citizens' rights.
Sense making is an inherently dynamic and creative activity that requires the expressive
articulation of ideas and opinions. Even to understand the phrase, "Mary had a little
lamb," for example, requires an active, engaged construction of ideas. Unless the context
is defined, it's impossible to say what the words mean, whether Mary cared for a sheep,
5There's no need to restrict language acquisition to word-level skills and knowledge of grammatical
structure. Interpreting a cultural text, whether an artistic production or daily conversation, also requires an
understanding of such "literary" elements is theme, symbolization, imagery, which are critical to grasp
the full nuance of what is being conveyed.
11
ate a meat dish, or gave birth to a meek child.6 And such semantic shenanigans only hint
at the dynamic complexity of the response required to "understand" what the word "Stop"
might mean in the first scene of the movie Boyz N the Hood when Tre Stiles and his
elementary school classmates walk past the one-way street sign. No text, whether a short
phrase or a whole movie, means anything apart from our active engagement in articulating
what it means, which is point of Bakhtin's notion of heteroglossia and the multivocality
of all utterances (Voloshinov, 1973). The interaction between the audience (in this case,
students) and the text (in this case, movies) serves to tells us what the movie "says" and
what it "means." Without this interaction, without the dynamic engagement of the learner
producing his or her own interpretation of the text, there is no communication. Arguably,
there is no language learning either.
Strong arguments have been made for the value of production in second language
expression, such as the syntactic structure, which in turn works to improve accuracy and
thus (the argument goes) develop fluency:
[11roducing in the target language may be the trigger that forces the learner to pay
attention to the means of expression needed in order to successfully convey his or
her own intended meaning. (Swain, 1986, p.249)
While I find that, in some respects (i.e., the respects about productive expression
being central to developing second language fluency) I agree with this formulation, I
think there is a need to more fully recognize the social role of communicative activity in
production. I have particular doubts about the phrase "intended meaning," which sounds
very rational and fixed. Since language doesn't exist for the transmission of chunks of
information between individual speakers, any message's meaning is situated within a
social relationship, where meaning is fluidly and creatively shaped according to the
dynamic quality of the audience's engagement. How a listener orients to a speaker
changes not only the meaning of what is said but also, in a sense, the kind of person
saying it. Although this joint, cooperative character of language use is often overlooked
by individualistic capitalists who have no interest whatsoever in sharing anything with
other people, the heteroglossic, collaborative character of communication reminds us that
12
6
the acquisition of ESL "fluency" (or ability) cannot be divorced from the contexts of
interaction because language itself is generated there. That is why comprehending what a
movie (or a novel or a person) is saying involves far more than the composite of
vocabulary words and correct grammatical structure. That is also why resolutely
focusing on these components of language, rather than the movie, can be such a
deadening, incomprehensible endeavor for so many students trapped in university ESL
classrooms.
Classroom Practice
The concrete response to Nigel remains: "How do I use whole movies in English
class?"
Typically, when I show a film, I stop midway (partly because movies are ordinarily
120 minutes or longer in length and classes are only 100. The movie simply won't fit in
one class). Then I ask students to make an entry in their notebooks, writing their
response to what they've seen or thought about as they watched the movie. In some
classes, I adopt an open-ended approach, asking students to write whatever response
comes to mind. I say, "Anything is fine: whatever you think, whatever you feel."
Sometimes, though, especially when students appear unsure and reluctant to respond, I
use a list of questions adapted from a handout by Robert Probst (see Appendix 1) to
stimulate thinking and elicit response.
In either case, my primary concern is with the content of a message, with what the
students have to say, and I emphasize fluency far more than accuracy, if I mention
accuracy at all. In large part, the purpose of response at this stage, both spoken and
written, is to break the ice and stimulate thinking, allowing students to explore relevant
issues freely, without concern for spelling or grammar or other standards of conventional
style. The primary goal is to invigorate student brains, which too often seem frozen in
permafrost, incapable of generating ideas much longer than single sentences.7 Stiff,
naked opinions need to be warmed up and clothed in persuasive explanations of example,
argument, and illustration, which I often try to initiate by asking, "What do you mean?"
or "Why do you think so?" I use other comments, appreciation ("That's a good idea!"),
extension ("From a related point of view...") and even challenging critique ("What about
this aspect, how would it fit in?") with much the same purpose.
71 hold to the opinion that this reluctance is due more to experience in high-pressure test-driven high
school English classes engendering passivity, than to any cognitive inability or lack of linguistic skill.
13
A major pedagogic battle, then, is ideological, waged in the contest over the definition
of the activity and to what purpose students talk in English and put pens to ESL paper. I
want students to recognize that they're communicating to someone about something; at
the same time, I want them to recognize that, in relation to their classmates, they are that
someone and that something is important and worthy of attention, not simply a matter of
required performance for the teacher's evaluation based on notions of formal accuracy or
prescriptive style.
Since by training, many Japanese students of English feel more comfortable writing
their thoughts and opinions than articulating them orally, the journal entry is also a chance
to crystallize ideas, giving students a self-constructed scaffold which will later support
oral discussion and contributions to small group as well as large class interaction.
After the preliminary journal entry, I ask students to divide into small groups of four
or five, where they take turns expressing their impressions and opinions, talking about
aspects of the movie they find interesting, or perhaps about aspects of their own
experience they find relevant. Depending on the class and individual personalities, this
group work often generates an excited babble of talk, and the talk is primarily in English,
even in "lower level" classes (though I do have to remind people once in a while not to
lapse into Japanese). After everyone has had a turn to talk, I generally ask one or two
members of each group (or as many people as time and attentions spans permit) to stand
at their desks and make an oral summary, either of their own contribution or their group's
discussion, to the class. My job is to reply to that response, and it is an important job.
I try not to correct linguistic errors, even when I hear them, but to respond to the
substance of the ideas, focusing on content in a way consistent with techniques used by
teachers who employ journals as communicative tools in the ESL classroom (e.g.,
Casanave, 1993). First, I try to encourage and support student production while resisting
the urge to take control of the talk or ask "known-answer" questions which only lead
students to confirm what I already may know and want to hear. Second, I respond to
what students say using interactive discourse strategies of engaged response: summary,
clarification, restatement, extension, and so on. By doing things like noticing ideas,
asking for more explanation, extending important implications, and pressing for
clarification, I am engaging with students as an authentic partner in a joint, scaffolded
construction of talk (see Cazden, 1989; Palincsar, 1986; Wood, Bruner & Ross, 1976 for
discussions of scaffolding). I am also demonstrating a wide range of discourse practices,
from vocabulary words and grammatical structures to interactional patterns and pragmatic
routines, as well as interpretive approaches to texts, which students, through their own
engagement in the interaction, can appropriate as their own (Donato, 1994). Through this
scaffolded interaction, students can also develop a sense of the discourse community in
14
which they are a part, and the voices of their classmates with whom they are talking.
Then I ask students to go home (or to the computer lab) and write their ideas in a two
page (500 word) journal, or informal essay, by which I mean that I want students to
speak from their own experience in everyday, conversational language, writing as if they
were talking to a friend and trying to explain what they're thinking. Although some
students spend a considerable amount of time and effort on these journals, with multiple
revisions and careful computer spell-checks, other students seem to dash them off in one
unmodified, last minute sitting the night before it's due. Regardless, I guarantee all
essays an "A" if they are long enough, 100% the student's own words, and submitted on
time. Interestingly, and rather paradoxically, I found that not only the stylistic flair but
also the accuracy of the writing actually improved from one semester to the next when I
instituted this guaranteed grade policy. In spite of my nearly total lack of attention to
features of correctness (apart from insisting that everyone run a spell check program and
put two spaces after a period), the writing is often clean, sharp, and vivid, with a
resonant authorial voice and sometimes surprising insights.
In the next class, students exchange their essays with up to three or four people.
They read each other's writing and then write their own response in the margins or the
bottom of the page.
At this point, I collect the papers and take them home to read. As I proceed through
the essays, I also respond in the margins, sometimes asking for clarification, sometimes
expressing surprise or agreement, sometimes posing questions, sometimes making a
related comment on the topic being discussed. At the bottom of the page, I add a slightly
more extended reply. In my written responses, I try to follow the same principle of
scaffolding engagement that I use to respond to student talk in class, with a primary focus
on the content of ideas.
Then I give the papers back. Until now, that was the end of it, more or less, though
it shouldn't be. First, in order to be more effective (and more naturally engaged), I think
I need to deepen the texture of the interaction by letting students respond again to my
comments. That is, I will hand the essays back to students and ask them to respond in
turn to my comments as they revise what they've written for more clarity,
persuasiveness, thoroughness, and so on. In this way, the focus on critical ideas, jointly
negotiated among the students and the teacher, will drive the further development of
communicative skills. Second, I'm sure that this kind of exchange needs to be more
vigorously integrated into a student publication program. As Yoko Shimizu reports in
this volume, her class produced a collection of response essays on film, which we
distributed to class members and the school library. This kind of publication, which
makes the connection between the classroom writer and the real world reading audience
even clearer, should be a regular, institutionally sustained feature of every English class.
Student Voices
Another question remains. How much English do students learn engaging in this
kind of classroom activity, focused on an engaged response to whole movies? Would
they learn more from Nigel perhaps?
I have to admit that I'm not sure and, though it may sound rather irresponsible, I'm
not sure I want to find out either. Students would have to be tested and, aside from not
wanting to spend already limited class time on non-productive evaluation, tests are not
accurate measures of the kind of learning (or, rather, activity) I'm talking about. The
joint scaffolding of conversational and journal interaction is not measured on most testing
instruments. Fluency of expression and a focus on ideas and feelings is not usually
recognizzd either. In fact, tests are a big part of the original problem, because
communication is inherently fluid and the degree of its success depends largely on what
the participants bring to it and in turn expect to receive. Alternative testing measures are
called for, ones which include such factors as attitudes toward language use, confidence
in expressing ideas and experiences, fluency and the persuasiveness of ideas, quality of
engagement and participation, and so on. These aspects of language use are not easy to
measure.
It also depends on what we mean by "English," too. When language is defined as a
kind of social practice carried out in contexts of use, the context of sitting at a table
making grammaticality judgments fails to help the student much and usually bolsters only
the self-esteem of the test-giving scientist. Taking tests is generally alienating for
everyone but students who get good marks anyway, which brings us full circle back to
the examination grind (some call a battle with Godzilla) leading up to entering the
university in the first place.8
What I do know, though, is what students say, and for the purposes of this paper,
I've collected a few excerpts from recent class journals.9 These selections come from a
"low-level" class full of young men who were generally good at sports but quite sceptical
about English (for good reason in many cases, given their spartan training in the formal
8For an insightful critique of the perils of testing and biased conceptions of reading and writing,
particularly the tendency to trivialize "context-specific activity" and standardize interpretation, see Ede !sky
(1992, pp.141-153).
91 have edited the excerpts slightly, correcting spelling and typographical features for ease of reading.
10
16
intricacies of English leading up to the university entrance exam). For present purposes,
I will call them class B (for basement). The excerpts included here, however,
demonstrate an engagement in the communicative use of English, both in terms of
interested excitement, as well as the active production of personally relevant
interpretations of meaning and action in the world. Though a wide range of opinions are
evident, the comments nevertheless suggest (to me, at least) that a Nigelian focus on
English rather than movies, might well only serve to increase the scepticism toward
second language study, which arguably played a roll in originally having the students
assigned to a low level class.
The students are responding to the movie Field of Dreams:
This story made me think about "What is my dream?" and more things "What am
I doing?" and "Do I really find what my heart really want to do." Concerning
about my recently life, I noticed that I did not have any serious things to do.
Hitoshi
I don't usually like watching movies, because I am bored ... to sleep at last. So I
have been to watching movies only 3-4 times. Of course, I don't like watching
rental video. But I like watching movies at English classes very much. Because
after I watch the movie once you [Mr Shea] explain substances of the movie in
easy understanding English. I can understand substances of the movie. - Shinji
Seeing this movie, maybe many people cry. And I realize that everybody has
"Field of Dreams" in his or her mind. I think this story is excellent! and this
movie hit homer on our mind! - Hiroaki
We can tell about human relations as a metaphor of Catch Ball. Ray's father
threw a ball as a expectation to Ray, but Ray refused to catch it when he was
seventeen, and his father died. But at the end of the movie, he could catched the
ball that his father threw to him... Ray's father felt pain when Ray [doesn't return
the ball], and at the same time, Ray himself would felt pain, unconsciously. This
pain would turn into he Voice, and talk to him. Tagiru
Hitoshi makes the connection between the film's theme and his own dreams and
reality, while Shinji points out how he typically doesn't watch video movies, but given
the chance provided in class, he was able not only to appreciate the movie but also have a
positive experience in English. What strikes me about Hiroaki's comment is his use of
metaphoric image, which is the spark of interesting composition. And Tagiru's
identification of the pain of separation between father and son with the mysterious Voice
heard in the cornfield is insightful and perceptive, demonstrating his sensitivity to the
story's thematic timbre. Each student's focus of attention is different, and what they see
and hear in the movie resonates with their own experiences and ideas, but this is the locus
of engagement, where language becomes an essential tool of critical thought and a matter
of relevance for the students.
11
,...,
we've done this semester?"11 Most said yes, though for various reasons. Many focused
on the entertainment value of film, expressing their sense of relief that English could
actually be fun. Some pointed out how movies present the cultural context of language
use, while others commented on how the narrative helps situate understanding:
Of my experiences studying English at this university, using movies has been the
most meaningful. This is because through the media of film, I can get directly
into English and know the culture of the country where English is spoken as a
native language... The best point was probably that we could enjoy ourselves as
we studied English. I could understand a little of the enjoyment of studying
English.
I think it is very enjoyable to use movies in the English class. Very enjoyable. I
could hear interesting lectures and learn living English. I want you to continue.
Through movies, you can enjoy English. It's the most enjoyable way to study
English I've experienced.
Watching movies, you can see the gestures and facial expressions, so it helps to
understand the dialog. I studied a good deal of grammar in high school, and I
don't want to repeat the same kind of class. Even if I don't understand all the
grammar and vocabulary of the movie, I think I will develop my listening
comprehension.
To use English movie is very interested for me. I do not like study about
grammar, because it is so difficult and not so useful thing. So in high school, I
did not like English. But now I think I like English, and I can write <...> not so
fear about English grammar. I think this writing has many problem, but I can
write this by English.
I think that using videos is a very good way to teach, because you can learn
10As Robert Sukle, one of my Japanese professors, used to say in regard to being self-conscious about
one's language use in front of outside observers.
111 told students not to write their names (some did anyway) and that they could write in Japanese if they
preferred. Nearly everyone wrote in Japanese, and all the names are fabricated. Translations are my own.
12
18
English along with the excitement as you are drawn into the movie's world and
begin to follow its story.
The material which the teacher prepared (the transcript) helped. At my level,
watching videos without subtitles is still too difficult and has no meaning. Field
of Dreams has many abstract problems so it is a very hard to understand movie, I
think. But it is good to use [in class] because the content of the story captures our
interest.
Not every comment, however, is positive. Some students doubted the effectiveness
of using movies as instructional texts, since they couldn't understand all the words all the
time. They felt they relied too much on visual images and guesswork about the dialogue.
And, related to this criticism, some students pointed to the extra effort required to deal
with movies directly, without subtitles to figure out what's going on, even though they
admit that perhaps they ought to go so far as to make the effort:
I didn't understand the content of the story. It's better to have the Japanese
subtitles.
In general, watching movies is not useful. If you don't watch a scene over and
over, you can't remember the expressions. To learn English from a movie, you
have to watch it on your own many times.
While my effort [to study] was insufficient, I also feel that in one respect, I
couldn't keep up with the dialogue [tuite ikenakatta men ga alto].
Partly in response to these kinds of comments, I've taken to showing only films
which have Japanese subtitles.
Some students pointed out how useful movies can be since they provide background
information about the interaction, which helps them better understand the natural give and
I recognize that it's not always advisable to listen to students. Every comment
depends on its context and motivation and, while every student writes an opinion, some
students are motivated to study and others are motivated to drink, socialize, and read
comic books. And a distinction should probably be made between a nineteen year old's
heart of hearts, and the heart on his or her sleeve. In their heart of hearts, most college
13
19
ESL students really do want to learn English, but in the heart on their sleeve, they seem
reluctant to sacrifice the amount of blood the task requires. But overall, I think students'
positive response to film is a critical component of motivation and engagement in
language study.
Conclusion
I have to admit that, in the end, I have no solid proof I'm right and Nigel's wrong. I
recognize that all positions can be deconstructed and their contradictions pointed out,
including the classroom practice of responsive engagement to whole movies (see Jeff
Cady's article in this volume, for example). As stated above, pedagogic success depends
on one's point of view and definition of language. I do think it a valid question to ask
whether students benefit from spending forty or more hours a semester under my
tutelage. But my doubts are tempered by a theoretical recognition of the primacy of
motivation (or orientation) in learning and the necessity of student response. And my
worry that I'm not doing enough instruction about language is not as strong as my
conviction that a responsive engagement with real stories serves to drive language
learning and acquisition of the skills Nigel is spending most of his time teaching. I
believe that using whole movies, based on a response-based engagement with ideas and
opinions, is not a pedagogical cop-out but a theoretically and empirically sound path to
follow in the ESL college classroom. In the end, I find that I can't accept the structuralist
neglect of the central importance of aesthetic and authentic narrative, even if it is made in
A closing illustration: when my B class was watching the last scene of Field of
Dreams, a movie which no matter how many times I watch, invariably brings me to tears,
I had to look out the window and think when Ray asked his dad, who had come back
from the grave to play baseball on the field Ray had built, if he wanted to play catch. The
movie ends with this scene, and when the classroom lights came on, I was shocked but
partly relieved to see a significant number of teary faces in the room among the students.
I didn't want to count how many faces in front of everyone, and besides, I was busy
trying maintain my own composure, but I thought that if response is a critical element in
narrative, then many of the students had constructed a profound and moving story. If I
had cut up the movie into five minute segments, focusing on the linguistic structure and
the form of the language, the students might never have recognized the emotional force
and narrative dynamic of the video as a story about important things in the human
experience, aesthetic and ethical things like dreams, imagination, and commitment; things
that drive language and ultimately stimulate students to learn it in the first place.
14
20
References
Casanave, C. (1993). Student Voices: The insiders speak out on journal writing. In C.
(Ed.), Foreign language research in the classroom. (pp. 384-392). Lexington, MA:
D.C. Heath.
Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Oxford:
Pergamon.
MacGowan-Gilhooly, A. (1991). Fluency first: Reversing the traditional ESL sequence.
15
21
Wood, D., Bruner, J. and Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem solving.
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 17, 89-100.
2
16
Appendix 1
Talking to a Story12
What is your first reaction to the movie? (i.e., what are your emotions?)
2. Do you think the movie is a good one or not? Why do you think so?
3. Does the movie remind you of any things in your life, such as sights, sounds, or
feelings?
1.
13. Is there something else about this story not on this list?
ways the same way I do textbook tapes, publishers' video materials or TV news stories.
My emphasis is on understanding (at least to some extent) the language of the films. I
felt, however, that my colleagues at Keio were largely ignoring the films as listening
material and taking an approach much closer to the way I would expect them to teach a
film course in an American or British University. As it turned out, their expectations for
the course were more than linguistic (see Casanave and Freedman in this volume) but the
course started me thinking about whether a purely content-based approach to films was
better than the one I had always used. When I was asked to contribute to this monograph
as well, I found I had to go back to the books and look again at the theory behind both the
use of listening materials in class and content based language teaching.
and I see ever increasing use of various kinds of "authentic" recordings among my
colleagues, including unscripted dialogues and discussions and recordings originally
produced for native speakers: radio news, dramas, television entertainments and even
complete films.1 Despite the occasional protests of those students that prefer the
contributed to this. For the legal aspects of this trend, see Simons in this volume.
2 48
notion that the best way of studying a foreign language may in fact be to study something
else in that language. In the 70s, H.G. Widdowson, among others, proposed that
students of English should be taught through "the other subjects on the school
curriculum" (Widdowson, 1978, p.16). His concern was that much teaching at that time
was based on the teaching of language usage, "the citation of words and sentences as
manifestations of the language system" as opposed to language use, "the way the system
is realized for normal communicative purposes" (Widdowson 1978, p.18). We were
teaching about language rather than how to do language and what we were teaching
about language wasn't even the whole story. Students were learning how nouns and
verbs were joined together properly, but not how they were used to deal with the world.
Widdowson observed that a usage approach dealt with language only at the level of word
or sentence, while it was becoming more and more evident that this was not sufficient to
explain (nor, probably to teach) language use. In the last couple of decades, both
teachers and language theorists have been forced to acknowledge the importance of
discourse considerations, the larger contexts that give meaning to grammar and
vocabulary. Many have accepted the importance to language teaching of cohesion, genre,
the mechanics of conversational interaction and other aspects of "communicative
competence" (e.g. Brown, 1980; Savignon, 1983). Some have gone so far as to assert
that practicing particular elements of language is either essentially useless or at least is less
effective than learning through some kind of actual communication2 .
In recent years we've seen two areas of practice emerge directly from the insights of
Widdowson and the other theorists. On the one hand, content classes mostly avoid the
issue of explicit teaching of language. In fact, research (reviewed by Ellis, 1994) seemed
to show that traditional approaches to explaining or drilling particular points of grammar
are problematic or don't work. These findings together with the complexity of the
discourse view of language, may have initially discouraged some people from hoping that
a similarly explicit approach would work any better at the discourse level. Content
teaching offered a straightforward way of introducing natural use into the classroom.
On the other hand, many teachers, unwilling to abandon teaching language directly,
have discovered that non-content communicative teaching of many sorts is possible and
in fact "communicative" has become a buzz-word for publishers of English language
materials. Simulations and information gap activities create a kind of real communication
in the classroom, skills training in reading, writing, speaking and listening give much
more attention to function and context than before. There is finally some research support
2Ellis (1994), cites Krashen (1982) for the stronger position, and Prabhu (1987), for the weaker. More
recently, Krashen seems to have somewhat softened his position to allow the explicit teaching of some
elements, if not grammar (Krashen, 1985). Ellis himself seems to support a modification of the weaker
view (see below).
19
for the feeling of many teachers that carefully designed explicit teaching of language can
work (Ellis, 1994). Indeed, Widdowson allows that a use-based approach "does not
mean that exercises in particular aspects of usage cannot be introduced where necessary"
(Widdowson, 1978, p.19). He was making room for grammar practice, but "exercises"
no longer has to mean just audio-lingual drilling (communicative grammar teaching is
enjoying a certain amount of popularity lately), nor does focusing on particular aspects of
language have to mean studying grammar at all. It can mean studying appropriateness,
function or cultural differences or any other aspect of language in context. Though
Krashen rejected "fine tuning" of input (meaning trying to adapt input to focus on
To come back to my question about how best to teach a film class, Widdowson
proposed that content-based teaching would provide an automatic context for language
use which is both natural and familiar to students in school and may be more relevant to
the learner than other approaches. He asserted that the learning experienced in it is more
immediate in that it corresponds with the way the learners use their own language in the
study of other subjects. That students see film as relevant (and interesting) makes film
courses a natural subject for content courses but also a natural focus of the trend to
authentic listening. Theorists are urging us to provide learners with lots of "input" that
they can understand, and giving us some leeway to teach language explicitly. Theory
tells us that content classes, like other classes for language learners, need to supply
learners with comprehensible input, and it does not exclude helping learners to notice and
interpret the ways language is used. If these concerns apply to that part of a film class
where we talk about the film, should they not also apply to viewing the film itself? If we
can manage it, shouldn't we try to give some attention to the language in the films we
study and also to making the language easier for our students to understand?
3Michael Rost (1990) warns of the dangers of "easification" that distorts the language that students receive
or dilutes the authenticity of their interaction with it, but he is mostly concerned about conversational
interactions where native speakers are modifying the language they produce, trying to make it easier to
understand. The language of films remains "genuine", but the teacher must have some concern for the
"authenticity" of the students' interactions with it--not to lose track of the usual relations between films
and their viewers. See my comments about control below.
26
20
encouraged by the habit of universities and, recently high schools, of hiring foreign
teachers whose specialties are outside the teaching of English as a foreign language). But
as Bernard Mohan (1986) puts it "While the need for coordinating the learning of
language and subject matter is generally recognized, just how this should be
accomplished remains a problem" (p. iii). Often EFL teachers don't feel competent to
teach in another field and non-EFL teachers struggle with how to adapt their teaching to
learners for whom the main learning difficulties are linguistic. The area where we may
find most cases of EFL teachers teaching content may be film, both as part of more
traditional language courses and as separate film-only courses.
Most of the papers in this monograph address film classes essentially as ordinary
content classes, more or less as if we were teaching geography or literature or cooking,
where the fact that the objects under study are in some way themselves linguistic objects
has small relevance to the way the class is designed. Their concern is with what the film
is about or how it was done--with the meaning of the whole film. Students may see quite
a few films in a term, where comprehension of the film's language is dealt with as a side
issue. Although they are encouraged to watch the films again on their own, very little
attention is given to the language of the film, as language, except in the same way it might
be dealt with in a film class for native speakers. In fact I've come to realize that I have no
serious quarrel with this approach; it allows a maximum of attention to other very
important aspects of the films, such as style, message, viewer's reaction, cultural
implications and so on, and the original theoretical arguments for teaching through
content hold up pretty well. Theory, however, does not limit us to this sort of armslength approach. There is support for a language based treatment that both makes the
films' language more comprehensible as input and that talks explicitly about the language
and the rules that govern it (whether grammatical or discoursal). A more intensive
approach to filth language is not incompatible with other aspects of film study (except,
films especially offer in the classroom. Compared to almost anything else, whether
language, in context, complete with the best, most complete settings, both ordinary and
extraordinary that Hollywood (or the studios at Pinewood, or Cinecitta or Toei) can
construct, built-in character and motivation for each situation, with discourses features
suitable for analysis at every level. They are often better written and certainly better
illustrated than any textbook dialogue, and they cover an enormous linguistic territory,
from "ET call home" to "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows
of outrageous fortune..." to "Hoo-ahh".
As language vehicles, films are also very attractive to our students, whether in some
cases because of enormous advertising budgets, famous faces, and slick production, or in
other cases for the almost opposite reasons that attract students to cult films and obscure
documentaries. Not only are films at the heart of mass culture right next to television, but
they also exist at the fringes of culture and have a respectability among students that TV
may not. They offer students a chance to study language through something that is at the
same time fun and serious, authentic and innovative, more demanding than television, but
less intimidating than pages of printed text. We may wonder though if it is possible to
study a whole film in the intensive way that we treat other listening materials.
There is not only a huge amount of language in any film, but the language situations
are complex, the language is hard (and it certainly doesn't fit very well into any traditional
language syllabus sequence), and dealing with it takes a lot of time. A typical scene in a
good film can be fantastically more complicated than a textbook dialogue. Not only may
there be far more details visible (and audible) than even in a video teaching dialogue, but
these details have meaning, and these meanings interact with each other. A film audience
might be expected to notice what she's wearing, her running mascara or that he hesitates
for a long time before he continues after he says "A coffee and..." We may need to know
quite a bit more about the people involved because there's probably more going on than it
just being lunch time.
28
22
This seeming drawback may be a bonus, however. Our students may be limited in
what they know about English, but they've grown up with film and television and the
greater part of the vocabulary of film is entirely international. They know what a tense
confrontation or a love scene looks like--even an American love scene (or a French one
for that matter). They've been trained by experience, the same as we have, to respond to
camera angles, editing pace and music. Furthermore, if the students know that the focus
is on a particular language point, they may be willing to accept some fuzziness around the
cultural or dramatic edges and vice-versa. If you simply point out the cocktail dress, the
hesitation, the lifted eyebrow, guessing is sometimes as good as knowing. And on the
other hand, the vivid reminder that a conversation has meaning, that it occurs in a
particular situation, said by particular people for a reason, transforms it as a teaching
vehicle. If you've ever led a patient but uninspired class through the first repetition of a
dialogue and then seen them come awake just from being forced to include "umm" at the
beginning of one of the sentences, or to stress one word a little differently, or to make a
minor gesture at the right moment, you've seen how the life of language is in these details
insights" (p.159).
23
the film, if there is time, it can still be dealt with without resorting to devices such as
subtitles. Over the last decade or two a range of techniques has been developed for
the scene first silently), or that supply some or all of the language on paper, with or
without explanation of crucial vocabulary and usage. We should remember also that both
from a theoretical and a practical point of vieW there is probably no necessity of the
students producing the same level of language as we are asking them to listen to.
neglect one other aspect of a film--its pace. In fact, films are not really made to be
watched in small pieces and viewers' interest will not survive too much attention to
detail. But in intermediate to advanced classes a balance is achievable, if we work with
both the interesting fine points and with complete scenes, if students always have a
chance to view the forest as well as some of the trees, and if we are careful not to forget
about movement and suspense. Indeed we can put suspense back in where slow
comprehension has lagged behind and missed it. With the lowest level students,
however, a 90 or 120 minute movie can drag on forever if we attempt too much.
Letting go
so ago, I was taken to task a bit by someone who had been at the presentation. He was
concerned that the work was so controlled. I think he was partly concerned about my
looking so closely at detail (what I presented in the conference was mostly limited to
exercises that focused the students on particular details and ignored the larger picture), but
he may also have been referring to a more general consideration. As we may want to give
4For video techniques see Lonergan (1984), Cooper, Lavery, & Rinvolucri (1991), and for general
listening skills many recent textbooks, including Richards, Gordon & Harper (1987), Viney & Viney
(1986), and Soars & Soars (1986).
3024
our film classes opportunity to ask the wider questions and look more at the overall
meaning of the work, we should give them more control over how the inquiry is
conducted as well--to let them control their own learning. This can have value in any
kind of film class.
Part of the value of interaction in language class is the importance of giving learners
control of input. In discussion this means the teacher giving up control and in listening it
is the same. At the conference, in trying to present twenty-some exercises for film
comprehension in 45 minutes, I may have given a rather teacher-centered presentation.
But where the control rests will depend on how we use the tools available. Simply
stopping the film and playing a scene again has already shifted control away from the
makers of the film to the teacher. Giving the remote control to the students shifts it the
rest of the way. Other methods involve letting students decide the questions, letting them
choose how much to watch and how long to focus on a section, even letting them choose
the film. Student presentations (about language or, of course, other aspects of the film)
likewise put control and a chance for creativity back into student hands. Student control
can be crucial to sustaining interest too.
Does This Take a Lot of Time?
The one aspect of a language intensive approach to film study that is not vulnerable to
theoretical insights or modern strategies is that it does take time. An intensive approach
somewhat similar to those used for purpose-made language teaching videos or for
listening to recorded news, divides a full-length film into 10-12 two hour intermediate
level lessons, including time to view each one week's 8-12 minute section several times,
do vocabulary and comprehension work and some general discussion. This is a lot of
time spent on one film and may vary with the level of the students, the film chosen and so
on. It can involve a lot of preparation for just one teacher as well, although the same film
can be used in other terms or with other classes. The time devoted can also vary with the
amount of attention teacher (and students) want to devote to the language of the film.
Although I'm arguing the advantages of an intensive approach, there's no reason to make
the issue black and white. A friend who teaches at a language school successfully teaches
intermediate non-college students to view and enjoy English language films with very
little language support by concentrating on general comprehension and does it in less
time. This requires, however, a deft touch and a good knowledge of one's students. If
other factors demand it (teacher or student interest, curriculum, administration), more or
less attention can be given to language vs. other aspects of film study, from an intensive
approach to one that deals with film language only when it is significant in some way to
25
I.
any audience (the future language of Clockwork Orange or 1984 for example).
Conclusion.
A language-intensive approach to film does take time. It is also true that students can
often appreciate a film and learn from it even if their level of comprehension of the
English in it is not high. But it is hard to justify the view that some greater understanding
of the language, or more detailed examination of its component parts, and the ways in
which these parts relate to their contexts in a general way, will not contribute quite a bit to
their study of the film if the opportunity is there. Furthermore, many of our students,
even in universities, come to English class primarily because they are interested in the
language as language, and may be resistant to a content approach that doesn't take this
into account. In truth, lots of our students aren't interested in film as art. Some of our
students are only interested in karate movies. (though they may see them as art). And
there are many teachers who don't feel competent to teach film as art either, or in fact as
anything but language.
In fact while I now think it is possible to choose (and justify) either a purely wholefilm approach (e.g., film criticism) or a very intensive, language based approach, there is
a lot of of middle ground available. Though, on the one hand, the content approach can
often benefit from greater attention to language, on the other hand, it will be a great waste
if we go too far the other way and treat films simply as splendid language samples. Just
as a text dialogue is hollow without some kind of transference to a real situation, we need
to follow up on our intensive attention to form and intonation with discussions at least of
how we relate to the story on the screen (the open questions why? and what if? as well as
the closed what? and when? and where?), and very possibly we need to pay some
attention as to how the scenes and the language in them are shaped by the technique of
content in language classrooms. I am beginning to think again about ways that I can
make language learning work more below the surface by teaching it less directly, and
possibly with the outward focus on learning other subjects. Nonetheless, I feel strongly
that language teaching theory can also justify the more intensive approach to films I've
used myself for a number of years. I think that this approach is feasible in a practical way
and otfers resources and possibilities that are otherwise difficult to duplicate, and that
teachers should use films when they can as a source of language for study to the great
benefit of their students.
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26
References
Brown, D (1980). Principles of language learning and teaching. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall.
Cooper, R., Lavery, M., & Rinvolucri, M. (1991). Video. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Ellis, R. (1994). The study of second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. London:
Pergamon.
Krashen, S. D. (1985). Inquiries and insights. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Alemany Press,
Prentice Hall Regents.
Lonergan, J. (1984). Video in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Mohan, B. (1986). Language and content. Reading, MA.: Addison Wesley Publishing.
Richards, J., Gordon, G., & Harper, A. (1987). Listen for it. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Rost, M. (1990). Listening in language learning. Harlow, Essex: Longman Press.
Savignon, S. (1983) Communicative competence: theory and classroom practice.
Reading, MA.: Addison Wesley.
Soars, J., & Soars, L., (1986). Headway, Intermediate. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Viney, P., & Viney, K. (1986). A weekend away. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Widdowson, H. G. (1978). Teaching language as communication. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
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problem at the university that we needed to solve--namely, too many students and not
enough teachers to give classes as small as we wanted. Because students had class three
times a week, we were able to toy with a number of possible solutions, and decided to
experiment with a large-class/small-class combination. For the large class, we combined
the three smaller classes of about 35 students each at the same level and used the time to
show films, which many of us do in our smaller classes anyway. Ideally, we argued, the
films would constitute input (of content, primarily) for work that would then be done in
the smaller "core" classes, which tend to focus on critical thinking skills at the
intermediate-advanced levels. In these classes, English is the medium rather than the
object of instruction, and multi-skill language instruction occurs as a consequence of our
focus on nonlinguistic matters.
Why did we choose films as the main source of content? In the project we report on
here, the structural constraint that we faced made films an ideal source of content. By
showing films in a large lecture hall, we could be sure that all 100+ students would have
the grounding they needed for the further work that would take place in the core classes.
The content of the films was also accessible to all students, regardless of proficiency,
because we used subtitled versions. Finally, well-chosen films are interesting to many
more young people than are books, regrettable as this may seem to some. They are also
interesting to teachers, as lively lunch room conversations on our campus on the topic of
films have demonstrated.
group work. Before discussing the specifics of what students did, we lay out some of
these notions as a way to ground our discussion in issues that turned out to be important
in helping us understand what worked and did not work in the project.
In the first place, we found it hard to separate teaching and learning into distinct sets
of activities carried out by different kinds of people, teachers and students. In language
learning, as in other kinds of learning, we recognized that we as teachers often seem to
learn more than our students do. The activity of teaching, we reasoned, results in high
quality learning because the teacher-learner does all the work essential for good learning:
researching, organizing, and communicating ideas to and with others. Indeed, all of us
who teach have probably experienced regularly the pleasures and surprises of learning
something new as we prepare materials to teach or as we interact with interested students
and are forced to articulate our knowledge in response to their (and our own) questions
and confusions. For most of us, the activities of preparing to teach and teaching result in
deeper and longer lasting learning for us than did our own past classroom learning
experiences.
What are some of the characteristics that distinguish this kind of learning from
we are teaching. The audience, in other words, is real, and has reasons (intrinsic or
extrinsic) for learning. Third, the activities of preparing to teach and teaching demand
that teachers exercise a wide range of linguistic, cognitive, social, and creative skills.
Fourth, we feel accountable and responsible not only for our own performance, but also
for ensuring that others (i.e., students) progress. In the stereotypical student role, on the
other hand, the student feels responsible only for him or herself. Finally, we are not
tested artificially on what we learn by teaching. Awareness of our successes consists,
rather, in evidence from ongoing implicit and explicit evaluation from our classes, such
as knowing that we have held the attention of our audience, helped them see something in
a new way, or inspired them to continue learning. It also consists in a very nontrivial
marker of success--our own growth in knowledge and interest in a particular content area.
Why, then, do we not routinely construct learning opportunities for our students that
mirror some of these fundamental facts about the close ties between teaching and
learning? The brief literature review that follows, particularly that on
cooperative/collaborative learning, captures some of the ideas we wish to ground our
29
procedures) and that other kinds are more abstract, involving so-called higher order skills
such as interpreting reality and conceptualizing. In all cases, we can say that learning
involves some kind of change. But deep learning, in which people use synthetic,
analytic, and abstracting skills in order to reorganize and interpret information, is prized
because it is thought to be longer lasting than surface learning, as well as more closely
connected to meaning, comprehension, interest, and motivation.
In the school setting, according to Kember and Gow (1994), "...these conceptions of
learning are important because of the evidence that they have a strong influence upon the
study approach students use for particular study tasks" (p. 58). For example, in a surface
approach to studying, students try to memorize material on which they will be tested. In
a deep approach, they focus on the meaning of reading material or of project work
(Kember & Gow, p. 59). In particular, Kember and Gow found that interactive teaching
methods, rather than teacher-fronted lectures where information is delivered in a one-way
cooperative learning groups (Cohen, 1986; Johnson & Johnson, 1994; Slavin, R.,
1983). Cohen (1994) defines cooperative learning as "students working together in a
group small enough that everyone can participate on a collective task that has been clearly
assigned" (p. 3). In such groups, particularly when the mix of students is
heterogeneous, and the goals and group members are interdependent (i.e., when the task
cannot be completed by individuals working alone), students not only learn from each
other, but they also create knowledge that none of the members had before. (Both Cohen
[1986] and Johnson and Johnson [1994] point out that the benefits of group work do not
accrue automatically, but that students need to learn the social and discourse skills
program, Wedman, Hughes, and Robinson (1993) taught students in each of two
sections of a reading methods course to use reading inventory procedures. One group
received direct instruction through lectures. The other learned how to use and understand
reading inventory procedures in cooperative learning groups. In post-tests and follow-up
30
project. In the university setting in which they worked, Arredondo and Rucinski (1994)
designed a workshop approach that consisted of the following key elements: 1) reflective
class (Arredondo & Rucincski, 1994, p. 274). Their purpose was to involve students
"...in complex projects requiring the meaningful use of language" (p. 275). At the
conclusion of five university education classes, both graduate and undergraduate, where
this approach was used, the authors learned from questionnaires that most students
For our purposes in our SFC English classes, the second language acquisition
literature on the topic of interactive teaching and learning is less helpful than that
described above. The main reason is that the bulk of the second language literature
concerns language acquisition in a much narrower sense than we are interested in. In this
literature (some of which is described or presented in Allwright and Bailey [1991],
Kessler [1992], Nunan [1992], and the October 1994 issue of The Language Teacher)
researchers and teachers are concerned with the amount and quality of linguistic input and
output and their relation to students' language development. The same concern is
manifested in the work on task-based learning (e.g, Nunan, 1989). We believe that
students' language will develop as it is used for meaningful purposes (Krashen, 1987)
such as (in our case in Japan) work on a long-term project. We are also less concerned
with students' linguistic proficiency than are some English programs in Japan, and more
with what we call "educational growth"--the development of curiosity, critical and
analytical thinking ability, and skill in problem posing and exploration (Casanave, 1992).
For these reasons, we have found that the general education literature fits our purposes
better than does the literature in second language education.
Our point is that teachers, as a normal part of our class preparations, do what is
necessary for good learning to take place. We select, collaborate, confer, revise,
31
U.
organize, synthesize, and articulate. In the traditional language class, indeed, the
traditional class of any kind, students rarely do this. It is in this sense, then, that we use
teaching. In the context of the film course that we devised for our third semester
sophomore students, we felt we had the opportunity to experiment with some of these
ideas.
intermediate university English classes (called EI, EJ, and EK, TOEFL mid to high 400s)
that met together once a week to view films as part of the class structure described above.
The film segment was run by a part-time teacher with whom we consulted regularly. We
selected films based on the theme of "The Human Dilemma," how individuals react to and
handle major crises in their lives, and showed one film every 2-3 weeks in a large theater-
style room. All films were in English, subtitled in Japanese, and included Mermaids,
Dominick and Eugene, Talent for the Game, and Witness.
In the second half of the semester, students also worked on their final presentations.
We often have students do final oral presentations rather than take a final exam, and we
reasoned that it made a great deal of sense to have the three classes present to each other
rather than to themselves. Therefore, in a final project, each class selected its own film
for a 100-minute presentation to the other classes. Each presentation was to contain a
summary, an analysis, a pro-con critique, and visuals. Beyond these basic requirements,
the students were fairly much on their own as to how they would divide the work and
what the specific content would be. Students worked primarily outside of class on this
presentation, but we did some of the groundwork in class, as well as set interim deadlines
for them (not always followed, of course).
For example, for each film we designed film-viewing worksheets that covered plot and
20 32
to the filmwith reasons explained (critique). Also, we required that students read a
published film review (e.g., Roger Ebert) for each film, and helped them see the elements
of summary, analysis, and critique in those reviews. This approach helped us structure
the discussion in the core classes so that we could concentrate on these three aspects of
reviewing. Further, this style of reviewing, we presumed, would help students prepare
for their final presentation project, where they, as a class, would review a film of their
choice and teach what they had learned to the other two classes.
Journals were a useful medium in which students could develop their ideas, and we
required that students write at least one journal on every film. In Chris Casanave's class
(EK), students wrote once a week, alternating between a response journal and a
summary. In David Freedman's classes (EI, EJ), in the first journal the emphasis was on
summary. The students were asked to briefly tell the story of the film. In the next
journal along with the summary an analysis of the main character was called for (Why, do
you think.., would you?). In the third journal a critique of the film techniques had to be
added (music, acting, writing, directing, and so on). In both Chris's and David's
classes, the students had the Roger Ebert review of each film to use as a model; also the
questions on the film viewing guide acted as a starting point for the students' writings.
Before or after collecting the journals, we asked students to discuss their ideas from them
in small groups. In order to keep the discussions in English and to lower anxiety about
speaking, students were allowed to "read" their opinions from their journals. In the
activity of small group journal sharing, we hoped to encourage the students not only to
make public their opinions, but also to begin to see how they could eventually collaborate
as a group to present a coherent view of different aspects of a film for their final
presentation.
dealt with some kind of "human dilemma." The students had been given a project
worksheet outlining the requirements for their project. In the 100-minute class period,
each class was to present a summary, an analysis, and a pro/con critique of their film;
distribute a handout that would help convey the presenters' main points to the audience;
and integrate visuals with their presentation, such as video clips and transparencies for the
overhead projector. Each student had to sign up for one of the work groups that they
devised for themselves. The groups consisted of 4-6 people, which the students called
33
and OHP, and Video Clips. Each class also chose two overall coordinators, and each
small group chose a group leader, and conferred with other groups as necessary to design
a presentation that would not be fragmented or repetitive.
As we mentioned, most of the specific work that students did for their final
presentations took place outside of class. However, in addition to the general activities
mentioned above, we helped students in more specific ways. David experimented with
the activity and concept of "teaching" in one of his classes, by having small group mini-
presentations where the group had to teach a skill to the rest of the class. The groups
were required to have both written and oral directions, but the subject was left open with
the proviso that at the end of the "lesson" the other students had to have either a physical
object or a new skill. Some of the presentations were Making Okonomiyaki, How to Tie
a Scarf, and Doing Calligraphy. The short detour into teaching a concrete skill with its
preparations helped the class understand the idea of teaching, and, indeed, the final
project of this class stood out in terms of how the students explained concepts and found
creative ways to get their ideas across.
In Chris's class, the students also gave mini-presentations as they began organizing
the various parts of their presentations. These helped students become comfortable
speaking in front of a group, develop appropriate eye contact, learn to modulate their
voices, learn to solicit questions and comments, and in general to make contact with their
audience in ways that encourage a teaching-learning interaction. Chris also gave students
some time in class to work in their small groups and to collaborate with other groups so
that they could coordinate potentially overlapping aspects of their presentation.
Both of us encouraged the students to prepare their handouts ahead of time so that we
could assist with proofreading, but only one of the three groups did this. We also copied
the handouts (last minute) for each group, as well as evaluation sheets for the audience to
fill out. We graded the small groups of students holistically, and averaged this with other
elements on which students were evaluated individually (e.g., attendance, participation,
critic. Maya Deren in her seminal essay, " Cinematography: The Creative Use of
Reality" (1960/1985) writes, "As we watch a film, the continuous act of recognition in
which we are involved is like a strip of memory unrolling beneath the images of the film
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itself, to form the invisible underlayer of an implicit double exposure" (italics ours) (p.
56). Our students, like most people, tend to watch films purely as passive entertainment.
But in our class this semester, students were pushed to bring a deeper meaning to films--a
second layer of exposure, so to speak--that they otherwise would have watched only for
fun. In other words, we expected students to be active viewers, who brought their own
meanings to the films, whatever those meanings might be. It is this struggle to make the
invisible meaning visible that thrusts the students into the very heart of language and
teaching.
We had purposely left students on their own to engage in the struggle of selecting,
developing, and organizing issues from their films. It was in this preparatory work,
where students worked together to construct their own meanings and develop mediums to
communicate them effectively, that we hoped the main benefit of the "teaching" aspect of
the project would reside. It was our belief that the presentations would reveal the kinds
of thinking and organizing that had gone into their preparation.
On each of the three presentation days at the end of the semester, groups from each
class had set up the video equipment, OHP, microphones, and lights. One group had
even set up several extra TV monitors in the auditorium, in addition to the main screen on
stage, "in order to attract attention," a boy explained. Each group passed out its handout
and evaluation forms to the audience and took charge of quieting the room. The
presenting class sat up front, and each small group came forward to do its part. For the
most part, the presenters read from scripts they had prepared, and coordinated their
speaking parts with video clips and OHP transparencies that other students were
managing.
EK class presented first. They had chosen Fried Green Tomatoes, a film about the
identity struggles of two generations of women in the American South. The concept they
had developed for the film was two-fold. First, they saw the narrative structure as a
parallel construction of past and present stories. They very effectively communicated this
concept through the use of video and commentary in their summary section. Second, they
tried to develop the idea of the relative nature of truth from the perspectives of different
characters. This was presented via handouts and lecture, but was not communicated
nearly so effectively. A possible cause could be that this concept did not fit a "multimedia" presentation (a topic that enjoys great popularity on our campus, to be discussed
further below), and the students could not find alternative resources to present their ideas.
EI class presented Awakenings, a film about an alienated doctor who becomes
involved in the lives of his "awakening" catatonic patients. El's main concept was that
the narrative should be viewed through the characters as representatives of groups (i.e.,
patients, doctors, parents, etc.), rather than as individuals. Once again the main method
41
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of teaching in their presentation was through film clips, though enlivened by students
appearing in costume to present the story from the viewpoint of their "group." Their
secondary theme, the role of windows in the film, was brought forward visually (via
video), but the students were unable to initiate a discussion of the meaning of this
their audience had not shared. Consequently, we can see that while each class struggled
within itself to elucidate a theme, and did so fairly successfully, each class, when faced
with the task of effectively explaining their ideas and engaging the audience in a further
parts of the final presentations unclear and weak. The question remains as to whether it
would have been better to preteach some specific, higher analytical vocabulary (such as
the language of the visual symbolism of windows for EI, or the language to allow EK to
develop the concept of women nurturing women), or whether the decision to offer the
teacher-as-resource (which is more consistent philosophically with the collaborative goals
of the class) was the better choice. We were disappointed that few groups used the
opportunity offered by the teacher-as-resource, even for proof-reading their handouts.
A problem brought up by the students in their final journal was the feeling that some
students worked while others loafed, and the class, as a whole, had no means of forcing
a classmate to participate. This problem remains to be solved in classes using large group
work as a final project. However, one comment was nearly universal on an end of
course questionnaire. When asked if they felt they learned anything from the course,
80% said they had learned presentation skills and felt more confident speaking (as
4 36
opposed to 15% who said they had learned critic's skills). Even if the students did not
end up exactly where we wanted them to go, the teaching process brought its own
students had in achieving this goal does not negate the method. In fact, perhaps one of
the most exciting aspects of this project was to watch students come up with ways to
think about their films that we had not thought of, and to watch them struggling to find
and articulate their ideas. Our own views of what was needed to be analyzed and
critiqued often went unheeded. And in spite of our desire to help students find the "real"
meaning in the film, and analyze and critique the film in ways that showed they had read
and understood Roger Ebert's film review, and our guiding comments to this end, they
went their own way. In the end, we had to allow them to do this, and to respect their
solutions, as long as we knew they had genuinely struggled with ideas in the film and
with how to present their ideas most effectively to an audience other than themselves.
Our biggest disappointments and praises came, paradoxically, in the same two areas.
In the case of Chris, she was both amazed at and disappointed in her class's summary
section. It was smooth, clear, and extraordinarily well presented as a combination of
narration and video clips, the technology of which was faultless. At the same time, she
felt that the efforts that went into the summary, particularly the media aspect, were made
at the expense of what she had hoped would be deeper thinking and engagement with
broader meanings in the film, the kind of thinking that some of the individual students
exhibited in their journal responses throughout the semester. But in the final
presentation, only a few students in the whole group seemed to reach any level of
profundity. In many ways, students' journals on other films showed more of this kind of
insightful, analytical thinking than did their final presenation.
Related to this, was the students' infatuation with media itself, not surprising given
that "multimedia" is THE buzzword on our campus. We see lots of showy technology-students learning computer graphics, computer music, data base technology, video
making and editing, and so on, but it is not yet clear whether the mechanics cif our high
tech campus are diverting our students' attention from serious intellectual pursuits to flash
and hype. In this project, we saw more flash in some cases than depth of thought. At the
same time, we can praise the students' ability to put together a coordinated "show" (if you
will), a task that may be neither deeply intellectual nor English-language oriented, but one
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expertise, and so on. The EK students, for example, particularly the video group (the
technical support group), were as involved in their production as any students could be in
a learning-teaching experience, and no doubt learned a great deal from their experience.
As is often the case with an educational experience, however, they may not have learned
what the teachers intended them to learn.
Finally, we learned a great deal about what is involved in coordinating a project
involving three classes and over one hundred students. In brief, we learned that it was
possible, and that it was also both exciting and demanding in terms of how we planned
the timing and orchestration of so many parts into a coherent whole.
Final Thoughts
In this film presentation project, students had the opportunity to select, analyze, and
critique a film, using both the English language and a variety of visual media to "teach"
what they had learned to other students. In spite of the project's rough edges, we believe
that our students learned more about critical engagement with ideas and issues by
working collaboratively toward this goal than if we had guided and controlled the project
in more traditional, teacher-centered ways. In our case there were special advantages to
using films for the project, not only to solve our structural problems during this particular
semester. The films, unlike printed novels and stories, allowed students to enter quickly
into an analytical and critical frame of mind. Students did not, in other words, need to
spend the majority of the semester struggling with linguistic aspects of reading; instead,
they spent their time on complex thinking and organizing tasks, and on the linguistic
aspects of presenting their ideas orally to a real audience. Given the time, and fewer
structural constraints, teachers and students can certainly craft the same kind of learning-
by-teaching experience using media other than film, such as readings. The goal remains
the same: to involve students in an intellectual and communicative activity that requires
group work and presentation to real audiences, whether or not we need to solve a
structural problem of large classes. We also remain committed to instructional activities
that allow us to relinquish control of the specific ways students prepare their ideas while
still providing them with ongoing guidance. We recognize that by giving up some
teacherly control, by asking students to do their own preparation for teaching, what
students learn cannot be predicted to the extent we may wish it to be. The benefits have
to do primarily with increased learner autonomy and with the possibilities for providing
students with chances for deep rather than passive engagement with tasks.
4438
References
Allwright, D., & Bailey, K. M. (Eds.) (1991). Focus on the classroom: an introduction
to classroom research for language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
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45
When I was six years old, my family and I moved to the United States because of my
father's job. I was educated there for 12 years until I came back to Japan. In Japan, I
discovered the difficulty of the Japanese language. Not only were my kanji skills very
poor, but I also realized that my Japanese skills overall needed a lot of work. In the
beginning, I even had difficulty understanding lectures and seriously thought I might fail
all of my courses taught in Japanese. I missed being able to speak English freely and to
express my thoughts on paper without so much hesitation. To maintain (or possibly
improve) my English skills and to regain confidence in myself, I decided to take English
of "cool" actors and actresses that showed up in it. Once the video ran, it never stopped
until the movie ended. I saw only the main story, the story that anyone could understand
from just watching the film. For example, when I watched Fried Green Tomatoes for the
first time, I understood it only as a story about an old woman in a hospital who tells a
story about a friend she had when she was young, while a fat woman with an eating
problem listens and learns to be strong. Because it never occumed to me that there might
be another story in it, I didn't like the film very much.
Although I obviously didn't expect comfortable sofas nor buttered popcorn in the
course, I did expect to have some fun, as in the fun that I often experience while watching
videos with my friends, laughing about ridiculous jokes and accepting the story as it is.
However, my expectations were not fulfilled. In the class, I was too busy writing notes
to laugh at jokes. In the film course, the students were taught to look into the "other side
of the story" and to watch films critically. With a pencil in one hand and a notebook in
the other, we tried to look at everything the screen showed and wrote down anything that
.4 6
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watching films, as if something kept me from saying "Now that was a good movie!" Just
as a puzzle is incomplete until the last piece is set, I felt as though I failed to place that last
piece in the right place. It was in this film course that I found the answer why--I hadn't
looked into the movie deep enough and was missing important points.
The first day the class watched the movie Fried Green Tomatoes, the instructor, as
always, froze the scene at a very odd place--a scene showing a rusty old truck getting
pulled out of muddy water--a scene I thought was almost meaningless to the story.
Annoyed and frustrated that he wouldn't let the film get to it's main story, I waited for his
explanation.
Pointing at the screen, he asked us "What do you think that means?" Confused, I
asked myself, "I don't understand....what else is it but a dirty truck? So what if a truck
was found in dirty water?" Since the teacher told us to write whatever we felt about the
scene into our notes, I wrote down, "What is the significance of the truck? What is the
significance of the filthy water?"
The instructor continued to press the pause button every time scenes changed or
something he thought was important appeared in it, and told us to write down anything
we felt or saw. When traintracks appeared on the screen, and he paused it again, and
asked the class, "What did you see? Did something catch your attention? If so, write it
down," I still didn't understand his intention. Instead of being interested, I became more
confused. I had no idea what to write, but I decided to write what I could think up, so I
jotted down, "What is the significance of the traintracks?" feeling "My gosh, what a
boring thing to think about, let alone, write about." Not for even a second at that time did
I ever think I'd be writing about it, and enjoying it.
The instructor not only constantly told us to write down what we thought, but he also
often called on some of the students to tell him what they thought. In a scene where Mrs.
Couch, the overweight woman with little confidence in herself, begins to show signs of
self-confidence, he stopped the tape and called on me to explain what I thought about it, if
I could relate Mrs. Couch's growth to someone else's in the film. For a minute, I looked
through my notes and came up with an idea. "Could it be that Mrs. Couch's growth is
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very similar to Idgie's?" I asked. As soon as I understood the point, I was able to
present my opinion smoothly.
Once I realized how to answer questions that piled up in my notes, I eventually
learned to find the scavenging for answers quite fun because of the satisfaction and the
confidence I felt when I found them.
important about it. Ultimately I chose to look further into the connection between the
story and the train.
As soon as I decided what I wanted to further look into, I put together all of my notes
on "train." When I came up with my list of where the train appeared and when, I began
"Oh, I get it! The train passes by Whistlestop whenever Idgie
to see a pattern
experiences a change in her life, first when Buddy dies, next when she takes Ruth onto
the train, and finally when Ruth dies." When Idgie loses her best friend, Buddy, in a
railroad accident, she becomes even more withdrawn and selfish. When she and Ruth go
on the train to distribute food to the poor, we see that she has become more caring for
others and less self-centered. Finally, when Ruth, her best friend after Buddy's death,
dies she learns to accept death, and to become an adult, a lady. Thus, I found my thesis:
"The train takes Idgie from an immature tomboy to a grown-up adult."
This is why I now strongly feel that notetaking about even something one may think
is just a minor aspect of the story, is important in finding one's strong thesis.
paper, I watched them with much attention. I compared Idgie's actions before each
"train" incident with her actions after the scene, and checked that Idgie had matured, as I
suspected she had. When I made sure my opinion was correct, I knew I could write an
argument that was descriptive and convincing, and that even the strict instructor will
enjoy reading my paper.
Because I knew exactly what I was to write, all I had to do was to type it out which
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turned out to be quite simple. I had my thesis, my notes, and my main points
straightened out, which were all I needed. As if I had already written my paper in my
head, I wrote it without hesitation, which was unusual for me. Until then, I had
sometimes found difficulty writing my papers. Often, I had stayed up all night to come
up with something interesting and convincing, but in the end, I was left with a boring,
meaningless paper. Now I realize that the reason for my continuous failure was my
inability to come up with an interesting thesis, and to look deeper into my text which
meant that I was trying to write papers with very little understanding about it.
Soon after I finished my paper the instructor called on my to present my idea, and I
could explain my idea to the class with confidence. I learned how good it felt to be
satisfied about my work, and to be able to present it, knowing that I had a strong
argument.
film as a text. By having learned this method, I feel as though I have found the last
puzzle piece. Because I changed from an indifferent viewer to a critical viewer, asking
questions about an awkward scene or looking for signs that might give me a clue to an
answer, I can now look forward to discovering something new everytime I see a film,
more than just the main story. As "the train served as a symbol that alerted the viewer to
Idgie's maturity," the film course itself served as a guide to my growth in understanding
film watching.
My Improvement in English
As I stated above, I took Intensive English to gain confidence in myself and to
improve my English skills. After one semester of the English Film Course, however, I
realized I gained much more than that.
Now as a junior at the University, I can understand lectures with less difficulty and
write papers that make sense. More important, however, is the fact that I learned much
more than I expected from Intensive English. Not only did my English writing improve,
but my ability to view films also improved, which I never expected from taking Intensive
English. I feel as though I took a film course and an English course at once. I learned
the techniques of film watching, constantly thinking about each scene of the film and
about everything that appears in it, but I also discovered how to find my own idea about
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the film, find my own thesis through my notes and through my thoughts about the film
and to communicate these ideas in English. Although I knew how to find a thesis for a
paper about a novel or about a poem, it never occurred to me that I could find my own
idea in a movie. Before the course, I thought movies gave me all the information, that all
5044
I am presently a junior who has just finished taking the advanced level English
Intensive Course at Keio University's Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC). In all the three
semesters of this course, the aim of the class was not to concentrate on grammar, spelling
or vocabulary. We were required to think. Think intellectually and critically on issues or
certain themes. To achieve this aim, films and readings were used in class as text
materials. Throughout the three semesters with both readings and films, my mind
developed much more when reading than film viewing. So did the process of critical
thinking.
In the first semester, the class proceeded by first viewing films, then talking in
general about the film we saw. Then we broke up into groups of five to six people. Here
we exchanged ideas and sometimes read each other's response journals which we wrote
almost every week. The class procedure was almost the same in the second semester.
The difference was that instead of films, we did readings.
All films and readings we did in class dealt with certain themes. "Cross-cultural
Conflict" was the theme for the first semester. In the second semester it was "Human
Relationships." The materials used in providing the themes were films such as Fried
Green Tomatoes (discrimination against women and between whites and blacks), Do The
Right Thing (discriminaton among races in America such as blacks, Hispanic, Koreans
and whites), The Milagro Beanfield War (discrimination between the Hispanics and the
whites in America) and Children of a Lesser God (discrimination between the
Ishiguro to "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan. We also had class presentations at the end of
each semester. My class as a whole did Children of A Lesser God in the first semester as
our final presentation. At the end of the second semester, my group did a presentation
based on our analysis on the book, Lord of The Flies by William Golding.
As I worked throughout the semesters with films and readings, I felt my mind
developed and grew a lot more when we read and not when we viewed films as materials
for critical thinking. From this experience, I believe that critical thinking can be better
achieved by reading than film viewing. The difference occurs for three reasons: the
difference in intellectual engagement of the mind, the difference in imagination that is
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required, and, most important, the difference in the interpretive process involved.
Intellectual Engagement
Viewing films does not require the full involvement of the intellectual mind. In other
words, viewing films is usually a passive act. I do not mean that students just sitting and
watching films in class is a passive act. Viewing films is passive because it does not
require the full engagement of the brain. In other words, it undermines the necessity to
understand what is going on in the film and has a tendency to divert the audience's
attention from the real message or essence of the film.
In class, when viewing a film, most of us students just had to keep our eyes open but
not the mind. To know what was going on, we just had to keep watching the film. Even
if there were parts we did not understand, the film kept moving forward. So even if we
did not get what was going on at that moment, it was still possible to keep up with the
film because just watching it, we could guess what had happened. Seeing is believing;
therefore, we just had to watch to follow. This could be a big help for some students
who give up easily especially when dealing with something that is in English, which is
their second language. On the other hand, this discourages the viewer from thinking
actively on his/her own. For example, the film Do The Right Thing was a heavy film. I
found it difficult to understand every scene and what the director, Spike Lee, was trying
to convey to us. It was certainly difficult to keep my mind alert at all times but
understanding every scene was not necessary. I could still take part in the discussion
with my classmates.
Reading was a different matter. For example, "The Cat Bird Seat" by James Thurber
took a lot of energy and I had to make use of all the knowledge I had. I had to read and
reread the story several times to finally understand what the situation was and what was
the context of the story. It was only then that I could participate fully in the discussion.
For me, I was more prepared for the discussions after going through a reading in class
than after watching a film. Discussion after watching the film helped me understand the
film better but discussion after going through the written work, drove the discussion
deeper in a more academic way. We became more aware of the themes and became more
conscious of the theme itself.
I find that films do the thinking for us. The necessity of understanding the incidents
is undermined by viewing films. If we get used to this, then when we do readings, just
reading good books or good articles, becomes tough work. This might lead some
students to laziness or tend to make their minds dull. From my experience with readings,
I had to recognize words, sentences and details to get the picture. I needed the
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participation of every cell in my brain to help me recognize these. Also there are parts or
paragraphs in the readings which are important and need to be digested by the brain until
the readers get the points. I had to go back and forth through the pages to understand
those certain parts. Of course, we can watch films over and over again but it is not as
convenient and easy to review films as it is to review the readings. Furthermore, we can
go through the pages anytime, anywhere in our own free time, in trains or while waiting
for the bus which is not possible with films.
Most films that succeed in capturing the audience's attention are films that are either
fast moving, or that have scenes that are fascinating or otherwise amusing. Films tend to
take the audience's attention away from important conversations or events that could
otherwise engage us intelectually to scenes of violence or sex. Visual images have a more
effective way of staying in our minds; therefore, rather than the important dialogue or
message, these scenes are the ones which stay with us.
Imagination
One reason that I like reading is that it gives me a chance to develop my imagination.
I believe imagination helps develop the reader's thinking skills. Imagining does not limit
itself to what the characters look like, what kind of environment the characters live in or
what kind of car they drive in the year 2599. Imagination goes beyond that. We can also
imagine the characters' feelings, the pain, the joy, the hardship, and the jokes. At the
same time, understanding why the characters feel the way they do is what I call
imagination.
Most important, it is exciting to create the story (following the reading material of
course) in my own way and my own style. Reading encourages and stimulates my
imagination. As I read, the words turn to images. In "A Family Supper" by Kazuo
Ishiguro, there is the line, "My father was a formidable-looking man with large stony jaw
and furious black eyebrows." Imagine that. Imagine the "furious eyebrows." What you
and I imagine can be completely different. This could lead to self discovery because we
can compare what we imagined and understand more about ourselves. Haven't you ever
felt disappointed after watching a favorite book made into a film? What you imagined
was totally different and maybe sometimes it takes your hopes away.
When I imagined Simon with flies buzzing around his head and there was no way to
get rid of them in Lord of The Flies, I believe the effect would be different when reading
that page and when watching the film. I would think, "Uggh! Disgusting!" when
viewing the film, but when reading, I would not be distracted by the ugly scene and will
be able to concentrate on what is happening in the story and allow my imagination to run
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on freely. Imagining the flies around Simon's head and my head would make me want to
throw up but at the same time, I would be fascinated by what I imagined and how it
would affect me. Here, I am able to put myself into Simon's shoes. I would be able to
imagine what he is going through. What would I do in such a situation? And on my
imagination goes. It would also be interesting to read the same page again sometime later
and see if I still imagine things I did the last time.
Imagining the characters' feelings will shed some light not only on other people's
behavior and attitudes but also on our own. Putting ourselves into other people's shoes
and imagining what they are going through will help us understand people better. I am
always confused when my friends talk or laugh or act in a way that I find disturbing, and
not knowing why they act that way makes things worse for me. Or sometimes I just
wonder why I find some people weird and strange yet I like them. Or why my parents
are the way they are towards me. All these questions with no answers. The surprising
thing is that sometimes I find the help or solutions in books. The details and the
information written in the book give us the opportunity to go into another person's life
and see things the way that person does. When the characters are in a similar situation as
I am or as others are, I will be able to imagine other's feelings and apply my
understanding to real life situations.
Interpretive Process
Viewing a film is watching someone else's work. Films such as Fried Green
Tomatoes are based on a book. When the work of interpreting is done, and the film is
made, we have a director's interpretation of the book. And when we view Fried Green
Tomatoes, we are looking at one person's interpretation of the original work. There is
not much critical thinking that can be done here because we students who watched Fried
Green Tomatoes in class, did not read the original material. If we had read the original,
we would have developed our own interpretation and understanding of the original piece.
It would have prepared us because if we have the preknowledge of the material after
reading, we can watch the film critically. We can compare our interpretation with 'the
director's interpretation. This is more stimulating because we can actually compare what
is different or new or the same. As both the audience and the director have read the
original work, there is a standard base everyone can refer to. If we do not read the
original and just watch the film, it is natural to feel bored and become passive. This
attitude will of course, raise no intellectual doubts or questions in the minds of the
audience.
Boredom and passivity will influence us to value the film as just a piece of
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entertainment or another person's thoughts. Films are entertainment because they do not
require much interpretation, allowing the audience to sit back and relax. It is through the
director's thoughts or eyes that we see things. What the director wants us to see is what
we see. It narrows our range of vision, as if to say, "This is what you see" for films.
For readings, it is, "This is all there is, you figure out what to see and how to think about
what you see." When we read, we, the students or readers, have to make our own
interpretation of the reading, whereas the interpretation is already done in films. The
mind involvement required is very small, and amounts just to following the development
of the story. Forget the reality and enjoy the film because film is a world of dreams. We
do not need to bother with the fact that the themes brought up in those films deal with
I believe interpretation is the key that opens the story to us. When I do my own
interpretation, first of all I have to understand the vocabulary, the words used, and at the
same time, why the author wrote the book. As I read and understand the story, I feel
closer to the characters. I also develop a sympathy towards these characters and can
understand why they take such actions towards problems and conflicts in the way the
story develops. I do not, however, feel close to whatever happens in the film. The
themes "Cross-cultural Conflict" and "Human Relationships" are something I face in my
daily life with friends, family and people. So when I watch films that deal with these
themes, I should be able to identify with the events and feelings in the film. Somehow to
my discovery, I felt closer to the characters and seem to understand the meaning of the
context better when I read. It is as if the films and I are too far apart, perhaps because I
do not need to interpret much here. I cannot connect the issues in the film to my life
without feeling forced to do so. Do The Right Thing felt so far away, as if what
happened was none of my business. When I read "Ten to Ten" by Can Themba or "Like
a Winding Sheet" by Ann Petry, I felt closer to the story and felt the progress of the story
stronger. For example, as I was reading "Like a Winding Sheet" I could feel the tension
building up between the husband and the wife and the whole atmosphere that surrounded
the husband as I struggled to understand the story. When the tension erupted (the main
character, Joe, loses control of his temper after a long hard day), I could feel the tension
coming and could sympathize along with Joe and his wife. I unconsciously entered into
the story and entered Joe's mind. In Do The Right Thing the film had it's own way of
building up the tension. I could tell that the tension was about to erupt and where and
what the climax would be but I did not feel it as strongly as when reading "Like a
Winding Sheet."
The time and effort taken for interpretation varies depending on the reader or the
students. Often the work of interpretation takes up too much time. As students, we
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know that class time is very limited. We prefer not to spend too much time on one thing.
It is true that reading is time consuming but I find this not a good enough reason for using
films rather than readings. Films such as Fried Green Tomatoes can be watched
elsewhere. Although readings can also be done elsewhere, I needed the help of the
English instructor just to explain some points that needed to be straightened out before
any discussion could occur. Rather than using an hour and a half or more time for a film
in class, it is better to spend the class time going over the book.
This also affects the intructor's way of teaching. If films are used in class, the
instructor need not explain or help the students with any interpretation at all. I always
seek the help of my instructors mostly when writing essays, and at other times, when I
cannot understand the context of the readings and therefore am unable to do my own
interpretation.
Conclusion
Reading develops our minds not only in the sense that we train ourselves to think
critically but it also helps us grow in other beneficial ways. We can improve our
language and enrich our writing expressions.
At SFC, where critical thinking is what we are expected to do, we (my classmates and
I) had a lot of discussions in class. Here we voiced our opinions and thoughts.
Everyone can do this. It is easy to talk, to express one own's thoughts to others. When
it comes to writing, it is not as simple as talking. In writing it is important to be able to
express thoughts effectively with concrete reasons to the other person. In class, if asked
to voice out their opinions, everyone will do so. But when it came to writing, not many
participated. I was the editor for a collection of essays for our class. I found out that
most of us did not know how to write and including myself, we did not have enough
writing practice to write an essay we could be proud of. There exists a big handicap
when trying to express feelings in words. Using words to express what we saw, felt,
and wanted to say was hard work because we did not learn any of these, at least in class
when watching films. It is important to know how to explain the complex situation and
human feelings in written language, and reading can help us do this.
Readings are souvenirs of our thoughts. After reading or viewing films, after
discussion or after thinking about what we have just read or watched, sometimes our
minds change or the way we think changes. Right after watching Do The Right Thing, I
was confused and disturbed by the film, because although I knew the story, I did not
understand it. After discussion, I finally got some ideas and so the way I saw the film
has changed. But this is only a reward of knowing that I finally understood what the
:
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director saw and not the real issue being discussed. Also, it is easy to miss out important
details in films (with the violence and sex distractions). With readings, we can underline
sentences, make marks, and go back afterwards. We cannot make marks in a film.
There is the possibility to take notes during film viewing but while taking notes, we could
miss tiny, important details that occur as we are writing.
Where critical thinking is concerned, I believe reading rather than viewing films
achieves this better. Reading keeps the intellectual mind alert and awake at all times,
develops our imagination, and most important of all, allows us to construct our own
interpretations.
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Western culture. Listening to taped lectures, songs, and radio programs are some
examples of ways to develop skills in listening and speaking, but video is another more
powerful medium as it offers both audio and visual cues to the language learner. With
video, students not only can learn about language, but also how it is used in the target
culture. Because of the many advantages that video offers, there has been a growing
amount of video materials available to teachers and students.
Basically, videos can be divided into two categories--video material designed for
English language teaching (ELT), and non-ELT material (Allan, 1985). Videos designed
for ELT have the advantage of offering graded language use and providing exercise
materials to aid the students and teacher. On the other hand, non-ELT material, or
authentic material, is geared toward native speakers and, thus, does not provide graded
language use. For the second language learner, authentic video allows the student to see
how native speakers interact in either staged or natural settings of real-life situations. In
EFL situations, finding opportunities outside of class to listen to native speakers can be a
difficult task. For that reason, movie videos can give the students this opportunity. I
base my own choice to use authentic video in the language classroom on these four
tenets, following Stempleski (1994):
video sparks in the students. In addition, for many students, video viewing is an
entertaining and enjoyable experience.
In Kwansei Gakuin University's Intensive English Program (IEP), movie videos
were used as one assignment, designed with the above points in mind, to provide
students with a project they could enjoy doing, while at the same time presenting them
with realistic examples of language and culture. The assignment was called the Listening-
5852
The idea of the LV Diary was adapted from an article written by Michael
Many of the steps in Furmanovsky's article were used in the Kwansei Gakuin
assignment; however some adjustments were made. For example, the notetaking form
was simplified and only required the students to choose one language aspect and one
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visual or cultural observation (see Appendix A). In addition, each scene the students
were to watch could only be 3-5 minutes in length. This was included because, at the
beginning, some students tried to watch a whole 20-minute segment of the movie and had
a hard time focusing. With short segments, it was easier for the students to concentrate
on one or two aspects and analyze them critically. After the students took notes, they
were to write a 100-200 word essay which included these points:
1) their viewing technique (students had the option of watching the movie in its
entirety before or after their analysis)
2) a summary of the content of the scene
3) why they chose this particular scene (what cultural or language aspect
interested them the most)
At the beginning of the semester, I took an informal poll to see which movies students
thought were popular. From the results of the poll, I selected three movies that students
were to base their LV Diaries on. Each student chose one of the three movies to focus on
throughout the semester.
Since this assignment was a rather new concept for the students, it took some time to
explain the notetaking form and how to use it. I chose a short, one-and-a-half-minute
scene from Lethal Weapon for students to practice with during class. The scene was
somewhat simple--Detective Murtaugh, played by Danny Glover, walks into the kitchen
in the morning and is greeted by his wife. He has a brief conversation with her, gulps
down some orange juice and gets ready to dash off to work. As he leaves the kitchen, his
young daughter complains to him about her brother. He gives her a kiss, pats her on the
head, and is about to leave when his teenage daughter appears in a sexy party dress to ask
for his approval. A look of shock is on his face as he realizes uneasily that his little girl is
growing up. His facial expression is that of anxiety and worry as he goes out the door.
First, I explained each point carefully in the note-taking sheet. I emphasized the fact
that even though they were only watching one-and-a-half-minutes of a movie, there were
many language and visual cues to work from. Even though students were to do this
assignment individually outside of class, I had them work in groups during class to help
each other look for the cultural or language aspects. I didn't use a closed-captioned
version because none was available, but I was hoping the students would try to look for
visual cues rather than specific language observations. However, my expectations were
perhaps too high, and students were confused as to what they were supposed to do.
Since I only gave them two or three chances to watch the segment, they didn't have
enough time to absorb the information. I emphasized the fact that at home, students could
watch the segment they chose as many times as they wanted to find their observations.
In this particular scene from Lethal Weapon, I wanted students to notice the close
relationship between the daughters and their father, and how openly affectionate the father
was. Of course, not all fathers are this way, but in general, in the U.S., it is socially
acceptable for middle-class parents to show affection to their children. On the other hand,
in Japan, people are usually more reserved and do not show affection so openly. After I
explained this comparison, we watched the scene again, and the students tried once more.
I stressed that it was not so important to understand what was actually said, but how the
participants spoke and reacted to each other, such as intonation and facial expressions. I
also reminded them to look at the surrounding elements of the scene, such as the layout of
the house or the clothing being worn. In the end, some were even able to catch a few
phrases which I put up on the board afterwards and explained in detail.
After going through this introduction exercise, the students were to do the LV Diary
on their own time outside of class and turn in five entries all together in one semester.
The three movies they could choose from were Pretty Woman, Dead Poets Society, and
Roman Holiday. Each student looked at one movie and chose five different scenes on
their own to analyze. I made sure the students knew that I would be available to help
them if there were any areas they couldn't understand. At the end of the semester, the
students, either alone or in pairs, presented a language or cultural observation which they
taught to the rest of the class (see Appendix B for explanation of this assignment). Class
time was allotted for the students to work in movie groups, so they could all choose
different scenes to present.
As an example, one group of students taught the class the phrase "Seize the day!"
from Dead Poets Society (#1 in the Looking at Language section of the notetaking form-
Appendix A). At first, they showed the scene where it was uttered by the English
teacher, Mr. Keating, played by Robin Williams. Then, they asked the audience if
anyone could understand what was said. After choosing one or students to guess, they
wrote the phrase on the board and explained the meaning. In this particular scene, Mr.
Keating tells his students that every living being ends up as "food for worms". To make
the boys' lives worthwhile, he says they must "seize the day, make your life
extraordinary." The group ended their presentation on a positive note, saying that they
were influenced greatly by this particular phrase.
The Problems
One of the purposes of this assignment was to give students exposure to slices of
Western culture by using movies they were interested in and to give them another
assignment different from the textbook. Many students expressed enthusiasm for movies
and wanted to know what the actors and actresses were saying in their favorite scenes.
What better way to satisfy their curiosity than by using the LV Diary? Students could see
and hear authentic language in context as well as learn about other features such as facial
expressions, gestures, formal and informal settings, and social and economic status.
However, after giving this assignment once, I found there were some considerations to
keep in mind for future assignments.
Although one purpose was to give students exposure to western cultures, I also
wanted students to focus on various language aspects of the films. The first problem I
noticed was that students sometimes had trouble using new vocabulary words correctly in
a new sentence or really understanding new expressions or idioms. If students were able
to use what they heard by making up an original sentence with the new vocabulary word,
it was an indication that they understood the meaning. On the notetaking form, there
were spaces to write in the meaning and make up a new sentence (for the new vocabulary
word). Sometimes, the spaces were left blank or the meanings did not match the context
in which the word or expression was used in the scene. Some students did check the
meaning with me or other native speakers, but it was difficult to monitor all the students.
In a class with fewer students, this task would have been easier to carry out. An example
of a section of the filled out notetaking form is in Appendix A.
Another difficulty for some students was the diary entry. Some students wrote one or
two sentences only, or made a list of items that they thought would fulfill the writing
requirement. Explanation about how to write journals in English was not specifically
addressed in class because the assumption was that since this was an advanced listening
and speaking course, the students would have had exposure to journal writing in previous
classes.
One more problem involved the final oral presentation. Some students lacked the
necessary skills for effective public speaking, such as speech organization, timing, eye
contact, loudness, posture, etc. Students need to practice these skills more and be better
prepared for this final assignment.
Finally, I found that some students were not used to the notion of watching a movie
actively, where they must participate in the viewing and learning process. As Lonergan
(1984) states, "It is essential....that learners are introduced gradually to video in the
classroom, and guided to an understanding of how valuable the medium can be" (p. 6).
In some diary entries, students wrote comments such as "I enjoyed watching this movie"
or "Audrey Hepburn is pretty, so I chose this movie." I appreciated their honest opinion,
but felt they could have delved deeper in their analysis of the scene they chose.
The Benefits
In spite of the problems I encountered with this assignment, I still feel it is a
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worthwhile activity to use in the language classroom. Even with the lack of journal
writing and oral presentation skills, students were challenged by the LV Diary to take an
active role in the viewing process. At the same time, they were given the freedom to
choose scenes and movies they liked. Since the students worked on several diary entries
throughout the semester, they were able to grow more analytical and improve each entry
as time went on.
Several students commented that although the assignment was time-consuming, it
helped them learn new expressions and vocabulary words, as well as learn about different
American customs. In the diary entry, some students asked me questions about specific
points in the scenes they viewed. For example, one student asked about a scene in Pretty
Woman where Edward, played by Richard Gere, takes Vivian, played by Julia Roberts,
to a formal business dinner. The student wondered if it was usual for an American
businessman to take his girlfriend or wife to a business meeting. I learned that, in Japan,
it is rare for a businessman (or woman, for that matter) to bring along his (her) spouse or
companion to a company dinner or party. In another scene from the same movie, another
student found it strange that Vivian took a bubble bath. In Japan, people do not usually
put bubbles in their baths.
Another positive outcome of the cumulative diary entries was the final assignment.
As mentioned earlier, at the end of the semester, students gave oral presentations, either
alone or in pairs, on one language or cultural observation which they chose from their LV
Diaries. The presentations were a good way for the students to analyze thoroughly the
language or cultural aspect they presented, as well as to learn about other language points
or cultural differences from their classmates. At the end of the term, many students
commented that even though the presentations were stressful, they were glad they did it
because they could learn new expressions and note cultural differences from their peers.
Conclusion
Furmanovsky (1994) neglects to mention in his article the learning level of his
students, making it difficult to determine the audience for this LV Diary project. He states
that they were "second-year university students," but levels can vary from one university
to another, indeed, from one school department to another. This was especially true in
my Advanced Listening and Speaking class at Kwansei Gakuin with students from six
different departments with ages ranging from 19-22. In a different setting, for example
with a more homogeneous group, this activity might have been more successful.
In addition, Furmanovsky states that the ideal size of a class to assign the LV Diary is
20 and under. With a smaller class, the teacher can focus on more specific problems and
57
communicate better with each student. I became keenly aware of the communication
problem between student and teacher with my class of 28. Perhaps choosing one movie
for larger classes would help alleviate this problem for the teacher. With one movie, the
teacher could have groups of students working on specific scenes together and any
questions that arise could be shared with the whole class.
In the future, I will spend more time explaining and introducing this activity step-by-
step. I now know the potential limitations of the students, and the extent of their own
ability to choose and evaluate their observations. However difficult this LV Diary may
seem, it is still a practical way for students to be exposed to native language use and to
other cultures outside of the EFL classroom.
References
Allan, M. (1985). Teaching English with Video. Essex, England: Longman Group
Limited.
64
Appendix A
LISTENING-VIEWING DIARY (with example)
scene length:
Name:
Movie Title:
Dept:
Date:
Diary Number:
Looking at Language
(Choose It or more)
1) Expression or Idioms
Situation:
Speakers:
Meaning:
2) Slang
Situation:
Speakers:
Meaning:
3) New vocabulary
tragedy
New Sentence:
other boys
Meaning: a terrible or
unhappy event
4) Pronunciation
Situation:
Speakers:
How is it different?
59
G5
minutes
5) Function (greetings,
apologies, compliments,
excuses, etc.)
6) Other notable aspects
CHALLENGE
YOURSELF!
'Visual or cultural
observations (Choose 1)
1) Facial expressions and
body
language
3) Interesting or unexpected
translations
4) Other notable as_gects
CHALLENGE
YOURSELF!
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60
NOTE: On the back of this page, please write a 100-200 word diary entry
of your analysis (See details on other side)
TRY TO COVER THESE POINTS IN YOUR DIARY ENTRY (Of course, you may add
more, if you like!):
your viewing technique
e a summary of the content of the scene
o why you chose this particular scene (what cultural or language aspect
o
C7
61
Appendix B
LISTENING-VIEWING DIARY
have compiled throughout the semester. You may work in pairs or individually on your
scenes.
1)
Find a scene that is interesting to you and has some language or cultural aspect
which you can teach to the rest of the class.
2)
Show the scene to the class. (Naomi will provide the videotape, so let her know
where the scene is -- give the time count)
3)
Explain the expression or gesture to the class. First, ask the class what they think it
means, then give your interpretation. You may use the blackboard or OHP, if you
like (let Naomi know ahead of time if you need the OHP).
4)
5)
6)
7)
The presentations will be scheduled for 6/22 (Wed), 6/27 (Mon), and 6/29
(Wed). A sign-up sheet will be available soon.
Don't be nervous!
C8
-;
62
commercial films in Hollywood as a result of the women's movement (Kaplan 1983). In the
first cycle, Hollywood followed a policy of total avoidance. It ignored issues associated with
gender differences and excluded women from films almost entirely, focusing instead on films
of male bonding. In the second cycle, a new trend emerged as Hollywood evidently came to
believe the issues dealing with gender differences could no longer be avoided. Women came
to be targets of violence. In A Clockwork Orange and Last Tango in Paris, women are
brutally abused and raped. Kaplan (1983) explains this phenomenon as society's reaction to
the women's movement. Male-dominant American society, says Kaplan, feels a serious
threat from the women's movement, and women have to be put down in films.
In the 1980s, as American society had become more tolerant of women's battle for
independence, for the first time mainstream commercial films started being made which
explicitly address the social, political, and economic issues raised by the women's
movement. Looking for Mr. Goodbar, made in 1977, may be the epitome of films in this
genre. Theresa is among the first female characters to break the traditional female image in
Hollywood films. She is attractive, but not a pretty doll; she is aggressive and often angry;
she has explicitly depicted sexual desires. However, my experience with this film in the
Japanese context suggests that the message of women's independence does not necessarily
come through in the way(s) that the filmmaker may have intended.
In the fall semester of 1994, while I was teaching a seminar on feminism, I decided to
use the film Looking for Mr. Goodbar as a text. My original idea in showing this film was
to make my seminar students aware of the problems concerned with a woman's attempt to
achieve independence. At the same time, I was hoping that the students would realize how a
society, at least American society in 1977, was structured in such as way as to hinder
women's liberation.
Student reaction, however, was contrary to my expectations. Their comments centered on
the main character, a woman whom they described as displaying "aggressive behavior." It
became immediately obvious that I was dealing with an "outculture" film (films made in or
depicting other cultures) in hopes of engendering content discussions in the language
1 I would like to thank my friends and colleagues for their patience in discussing, reading and editing this
paper. I would especially like to thank Alan McCornick for his excellent editing and David Freedman for
his insightful comments. I am also grateful to Christine Casanave and J. David Simons for their superb
editorial comments.
63
classroom. I would like here to reflect on two aspects of this learning experience: the implicit
cultural messages which undercut my intended political goals, and the subtextual semiotics in
the film structure itself that undercut its purported feminist message. I will examine three
additional films in addition to Looking for Mr. Goodbar that are generally familiar to
audiences in the United States and Japan. These films are Thelma and Louise (1991), Switch
economic issues raised by the women's movement of the 1970s. These issues, while quite
familiar to American audiences of the time, were still hard for my Japanese students in 1994
to grasp. Looking for Mr. Goodbar deals fundamentally with issues of women's
independence in a patriarchal society. Theresa, the main character, is a teacher of deaf-mute
students. She leaves home to free herself physically and psychologically from her father, a
tyrannical patriarch. Theresa rejects all the roles and values of this man, as well as the man
he wants her to marry. The film follows her as she searches instead for men in singles bars.
In the end, she is stabbed and killed by one of her one-night stands.
The film fails to reach Japanese students because the basic premise of the film, Theresa's
need to escape oppression, is not evident to them. What is she running from, they wonder.
To explain her behavior, two pieces of cultural information are necessary. The first is the
power of religion in Western society. The power of religion is not perceived by the majority
of polytheistic Japanese. The authority of the church which underlies the message of
Theresa's fatherthat a woman's happiness can come only through marriage and childbearing--does not communicate to the Japanese viewers the meaning that Catholic dogma
carries to Western audiences. Unless a student can be made to feel the oppressiveness of
religion embedded in Theresa's psyche, her struggle for liberation from its unconscious
influence remains unsympathetic.
The second piece of cultural information is the power of the father in a patriarchal society.
It is often said that the power of the Japanese father ended with defeat of the Japanese in
World War II. Contemporary Japan is distinguished from other Asian cultures by its
lessening of a son-fixated tradition. Girl babies increasingly tend to be as welcome as baby
boys in contemporary Japanese families. The social and domestic climate which in the past
made baby boys more attractive than baby girls has been quickly changing in Japanese
society. Socially speaking, the feudalistic ie ("family") system which prescribed that only the
eldest son could inherit the family name and the family fortune has almost ceased to exist in
Japan. In the past, families without a son had to adopt a boy or a man to maintain the family
64
their parents. Even after marriage daughters tend to keep close contact with their parents.
Many people say that when sons marry, you lose them and when daughters marry, you gain
sons. What this means is, at least among middle-class families, married sons visit their
wives' families equally or more often than their own families due to strong psychological
bonds between daughters and mothers. Daughters can expect financial and physical support
from their own mothers, and mothers and fathers in return expect to be cared for by their
own daughters in old age.
Feminist activists in Looking for Fumiko (1993), a film documenting Japanese women's
liberation movements in the 1970s, explained that at least at home Japanese women remain
the center of the household and had power in the domestic sphere. The activists in the film
claimed that Japanese women had control over their husbands, children's education and
household budget. This domestic power made Japanese women less sympathetic to the
scalle sexual discrimination against women in Japan. However, for students whose
experiences are limited to mainly domestic spheres (where mothers are the center), it is very
hard to understand the experience of a working class family like Theresa's, ruled by a
parochial authoritarian male.
As I worked with students, encouraging them to examine the issues cross-culturally,
instead of judging Theresa's behavior in terms of their personal values, I began to realize
problems in the film itself. The further the class moved into the film, the closer we came not
to the feminist struggle, but to a Hollywood notion of gender roles. On the surface, Theresa
appears to be struggling for liberation. But there is an insidious subtext of visual clues and
verbal hints to suggest a different message. In the daytime, Theresa is a compassionate and
capable teacher of deaf-mute students. At night, however, she becomes a promiscuous
woman in search of pleasure. The image strikes one as schizophrenic. The sacred mother
during the day becomes the nymphomaniac at night, the bad girl deserving of punishment
and banishment.
Theresa seems to be enjoying herself. But as the camera captures the filth in her kitchen
we become aware of her constant restlessness, her insecurity, and her complete failure to
achieve independence. We are left with the implication that there is no place in this world for
65
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a woman like Theresa, and no fate for a woman who rejects a man's protection but death.
As I stated earlier, Japanese students failed to capture the basic premise of this film.
They could not understand Theresa's need to escape from oppression. The power of religion
and patriarchal oppression was alien to Japanese students. Theresa's struggle was perceived
as too radical and violent by them. In addition to the lack of cultural information, however, I
found more serious problems in the film itself. That is, superficially the film showed a
feminist struggle, but closer examination of the film reveals that it conveys a different
message (perhaps, a traditional Hollywood notion of gender roles). The visual cues of
Theresa's dirty kitchen and her promiscuous behavior in the evening certainly confused
Japanese students' attempts to justify Theresa's rebellious behavior, and therefore, the
message of the film itself.
Louise, two working-class women, a housewife and a waitress, set forth on a short summer
trip. Before long they are involved in a series of serious difficulties. They stop off at a
shabby roadside bar and Thelma, who is married to a despotic self-important man who
shows little interest in her, fires herself up with margaritas and flirts with one of the roadside
cowboys. The flirtation ends in an attempt at rape, but the rape is thwarted by Louise, who
has a gun. The murder of the would-he rapist sets them off on their fatal journey.
In their flight from the police, they are verbally abused by a truck-driver, are robbed, and
end up robbing a general store themselves. There is no turning back now and they become
the target of a police search. No one, Thelma's husband included, makes any attempt to
understand what is happening to the two women and in the end, they choose death rather
than surrender to the forces about to engulf them.
I showed Thelma and Louise to a group of Japanese students in a summer program in the
United States with the expressed purpose of generating discussion on gender issues. Once
again, I found their understanding to flounder on two points. Why, they wondered, did
Thelma and Louise have to go to such extremes of revolt? And why was Thelma so afraid of
her husband?
Accustomed to a society where the value of harmony deflates the inclination to protest,
the students find Thelma and Louise's choices incomprehensible. When faced with a social
injustice, Japanese are likely to step back and ponder. What went wrong? Who is
responsible? But to take action, to show oneself in a disturbed state of mind, has always
been considered ignoble. Problems are to be solved or suffered quietly, at the personal level.
Indeed, the attitude is still common that society is bettered through self-improvement. This
was the conclusion reached in the Japanese feminist movement of the 1970s and documented
in the film Looking for Fwniko (1993). The women who participated in the movement came
to the conclusion that they should improve themselves and not revolt. Given this
background, it is not surprising that Thelma and Louise's violent and reckless actions should
carry little sympathy with Japanese audiences.
In Thelma and Louise, Thelma's suffering originates in her husband's oppression. Too
scared to face him, Thelma has to leave him a note to tell him she is leaving for a short
summer trip with Louise. Thelma's relationship with her husband parallels the relationship
between Theresa and her father in Looking for Mr. Goodbar. The characters of the father
and the husband represent the controlling power in a patriarchal society.
Louise's anger and frustration come in part from her relationship with her boyfriend, a
musician unwilling to commit to settling down. Unable to achieve the marriage she seeks,
the institution which society teaches her is necessary for her satisfaction, she lives in a
relationship characterized by tension. Both Thelma's anger and Louise's frustration reflect
the tension of relationships.
Japanese young people's relationships develop in a considerably different context.
Students, especially those from affluent middle class families, are seldom exposed to the
threat of a father's male power. They are not controlled by their professional salary-man
fathers in the same way as the characters of Theresa and Thelma and Louise are controlled by
their male authority figures. Instead, unmarried girls often have controlling power over their
fathers and boyfriends. The fact that Japanese girls often have a number of boyfriends for
different purposes may support my assumption. For example, boys are labelled asshii-kun
(from "ashi" leg - in Japanese) if they are seen for their ability to provide girls with a ride in
a car. Or they are mitsugu-kun (from "mitsugu" - contribute, or supply) if they are good
providers of gifts.
The visual clues in Thelma and Louise, like those in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, carry
different meanings for Japanese students from perhaps those intended by the filmmakers. In
one scene, a police detective investigating Louise's house, finds her kitchen shining clean,
and he concludes Louise cannot be the loose woman she is purported to be. He sympathizes
with her and offers her help. Louise's personality and values are suggested by her clothing
and her hairdo. Originally buttoned up and tidy, her clothes and hair gradually loosen as she
approaches the fall. What is this "looseness"? Increasing freedom or the road to destruction?
Japanese students tend to interpret these clues as a sign of Louise's fall from grace.
In addition to the two films I have discussed in the previous section, I would like to talk
about two more films which are commonly used by colleagues to effectively foster
discussion on gender issues in language classes. They are Switch (1991) and Working Girl
67
(1988). In contrast to Looking for Mr. Goodbar and Thelma and Louise, these films appear
to carry little misleading cultural information. However, if we simply view these films as a
means of approaching women's issues, we are still apt to find ourselves outwitted by student
expectations. Students may actually draw the opposite "lessons" from those intended.
Switch
Switch (1991) serves to illustrate how verbal and nonverbal behavior are gender specific.
In this film, Steve, a male chauvinist and exploiter of many women, is finally killed by one
and condemned to hell. At the last minute, God gives him one chance to escape his destiny.
If Steve can find a woman who truly loves him, God challenges him, he will be allowed into
Heaven. He is sent back to Earth to complete his mission. It turns out the job is not as easy
as Steve thinks. God has turned him into a woman.
Steve, now called Amanda, encounters all the usual women's difficulties in learning to be
a stereotypical woman. The tight clothes, high heels, the long hair all restrict movement.
Amanda cannot cross her legs, talk loud, or be vulgar. She learns to feel like a piece of meat.
Only when she gives birth to a baby girl, at the last moment of her life as a woman, does she
stop loathing being a woman. Up till that point, the film is a satire on gender polarization and
the unfair treatment of women. Suddenly, the message becomes the lesson that a woman's
hardships can all make sense, that life with difficulty can pay off, through childbirth!
Students who were laughing loudly up till that last moment at the stupidity of gender
polarization usually become serious at this point in' the film. At that point, instead of
analyzing the meaning and the validity of the lesson that the film is trying to teach, students
start entertaining the idea that, after all, childbirth does justify a woman's existence.
Working Girl
Working Girl (1988) serves to illustrate class distinctions within gender. Tess, the main
character of the film, is a secretary in a merger and acquisition company. She works for a
female boss about her own age but different in every other way. Unlike Tess, the boss is
poised, confident and capable. She dresses conservatively and speaks in a low wellmodulated voice, in striking contrast to Tess's cute-little-girl character with make-up and
Tess is not just a secretary, however. She has ambition and a talent for business. She
discovers that her boss has stolen her business ideas, outwits her and eventually wins over
both her business and her business partner/boyfriend. The structure of Working Girl is
similar to that of the previous films. There is a woman in need of help, and men capable of
68
helping. This time, however, the woman accepts. She also succeeds in a big way. And she
gets it all. The students' interpretation of this film is usually simplistic. That is, a woman
with a wicked mind is punished and a woman with a good heart succeeds. Students rarely
reach the level of analysis where a stereotypical structure between men and women surfaces:
men are the ones who have the power and resources and women are the powerless and
resourceless ones. The stereotype persists that, without men's assistance and protection,
women never succeed.
D iscussion
I have identified two potential sources of problems in the use of "outculture" films in EFL
programs. These are implicit cultural sources of power and authority and the subtextual
semiotics in the film structure itself which undercut the purported message of feminism. In
Looking for Mr. Goodbar and Thelma and Louise, without proper cultural guidance,
Japanese students fail to understand the motivation for Theresa's rebellious behavior and for
Thelma and Louise's rampage. In Switch and Working Girl, the stories and characters are
less difficult to follow, but the treatment of the battle between the sexes, the hierarchy
between men and women, the struggle between the powerful and the powerless still escapes
them. If these Hollywood films are to be taken seriously, one would have to conclude this
hierarchical structure has not changed since Adam was given Eve to be his companion and
assistant. The cultural problems can be seen in two contrasting views of Japanese women-one is espoused in the work of Jane Condon (1985) and the other in the work of Sumiko
Iwao (1993). The former portrays Japanese women as being seriously oppressed and the
latter describes at least middle class women as being autonomous and unoppressed. If my
assumption is correct, and Iwao has the better understanding, her view should help explain
the Japanese students' perceptual gap.
Among the four films discussed, only Looking for Mr. Goodbar and Thelma and Louise,
the two with tragic endings, are generally taken by viewers as serious feminist statements.
The women not only fail; they are killed in their attempt to become free. There are father
figures who offer help and protection. Rejection of that help puts them out in the cold as they
come to be threats to the social institutions of a patriarchal society. In both cases, it is the
serious and intense; Thelma and Louise's is more casual. This may suggest that in the last
twenty years it has become easier for women to liberate themselves physically. Secondly, in
Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Theresa is only a victim of a crime, but in Thelma and Louise, the
women become criminals themselves. Women, now equipped with a gun/phallus, are able to
69
75
attack and take revenge. No longer merely the recipient of male violence, where the phallus
is a weapon of assault, they are now equals in their capacity for defense. Louise shoots the
attempted rapist and later she and Thelma shoot up an abusive truck driver's truck in
retaliation for violence. The women have become perpetrators now of violence.
From a feminist point of view, these changes in the depiction of women are not
necessarily improvements. Women, still stereotypically associated with the kitchen, have to
die to achieve their ends. Is that the message? There are only two choices? Death or the
kitchen?
Women tend to be depicted in Japanese films with far greater power and strength of
character. One thinks of Oshin and of women in Trasan films. Even yakuza films have
featured women in main character roles (cf. the Hibotan Oryuu series popular among men in
the late 1960s and early 1970s and Gokudoo no Tumatachi in the late 1980s and early
1990s.) Indeed, Japanese women characters may actually outnumber female characters in
Hollywood films. This is not to imply equality in Japanese films but it is suggestive of the
way films may be a key to the analysis of cultural values and the ways gender issues are
culture specific.
Language learning is inseparable from culture learning. In this paper, I have tried to
show how Japanese students may fail to capture the premise of American films. In order to
get below a superficial interpretation of the content of outculture films, proper cultural
cultural artifacts. Teachers should always be aware of this potential cultural gap between
films and the students. Otherwise, as my scenario for misunderstanding suggests, students
may not achieve the depth of understanding that the instructor intends.
References
Condon, Jane. (1985). A Half Step Behind. Japanese Women Today. Tokyo: Charles E.
Tuttle Company.
Iwao, Sumiko. (1993). The Japanese Women.. Traditional Image & Changing Reality.
New York: The Free Press.
Kaplan, E. Ann. (1983). Women & Film: Both Sides of The Camera. London: Routledge.
70
about the USA. For her this was a first step in being "international." But she wanted
more. "An international person needs to know more than information about America. Or
about Japan. We need to learn to think abut other cultures and our own in an objective
way ."
This and similar comments started me thinking about using films in comparative
culture classes to emphasize critical thinking skills. Some have suggested that these skills
are particularly important, and difficult, for Japanese students, given the rigor of their rote
the diversity within and among them, and at constants within and between them. Critical
in that, for many anthropologists, the knowledge they wring from their particular and
comparative studies leads them back to their own culture. The process goes something
like this: The particular studies let us appreciate the fit or lack of fit of experience to its
particular social structure and historical context. Comparing these studies allows us to
see the range of human experience and the diversity of responses to similar situations.
This, hopefully, awakens in the observer a sense of the constraint she or he lives under
and a sense of the alternatives possible. I use films to help my students through
something like this anthropological process.
In no way is this a new approach to comparative social research. Montaigne, writing
in 1590 in Renaissance France, practiced it in his essay "Of Cannibals" (1991). The
particular knowledge gained in the early voyages of European exploration, the knowledge
of the Other, allows Montaigne to compare it with life in Europe at the time and to make
71
critical sense of his own life and culture. To the students in my classes these analytic and
critical skills are new. Using films, a medium they enjoy and seem to think of as a
pleasure, starts them thinking along these lines while making the job of learning content
and analytical skills in the medium of English seem less like work. A discussion of one
such class might help make what I mean more clear.
they see as hero or heroine in most films they watch. Given time they usually come up
with a short list that comes close to describing the dominant or referent group of the
Nevertheless, I let it stand. First, because justly or unjustly this referent group does
indeed exercise power in the United States. Second, this group does, in most ways and
under most circumstances, set the standards against which other, less powerful groups
(women, African Americans, and gays, to name just three) resist or acquiesce. Third, for
the purposes of comparison, either within the United States or between the United States
beliefs, or standards of conduct of the dominant American group. With a little work and
artful manipulation of answers I can usually get a list of values that roughly replicates that
of Alexis de Tocqueville (1945) on his visit to the Untied States in the 1830's, namely:
individual freedom and self-reliance, equality of opportunity and competition, and
material wealth and hard work.
As we work out the meaning of these terms in the American context, I remind
students that these are the ideal values, the tatemae, not the reality or honne of American
life. The films they normally see--comedies or tragedies, romances or action films-represent these ideals, affirming, rejecting, or simply provoking a reaction to them in one
way or another. I remind them again that these are the values of a specific group: the
dominant group. Those in power can use these values to suppress and limit the lives of
others who are outside of the group--through birth or training or skills or inclination.
These are values that would be different, very different, if we were considering films by
and about, for example, inner-city women or the rural poor or migrant workers.
Once the students seem to have a basic idea of what these values are about, I ask them
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72
where Americans experience them, what are the institutions of society. We usually wind
up with a list that includes the family, economic and business institutions, government,
education, and religion. We also usually include institutions specific to American society
because of particular historical experiences. In the case of the United States, one is
ethnicity and race, from the experience of assimilation and diversity and slavery in
American society. Another, differing wildly in depth, is sports and recreation, from the
ways organized sports, as distinct form individual play, illustrates and reinforces
American values.
students get used to the ways values are reflected in films. They learn, first, that popular
culture is packed with all sorts of information about the society that created it. It is their
jobs, as careful viewers, to unpack it and select what is important from what isn't, to
recognize the biases and prejudices of the work and build analyses around them, to
identify examples and counter-examples of the values, and to recognize the way these
biases are played on in the film.
Here is the way I have approached one short three-minute scene form the film. Ebby
(Tim Robbins) is an undisciplined but talented pitcher, put out in the farm leagues to
develop. The "organization" has brought in Crash (Kevin Costner) to groom Ebby in the
ways of baseball. After a series of entanglements--professional, moral, and romantic-Ebby gets transferred to a major league team and rushes to a local pool hall to tell Crash
79
Crash: See this right arm? Worth a million bucks a year. All my limbs put
together aren't worth seven cents a pound. (Shelton 1992, pp. 91-92)
I first get the profanity out of the way--in part by linking it to the values of the male
his hard work, most specifically material wealth, escape him. Ebby, on the other hand,
by virtue simply of his talent will succeed in ways that Crash will never. Talented Ebby
will become rich, hardworking Crash will remain poor. The failure of the American
values of hard work and material success to reciprocate the way they should fuels the
anger of the film in this scene and makes Crash a sympathetic character.
Together we unpack the values and assumptions of two or three more scenes in the
movie. Then students go to the movies. I hand out a short list of suggested films for
each social institution. Each team selects one film, watches it off campus, analyzes it,
responds to it in some way, and shares their work with the class.
By the end of this exercise, students seem to have a fair grasp of the basic skills of
analysis and the ways films and society reflect one another. The fact that the culture
being analyzed is some exotic Other society (Durham, North Carolina, in the example)
seems to help students see the workings of social values, since it can be difficult for them
as insiders to see these values in their own culture. Additionally, I try to avoid
stereotypes by constantly reminding students that most of the films represent the values of
America's dominant group, even when the film critiques the group and its values. This
brings us about half way through the semester.
values and practices of other cultures and turn them on Japan. The values become a lens
to see their own society more clearly. We spend one class coming up with a profile of the
dominant group in Japanese society and another class making a list of some of the values
of that group. This usually includes such values as group orientation, hard work
(gambaru), hierarchy, dependency, cooperation, and harmony. Next we develop a list of
significant institutions, usually but not always replicating the list from the United States.
Changes might include replacing race with community. Students then get back into their
teams and do some research on the nature of their team's institution in Japan. They use
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worksheets to describe their institution in the lives of Japanese and, analyze the ways the
values of the dominant social group are reflected in it. We exchange these reports.
By this point, it is time to start watching Japanese movies. Earlier in the term we
watched sections of an American film together in class (the Bull Durham example). Each
team has watched a film about a specific American institution and has reported in detail to
the class on the expression of their institution in a film. For films about Japan, I rely
heavily on students' judgment. I suggest films, for example Tokyo Monogatari for the
team working on the family or Kurosawa's Ikiru as a classic film about government.
Ultimately, I let the students pick and choose. As they did for the United States, each
team selects a Japanese film about an assigned institution, watches the film off campus,
and then analyzes, and responds to it. Later, each team shares its work with the class.
Student Illesponses
I have collected student comments about the class on course evaluations for the last
three years. The responses have been generally positive. Most find it an insight that
films can be more than entertainment. They are surprised to find films laden with the
values of their makers. The comment by Hiroko 0. is typical of this response. "It's
good for me to watch some movies. I only watch movies till this class just started. But
now I see movies with thinking about their background values. It will get interesting to
watch movies and TV in my future."
Other students go beyond this and make their first critical insights into their own
culture and values using the comparative and analytic skills of the class. Yoshiko A.
wrote, "I realized that to be International people we should know not only other country
but also to know our own culture well." Another student, Yasue K. took this a step
further when she noted, "I had have opportunity to think about Japanese values. When
we leave in Japan, we sometimes don't think what the Japanese based on history or our
origin. I fount that our life has a important meaning with values to understand what the
Japanese is." Or there are the comments of Tomomi 0. who noted that the class brought
films and thinking about Japan together for her when she wrote, "I have had the chance to
look at Japan and movies from an objective view, so that I fund lots of new facts of the
Japanese society which I did not recognize before."
Some students go beyond the a recognition of the values inherent in popular culture
and beyond simple comparative statements. They begin to make a fuller critical and
reflective response to their own society and their place in it. Take for example the
comments of Nobuaki I. "Dominants have their own values and use it to control other
people. I watch movies and think to touch on this." Misato S. had a similar response
75
when she wrote, "I learned ways to analyze the values of the dominant group in a each
culture. The values itself (like Japanese dependence) were thought-provoking." Another
student, Yuko S, took this critical response a step further. She commented on the ways
the values of the dominant group shape the values and responses of less powerful groups
when she wrote, "I think to learn dominant groups is to know not dominant groups. For
example, if I learn about the white, I can know the discrimination of the Negro and if I
learn about the men-dominant society, I can know that women are often not still accepted
in the society. At this point, the film work is very useful for me."
A few students begin seriously considering their own culture and their places in it
critically. They start to question what before had been simple truths to them. By
extension, this questioning might awaken them to a sense of the diversity surrounding
them. Consider the comments of Toshio K., "As for me, the Japanese way of thinking is
that the one who always receive many information will never analyze and criticize them.
The worse is, he believe these information are his original ideas even though they may be
some propaganda of some institutions. This class and films is good for always
emphasize the important of criticizing and analyzing movie and society. You try us to
realize there are many ways of thinking in the world (and even in Japan)."
Student responses suggest that the course is doing what I want it to. In the first
place, all the work in the class is conducted in English. Even more importantly, many
students comment that the course develops their "objective" ability to compare cultures
and that they become aware of films as more than simple entertainments. Others note that
the course has helped them consider for the first time the ways the dominant group of any
society, including their society, uses cultural values to reinforce its position in the society.
Conclusion
It is a long way from the critical and reflective musings of Montaigne to the responses
of Japanese college students. But read sympathetically, the students share certain features
with the French essayist. First, both exercise the basic anthropological skills of
comparative thinking. They take the particulars of a society and use them to develop a
sense of social diversity and constants. Second, both the students and Montaigne
exercise the anthropological skill of critical thinking. They use what they have learned
about particular cultures to reflect on their own culture and their places in it.
There are still things I want to do with the class. I want to find a way to start students
thinking more concretely about the ways the dominant culture and its values work to
suppress diversity. I want to reshape the class to help students become more aware of the
alternatives less powerful groups have constructed, of other perceptions and experiences
76
and values. This might require shifting the course to focus on those groups rather than
on the dominant group. It might require a class in liberation movements rather than
relatively straightforward comparative cultures. It might require getting students out of
the classroom and into the street, participating, observing, and interviewing. But this is
getting away from a basic class in comparative culture and the use of films.
As it stands, the class is a good start in the basic anthropological skills of comparative
and critical thinking. Students tell me that the structure of the early part of the class, by
referring to another society, frees them to watch, analyze, and respond to films in ways
they might not have done had they started with the too familiar, with Japan. They tell me
that films, more than books, make the characters' experiences of the institutions, and the
values there embedded, alive and immediate. Using the films allows them to bring
together a personal response with critical cognitive analytic skills--skills the students can
use in other classes, other situations, and, best of all, outside of class.
Refferen ices
McCornick, A. (1993). Journal writing and the damaged language learner. In C.P.
Casanave (Ed.), Journal writing: Pedagogical perspectives (pp. 6-17). Keio
University, SFC, Institution of Languages and Communication.
Montaigne, M. de (1991). The essays. London: Allen Lane.
Tocqueville, Alexis de (1945). Democracy in America. New York: Vintage.
Shelton, R. (1992). Bull Durham. Tokyo: Four In Creative.
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Like many things in life, your attitude towards copyright law may depend on your
vested interest in the subject. If you are an educator who is teaching or researching then
copyright law regarding copying books, articles, videos etc. may be quite restrictive. In
this respect, you may believe in the view that all knowledge, art and culture once created
should be free and accessible to everyone. Alternatively, if you are an educator who is
publishing then copyright law becomes your friend and possibly the reason for your
income. In this respect, you may take the view that the interests of those who create a
work should be protected thus encouraging the authors of such work to produce more for
the benefit of the public or for benefit to themselves.
The type of material which can be copyrighted can vary extensively--from the rights
you might consider to be quite extreme. Take for example the case of Carson v Here's
Johnny Portable Toilets Inc. (1983) where a court upheld that the entertainer Johnny
Carson had exclusive rights to the phrase "Here's Johnny" and was thus able to prohibit a
toilet company from using his magic words to market their portable toilet.
Whatever your attitude towards copyright law, the fact is that it does exist, and I
would like to provide here some guidelines as to how it relates to the recording and
performance of video material for educational use. I will explain the general laws and
guidelines in two countries: Japan and the United States and in two categories 1) off-air
recording from broadcasts, satellite, or cable--in other words, recording from the TV and
2) the use of pre-recorded video tapes in the classroom. I would like to point out that
these are guidelines only to provide some context in which to consider your use of video
material. It is not specific legal advice. If you have a particular copyright problem, then
it would be advisable to approach the copyright owners directly or to consult the
guidelines (if they exist) of your local educational authority.
International Copyright
When we look at the copyright laws of different countries, the important point to
remember is that even though there are international copyright conventions and treaties to
which most major countries are signatories, technically there is no such thing as
II would liketo express my thanks to my assistant, Mica Yano, for her invaluable help in the research of
Japanese copyright law.
8 4.
78
international copyright. Each country has its own copyright laws and adopts the
provisions of international treaties as it sees fit. However, one of the major outcomes
under these treaties and conventions is that each country protects the works produced in
another country as if they had been produced within its own borders (Berne Convention,
1971). In other words, Japan will protect a video produced in the United States to the
full extent of Japanese copyright law while the United States will protect a video
produced in Japan to the full extent of U.S. copyright law. In a situation where the laws
of the United States are stricter than the laws of Japan, this may lead to the anomaly of
Japanese film makers enjoying more protection of their work in the United States than in
their own country.
As with individuals, a country's attitude towards copyright law will depend on its
vested interests. A country like the United States which has a huge film industry will be
concerned with protecting strenuously the rights of ownership to its products while, on
the other hand, Japan which has a huge manufacturing industry especially in the field of
video cassette recorders, would perhaps logically want to encourage less copyright
control and more pro-user sentiment. An example of this conflict of vested interests can
be seen when Sony introduced the world to the video cassette recorder with its own
record function. In 1979, in the United States, Sony was sued by Universal City Studios
Inc. on the grounds that this record function was encouraging the illegal copying of
copyrighted material. In a landmark decision, the U.S. Courts finally upheld the right of
Sony to sell Betamax VCRs to home users for the purpose of "time-shifting," i.e.,
recording a TV program for private use at a more convenient time, thus paving the way
for a home video recording boom (Universal City Studios v. Sony Corporation of
America, 1981).
Japan
Off-air Recording
In Japan, the main provision governing copying copyrighted material for educational
purposes is contained in Article 35 of the Japanese Copyright Law (1970) which states as
follows:
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0c
What does this mean as far as recording programs from television is concerned? Let
First, the person instigating the recording must be the teacher. In other words, if a
friend of yours records a TV program and then comes to you and says "You might want
to use this video in class" then technically this would be illegal as the recording was not
made by the teacher in charge of the class.
Second, the education institution for which the recording is done must be non-profit.
This will include a private university but will not include a language school or cram
school. Therefore, any copying done for a private language school of television
programs will be illegal under the Act.
Third, there is the proviso that such copying shall not unreasonably prejudice the
interests of the copyright owner. Now, in Japan, it is very difficult to discover what
"unreasonably prejudice" means because virtually no cases have gone to court on this
subject so there is no legal definition of the phrase.
In the absence of case law, I was referred often in my research to the work of
Moriyuki Kato (1994)2 and it seems that in the practical application of Japanese copyright
law, his opinion is very well respected. In order to examine "unreasonable prejudice" in
educational use he considers four points:
1. the kind of material used, e.g., copying a whole novel or fairy tale for a Japanese
class is not allowed. Copying part of a literary work that has a limited availability is not
allowed.
4. the form of reproduction, e.g., making copies in a form that is marketable would
be illegal.
Using these four criteria as a guide to the interpretation of what prejudices
unreasonably the right of the copyright owner, when the educational use clashes with
commercial interests and overwhelms the profit or potential profit of the material, then the
use of that material will be prohibited. With regard to videos, it seems that since the
economic value of the material is very high, then the standards applied to dubbing will be
very strict (Kato, 1994).
2The references to Kato have been translated from the Japanese by my assistant, Mica Yano, and
paraphrased by me.
80
How does this translate into practice with regard to copying off-air? As long as the
recording of programs from Japanese television complies with the conditions of Article
Originally, when asked if copying their broadcasts for educational purposes was
permissible, they said that it was, subject to the guidelines Kato mentions with regard to
kind of material, purpose, etc.. However, the next day they called back to say that they
now considered recording of their programs even for educational purposes to be
prejudicial to their commercial interests. If WOWOW chooses to take such a stance, there
is no Japanese case law with which to challenge their policy. However, the converse will
also be true in that if an instructor records a satellite broadcast for educational purposes
and that instructor feels he or.she is not unreasonably prejudicing the right of the
copyright owner, the satellite company has no case law with which to challenge the
publicly that programs can be recorded for educational use under Article 35. For
example, movies, sports programs and news programs are normally purchased under
contracts which will restrict the recording of these programs by third parties or which will
protect the rights of privacy or publicity of those persons appearing in, for example, a
documentary. Any public comment by a television company authorising an Article 35
recording may result in a breach of those contracts.
Pre-recorded Video Tapes
The relevant section of the Japanese Copyright Law 1970 which deals with the
showing of a video in the classroom is Article 38 which reads as follows:
8187
2) not collecting entrance fees, and 3) not paying the performers, which in the case of
showing a video in the classroom is irrelevant here. With regard to the first criterion,
non-profit making purposes, judgement should be made from the viewpoint of whether
the use will indirectly lead to profit-making (Kato,1994). I am not sure how showing a
movie at a language school would be interpreted, but I suspect that it would be seen as
being for indirect profit-making purposes, even though students are not being directly
charged for seeing the movie.
Provided therefore that all three criteria of Article 38 are met, a teacher at a non-profit
making establishment can show a video movie in the classroom. It should be noted here
that there is no provision as to whether the performance should be for educational
copyright infringement enforcement agencies. In Japan, there are two reasons for this,
both of which are based on practicalities. The first is that it is very difficult and
complicated to get a copyright licence and secondly, there are more serious problems for
the video industry such as the showing of videos in hotels, saunas and sightseeing buses
for profit. In other words, showing dubbed movies in an educational establishment does
not present as much of a liability to the video industry as other illegal uses do. However,
the knowledge that an action is illegal but will not be prosecuted presents an ethical
Finally, how does the law apply to the copying of small clips from movies, e.g., to
illustrate a language point in the classroom such as the use of certain idioms or
conversational techniques? Again there is nothing in Japanese law to help you here apart
from the "prejudices unreasonably" phrase in Article 35. If you feel that copying say a
five-minute scene from a movie for educational purposes does not unreasonably prejudice
the right of the copyright owner, at the moment there is no case law in Japan to
specifically challenge this use.
82
United States
The Doctrine of 'Fair Use'
In the United States, the most important principle to consider for our purposes is the
doctrine of fair use which was embodied into statute by Section 107 of the Copyright
Law ( Copyright Law of the United States of 1976). Basically, the doctrine of fair use is
an equitable rule of reason (now expressed in statute) allowing a person to use
copyrighted material in a situation which is deemed to be fair. It is not unlike the
Japanese "doesn't unreasonably prejudice" except that the principle is much more defined
in Section 107 of the Act which is as follows:
Notwithstanding the provisions of Sections 106 and 106A (which defines the
exclusive rights of the copyright owner) the fair use of a copyrighted work,
including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other
means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news
reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or
research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use
made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered
shall include:
1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a
commercial nature or is for non-profit educational purposes;
2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted
work as a whole; and
4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted
work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such
finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
This doctrine applies to all uses of copyrighted material and is especially useful
regarding making photocopies. However, the criteria embodied in Section 107 offer
guidance only and each case will raise its own situation which will have to be decided on
its own facts.
How does the doctrine of fair use affect the use of video? As an example, we can
apply the criteria of section 107 to the situation where an instructor wants to use video
clips to illustrate a language or cultural point. In this specific case, an instructor wants to
copy a one-minute scene from the movie Rising Sun starring Sean Connery to show
students how introductions are made between Japanese and non-Japanese. Let us apply
the criteria of fair use to this situation. First, is the purpose for non-profit educational
purposes? Yes. Good, that will go a long way to helping us. Second, what is the nature
of the copyrighted work? Is it a rare movie? It is a general release movie and video.
83
89
Good. Therefore the work is not particularly exclusive. Third, is the copied portion a
substantial amount of the whole? No. It is a one-minute clip only, less than 1% of the
whole. However, we have to be careful here because a small portion does not necessarily
mean unsubstantial. For example, if I copy just the smile from the Mona Lisa it may be
just a small portion but it represents the substance of the painting; or I copy the final
scene from a movie with the last line "The butler did it!"--only four words but an essential
part of the plot. In one case in the United Kingdom, the producers of the T'V series
Starsky and Hutch successfully sued a publishing company for using one frame of a
fifty-minute film for use on a poster. The use of the one-frame was found to be
"substantial" although it should be remembered here that the frame was used here for
commercial not educational purposes (Spelling. Goldberg v. BPC Publishing, 1981).
The final criterion to apply is what is the effect of the use on the potential market? In
this case, almost negligible as it is unlikely that the instructor would wish to buy this
particular video for just a one-minute segment. Therefore, under Article 107, the
instructor has justification for saying that copying this one-minute clip was fair use
(although the courts may say differently).
However, there is one additional point I would like to make here to demonstrate how
complex copyright law can be. In the United States, there exists what is known as a right
of publicity where a person (usually a famous personality) has the right to grant the
exclusive privilege of publishing his/her picture or in the case of Johnny Carson, his
catch-phrase, or in the case of look-alike actors, their visual image (although this right
does not apply if the celebrity's activities have a bona fide news value). Therefore, if
Sean Connery felt in anyway exploited by the use of this clip (which is probably not the
case here), he could have an action against the instructor.
Off-air Recording
The most important application of the fair use doctrine with regard to off-air recording
has been incorporated into guidelines laid down by a Negotiating Committee appointed by
(Copyright Office, 1992; Appendix). These guidelines have not been incorporated into
statute but they do provide the educator with useful rules as to what is considered fair use
in taping off-air.
According to the guidelines, as with Japan, off-air recordings may be made only at
the request of and used by individual teachers of a non-profit educational institution. The
30
84
recorded program can be retained for 45 consecutive calendar days after date of recording
after which time it must be erased. Unlike Japan, there is a specified retention period in
the United States for the recorded material. Broadcast programs here are l'V programs
transmitted by TV stations for reception by the general public free of charge, therefore
these guidelines would not apply to cable TV. The recording can only be used once
within the first ten consecutive school days of the 45 day retention period and may be
used again within that period only for the purpose of teacher evaluation. Provided an
instructor follows these guidelines for recording programs off-air, then his or her conduct
will be considered fair use of the material.
Pre-recorded Video Tapes
The relevant section in the US Copyright Act governing the performance of movies
and videos in the classroom is Section 110(1) which states that the following is not
infringement of copyright:
place of instruction is quite legal. I should point out here that the showing of the video
must be in the course of teaching activities and therefore, it is technically illegal to show a
video to your class, say, at the end of semester, purely as entertainment. Furthermore,
this section of the Act limits the non-profit making activities to educational institutions
and does not unreasonably prejudice the right of the copyright owner. In the United
States, off-air recording is similarly permissible if made at the request of and used by
85
91
guidelines and retention periods as laid down by the Negotiating Committee. The
existence of these guidelines helps educators in the United States to interpret the fair use
doctrine thus avoiding the problems of the Japanese legislation where the interpretation of
unreasonable prejudice is extremely vague.
With regard to showing a pre-recorded video in the classroom, the relevant law in
Japan is more generous than in the United States because the legislation refers not only to
educational establishments but to any situation where a video may be shown publicly.
Therefore, the presentation of a pre-recorded video in Japan is permissible provided only
that the presentation is for non-profit making purposes and no entrance fees are collected.
right to broadcast over all its transmitters in a particular region or country. However, a
satellite is a transmitter in space outside the territory of any nation and cannot be related to
the law of any nation. The footprint of the satellite, i.e., the reception area, will not
necessarily match country's boundaries and anyway each country will have its own laws.
In Europe, the EEC is in the anomalous situation of trying to harmonise the laws of
copyright within its own boundaries, which are not necessarily within the boundaries of
the satellite. Then there is the question of when the broadcast can be controlled for
copyright purposes. When it is transmitted to the satellite or when it is received from the
satellite? Some countries will allow recording for educational purposes, others will not.
People with powerful dishes will be able to receive broadcasts outside the nominal range
of the broadcasts and can make illegal copies. Legal action against such use will be
costly.
Solutions will always lag behind technology but my own feeling is that the copyright
laws will generally move more in favour of the user rather than the authors mainly
because the ability to control the use of copyright material is becoming increasingly
difficult.
92
86
Conclusion
Being aware of the laws regarding performance of videos in the classroom means you
cannot now claim ignorance of the law as an excuse--which is not a valid defence
anyway. However, the enforcement of copyright laws, especially as regarding video
performance or copying is concerned, is very difficult and time and effort by enforcement
agencies are generally directed against video piracy on a larger scale than the use of
community and did not pay any admission charge. (Note: such a performance would be
legal in Japan because the performance would be for non-profit making purposes and no
distinction is made between public and private performance and educational use).
Therefore, the dilemma for us as educators will tend to be ethical rather than practical.
Certainly, when teachers become members of their local educational authority in the
United States they subscribe to the Code of Ethics of the Education Profession (National
Education Association, 1994-95) which states that "the educator accepts the responsibility
to adhere to the highest ethical standards." Is making illegal copies of videos without
paying for them adhering to the highest ethical standards? Do we believe that material
which has an educational and informative use should be freely available? Would we take
a flower from someone's garden to let our students see a rose? In order to overcome
these dilemmas, I think it is important for each educational authority or establishment to
take the responsibility of creating a set of guidelines regarding copyright policy to help
their staff. Where these guidelines do not exist and you are unaware of the law (this is
relevant to all copyrighted material not just videos), I think a good yardstick to apply is
the fair use principle of the United States. If you apply these conditions to what you are
doing, I think you will find you are taking a responsible attitude towards your use of
copyrighted material. By measuring your behaviour against the fair use criteria, you will
either be able to justify your use as being fair or you will know that it is probably
advisable to seek permission for your actions from the copyright owners.
87
References
Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (Paris Revision
1971), Article 5.
Carson v. Here's Johnny Portable Toilets Inc., 698 f.2d 831 (6th Cir 1983).
Copyright Law of the United States of America 1976 [title 17 of the United States Code,
Public Law 94-553, 90 Stat.2541(revised to February 1, 1993)].
Copyright Office. (1992). Reproduction of Copyrighted Works by Educators and
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Appendix
Guidelines for Videorecording of Broadcast Programming for Educational Purposes
calendar days after date of recording. Upon conclusion of such retention period, all offair recordings must be erased or destroyed immediately. "Broadcast programs" are
television programs transmitted by television stations for reception by the general public
without charge.
day calendar day retention period. "School days" are school session days--not counting
weekends, holidays, vacations, examination periods, or other scheduled interruptions-within the forty-five (45) calendar day retention period.
4. Off-air recordings may be made only at the request of and used by individual
6. After the first ten (10) consecutive school days, off-air recordings may be used up
to the end of the forty-five (45) calendar day retention period only for teachers' evaluation
purposes, i.e., to determine whether or not to include the broadcast program in the
teaching curriculum, and may not be used in the recording institution for student
exhibition or any other non-evaluation purpose without authorization.
7. Off-air recordings need not be used in their entirety, but the recorded programs
may not be altered from their original content. Off-air recording may not be physically or
electronically combined or merged to constitute teaching anthologies or compilations.
89
35
8. All copies of off-air recordings must include the copyright notice on the broadcast
program as recorded.
9. Educational institutions are expected to establish appropriate control procedures to
maintain the integrity of these guidelines.
06
90
AUTHOR BIOSTATEMENTS
Jeffrey Cady teaches at Athenee Francais in Tokyo and at Keio University SFC. His
B.A. in philosophy is from Brown University (1974) and his M.Ed. in TEFL from
Temple University, Japan (1988). He is co-author with Roger Barnard of Business
Venture, Vols, 1 and 2 (Oxford). He has presented on video, teaching business English,
and professional development for language teachers at teachers' conferences in Japan.
Christine Pearson Casanave received a PhD from the Stanford University's School
of Education in 1990. She is now Associate Professor of English at Keio University
SFC and an adjunct instructor at Teachers College Columbia University's Tokyo campus.
Her interests include second language reading and writing, disciplinary socialization, and
the professional development of language educators.
David Freedman teaches English at Keio University SFC, and is deeply interested in
the nonlinguistic issues raised by the use of film in the language classroom.
David IP. Shea received his PhD in Language Education from the University of
Georgia in 1993. Since then, he has tried to to integrate pedagogic theory with classroom
practice while teaching in the intensive English program at Keio SFC. His areas of
research interest include intercultural communication, the sociopolitical dimensions of
langauge learning, and Vygotskian approaches to learning.
Yoko Shimizu is a senior in the Faculty of Policy Management at Keio SFC. She lived
abroad for many years and hopes that some day she will be able to finish the
autobiography she began after she returned to Japan.. During her spare time, she enjoys
karaoke and writing nonfiction stories.
J. David Simons is a visiting lecturer at Keio University. He received his law degree
from Glasgow University in 1973, and practiced law in Scotland for several years before
moving into the field of language education.
Yoshiko Takahashi received her PhD from Stanford University's School of Education
and is now at Keio University SFC. She teaches English and seminar courses in gender,
communication, and feminist issues in films. She is interested in sociolinguistics and
cross-cultural women's issues.
Sae Yamada, a third year student at Keio University SFC, grew up in Malaysia. She is
majoring in Environmental Information. Her hobbies include aikido and reading.
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EFF-088 (Rev. 9/97)
PREVIOUS VERSIONS OF THIS FORM ARE OBSOLETE.