A Classroom Investigation: Can

Video Improve Intermediate-Level

French Language Students’ Ability to
Learn about a Foreign Culture?
CAROL HERRON CATHLEEN CORRIE
Department of French and Italian Department of French and Italian
Emory University Emory University
Atlanta, GA 30322 Atlanta, GA 30322
Email: cherron@emory.edu Email: ccorrie@learnlink.emory.edu
SÉBASTIEN DUBREIL STEVEN P. COLE
Department of French and Italian Research Design Associates
Emory University 721 E. Ponce de Leon Avenue
Atlanta, GA 30322 Decatur, GA 30030
Email: sdubrei@learnlink.emory.edu Email: spc@cloud9.net

This study examines the effects of video on cultural knowledge at the intermediate level.
Fifty-one intermediate-level French students viewed 8 videos. A pretest/posttest design as-
sessed long-term gains in cultural knowledge and in the learning of cultural practices and
cultural products from exposure to a curriculum with a video component. Eight postvideo tests
measured the students’ ability to retain information and to make inferences. A questionnaire
assessed perceptions of cultural learning. Results indicated a significant gain in cultural
knowledge with posttest scores significantly higher than pretest scores. On the short-answer
and free-recall portions of the 8 postvideo tests, the students’ ability to make inferences or
retain information did not improve significantly in either an advance organizer (AO) or a
non-AO condition. For free recall, scores were significantly higher for mentions of cultural
practices than for products. The students believed that they learned more cultural practices
than products. The results support using video to enhance cultural knowledge.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE (FL) EDUCATORS
have reached consensus that culture needs to be
an integral part of FL teaching at all levels (Lange
& Klee, 2000). Formerly thought of as the fifth
language skill, culture was viewed as information
conveyed by the FL rather than as a part of the FL
itself. However, if one views language as social
practice, culture becomes the core of FL instruc-
tion (cf. Hinkel, 1999; Kramsch, 1993, 1998). The
positioning of culture at the core of FL study has
led various professional associations to establish
standards for the teaching and learning of cul-
ture (AATF Culture Standards as cited in Lange,
The Modern Language Journal, 86, i, (2002)
0026-7902/02/36–53 $1.50/0
©2002 The Modern Language Journal
1999; ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines, 1986, 1998;
Standards, 1996, 1999). The current study sup-
ports an integrated model of language and cul-
ture accepting the notion that cultural profi-
ciency can be defined as follows:
the process of acquiring the culture-specific and cul-
ture-general knowledge, skills, and attitudes required
for effective communication and interaction with in-
dividuals from other cultures. It is a dynamic, devel-
opmental, and ongoing process which engages the
learner cognitively, behaviorally, and affectively.
(Paige, Jorstad, Siaya, Klein, & Colby, 2000, p. 50)
In spite of the renewed emphasis on the central
position of culture in FL programs, educators
have yet to agree on how to integrate “language
learning and cultural inquiry” in the classroom
Carol Herron, Sébastien Dubreil, Cathleen Corrie, and Steven P. Cole
(Maxim, 2000). On the side of instructors,
Maxim expressed an urgent need to move be-
yond the dichotomies embedded in the curricu-
lum: lower division versus upper division, form
versus meaning, and cultural fact versus cultural
inquiry. On the student side, the discussion of
cultural differences—or cross-cultural dialog—
may challenge learners’ beliefs and values be-
yond the level of comfort (Lange & Klee, 2000).
To address these concerns, some theorists posit
that authentic texts are an excellent medium to
teach culture because they take the learner to the
heart of the target culture (cf. Omaggio Hadley,
2001). In particular, some scholars praise multi-
media technology for its ability to present stu-
dents with long stretches of oral discourse em-
bedded in a rich visual context. The rationale
behind the extensive use of multimedia texts is
that in addition to stimulating students’ intrinsic
interests, they can also simulate authentic and
up-to-date linguistic and cultural exchanges en-
countered in the foreign country. In other words,
video, and more recently the World Wide Web,
could introduce authentic sociolinguistic ele-
ments into the classroom without the necessity of
travel (cf. Lafford & Lafford, 1997; Muyskens,
1994; Shrum & Glisan, 2000). A plethora of in-
structional material has put this increased avail-
ability of authentic texts to use. As a result, videos
and interactive videos (CD-ROM) accompany be-
ginning- and intermediate-level textbooks with
Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) and Internet-based
material in pursuit (cf. Bush, 2000; Chun & Plass,
2000).
In spite of the proliferation of authentic
audiovisual materials, other researchers question
their effectiveness and argue that they might in
fact not foster cultural acquisition. Lively, Harper,
and Williams (1998) suggested that the “very es-
sence of the input text being imbued with native
culture is what makes accessing the language in
authentic documents so difficult for students” (p.
82). They urged teachers using authentic texts to
intervene or “mediate” the activity by providing
students with support for new vocabulary, gram-
mar, and cultural information embedded in the
text. Chun and Plass (2000) included cognitive
overload among the potential disadvantages of
the hypermedia environment. Along these lines,
Just and Carpenter (1992) emphasized, accord-
ing to informational processing theory, that hu-
mans are limited in their attention and process-
ing capacity. In other words, an individual’s
capacity to process information is finite and, thus,
limited. Consequently, if students, while viewing
a video, focus their attention on decoding the
37
linguistic medium because it places a high cogni-
tive demand on their working memory, they may
limit their capacity to process cultural elements
embedded in the same video.
The current empirical study addressed the is-
sue of whether viewing a video, an authentic,
discourse-level activity, can help FL students
achieve the cognitive objective of acquiring cul-
ture-specific knowledge. This goal is one compo-
nent of the Paige et al. model (2000) that de-
scribes culture acquisition as a continual process
engaging learners cognitively, behaviorally, and
affectively. By culture-specific knowledge, Paige
et al. were referring to the acquisition of knowl-
edge and skills pertaining to one specific culture
(e.g., French, or Francophone culture). In the
current study, the operational definition of cul-
ture-specific knowledge included cultural under-
standing, as well as the accumulation of specific
knowledge. We distinguished between the reten-
tion of cultural-specific knowledge and under-
standing on the premise that cultural knowledge
denotes factual accumulation (e.g., the Mona
Lisa resides in the Louvre), whereas cultural un-
derstanding engages the student in reflective
thinking as well (i.e., the fact that the Mona Lisa,
an Italian work of art, is in the Louvre, a French
museum, suggests a relationship between its Ital-
ian creator and the French). The current study
investigates whether a FL program with a video
component actually facilitates the gathering of
specific cultural knowledge and encourages its
examination by intermediate-level FL students.
As Paige et al. (2000) suggested, we realize that
goals of cultural proficiency extend beyond the
learning and understanding of one particular
culture to include general knowledge (the ability
to learn about a culture that is not one’s own) as
well as issues of behavior and attitudes. However,
with a paucity of classroom research concerning
whether technology actually enhances the learn-
ing and understanding of cultural information,
we felt justified in executing the study below.
Considering the vast amounts of funding and
time directed toward the development of tech-
nology-enhanced FL instruction and the lesser
amounts allocated for evaluation, we felt the in-
vestigation to be of pressing concern.
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
Empirical research on the potential of authen-
tic video to improve FL proficiency is relatively
recent. There are studies on the use of video to
improve students’ listening comprehension (Ru-
bin, 1990; Secules, Herron, & Tomasello, 1992).
38
Related research compares listening comprehen-
sion rates for videos using various introductory
strategies (Chung, 1999; Herron, 1994; Herron,
Cole, York, & Linden, 1998; Herron, Corrie,
Cole, & Henderson, 1999; Herron, Hanley, &
Cole, 1995). However, classroom research into
the use of video to improve cultural learning re-
mains a relatively unexplored area.
Several pertinent studies have assessed cultural
proficiency and the use of video in FL programs.
Martinez-Gibson (1998), for instance, reported
that FL students were able to recognize cultural
content of FL commercials when they were com-
bined with cultural discussion activities before
and after viewing the video. She suggested that
the visual aspect of television commercials aids
the students’ comprehension and awareness of
cultural information. We note here that the gen-
eralizability of these findings is somewhat limited
given that commercials are a very specific genre
of video and comprise a relatively small part of a
FL instructional curriculum.
Research in a FL elementary school program
(Hanley, Herron, & Cole, 1995; Herron & Han-
ley, 1992) revealed that using a short video clip as
an advance organizer (AO) to a written passage
facilitated student retention of the text’s cultural
information. This research with young children,
however, entailed the use of video as an introduc-
tion to a reading passage containing the same
cultural information and did not assess the im-
pact of using video as the only culture source.
In another study, Kitajima and Lyman-Hager
(1998) examined the effect of using a 1-minute
silent video to teach students Japanese cultural
information. The students, allowed to view the
video individually and to comment on it as it
progressed, were able to perceive cultural events
from this clip, a finding that suggests that silent
video clips enhance students’ discovery processes
of culturally unique phenomena. This use of si-
lent video in the classroom to improve cultural
proficiency is intriguing, but somewhat limited
because it neglects the fundamental audiovisual
component of video.
Adair-Hauck, Willingham-McLain, and Youngs
(2000) reported the findings of a classroom study
in which they assessed the power of technology to
improve beginning FL students’ cultural knowl-
edge. The participants were part of a technology-
enriched language learning (TELL) program
that included computerized reading and gram-
mar programs, as well as a video component. The
video presented brief scenarios performed by na-
tive speakers in France and in Guadeloupe. Adair-
Hauck et al. reported that the treatment group
The Modern Language Journal 86 (2002)
(with out-of-class multimedia activities) signifi-
cantly outperformed the control group (with in-
class multimedia activities) on both the cultural
prequiz and postquiz but that there was no signifi-
cant difference between the two groups in aver-
age cultural gain made over the semester. The use
of gain scores in a setting in which the mean on
the pretest scores for the experimental group was
already significantly greater than the mean on
the pretest scores for the control group compli-
cates interpretation of these results.
Two additional classroom studies showed an
improvement in cultural knowledge over the
course of a semester for elementary-level French
students (Herron, Corrie, Cole, & Dubreil, 1999;
Herron, Dubreil, Cole, & Corrie, 2000). This re-
search incorporated a within subjects design (re-
peated measures) to explore the relationship be-
tween cultural proficiency and video viewing for
beginning students. The researchers found that
first-year students’ overall cultural knowledge im-
proved significantly from watching narrative
video. In these studies, beginning students of
French (FR101 and FR102) completed a pretest
at the beginning of the semester (a different pre-
test was made for each class level). These tests
revealed their overall knowledge of French cul-
ture. Half of the items related to little “c” culture
and the other to big “C” culture, with both types
of items being randomly mixed in the test. Vari-
ous theorists (e.g., Brooks, 1968; Seelye, 1994)
have defined little “c” culture as representing as-
pects of lifestyle or patterns of daily living,
whereas big “C” culture represents a civilization’s
accomplishments in literature and the fine arts,
its social institutions, its history, geography, and
political systems. The pretests served as posttests
at the end of the semester for both FR101 and
102. Both FR101 and 102 students scored signifi-
cantly higher on their respective posttests than
they did on the pretests. The investigators con-
cluded that in-class viewing of narrative video en-
hanced first-year French students’ overall knowl-
edge of the target culture.
In addition, both studies (Herron, Corrie,
Cole, & Dubreil, 1999; Herron et al., 2000) inves-
tigated whether the students retained more little
“c” culture than big “C” culture from the video-
based instructional programs. Although there
was a statistically significant increase in knowl-
edge of both categories of culture over the course
of FR101 and FR102, the findings indicated that
the students performed significantly better with
respect to the little “c” culture items than to big
“C” culture items on both the pretest and the
posttest. The investigators offered several expla-
Carol Herron, Sébastien Dubreil, Cathleen Corrie, and Steven P. Cole
nations for the better performance on the little
“c” items. Among these, perhaps the students
were more interested in patterns of living than in
cultural achievements because they relate to
them easily from their personal association (past
or future) with these events. Big “C” culture
might appear “high-brow” or removed from their
daily activities. Only in FR101, however, was the
gain in little “c” knowledge significantly larger
than the gain in big “C” knowledge over time.
The researchers concluded that patterns of liv-
ing, which are by definition recurrent, might
have left more of an impression on beginning
FR101 students than on FR102 students because
of the FR101 students’ more limited linguistic
abilities.
The researchers (Herron, Corrie, Cole, &
Dubreil, 1999; Herron et al., 2000) also assessed
beginning students’ ability to retain French cul-
tural information from the viewed videos. In ad-
dition to the pretest/posttest instrument, stu-
dents completed a postvideo viewing test
immediately after viewing each video. Whereas
FR101 students displayed no statistically signifi-
cant differences between the type of culture they
remembered at the short-term level, students in
the FR102 sections did significantly better on lit-
tle “c” items than on big “C” items on the
postvideo viewing tests. Again the investigators
attributed this discrepancy in findings to the pos-
sibility that the FR102 students were able to pay
greater attention than were the FR101 students to
the finer details of cultural information embed-
ded in the videos for both types of culture, with a
significant edge in favor of little “c.”
The investigators (Herron, Corrie, Cole, &
Dubreil, 1999; Herron et al., 2000) concluded
with suggestions for further research. They ac-
knowledged that they had only treated one type
of video genre, namely a narrative instructional
video, as opposed to a documentary or a longer
film. They emphasized that the participants in
both research projects were first-year FL students;
perhaps more advanced students would benefit
differently from viewing videos. Moreover, their
studies focused on student retention of cultural
information and not on how well students
grasped the meaning behind the cultural events.
For the purposes of the current study, we chose
to recast little “c” and big “C” culture, as discussed
in previous research, in light of the Standards for
Foreign Language Learning (1996). The Standards
specifically focused on culture and provided ex-
plicit direction for teaching culture beyond its
former status as a fifth language skill. Culture was
placed at the core of the FL curriculum and
39
shaped both its form and its content (Lange,
1999, 2000). The Standards also reconceptualized
the little “c”/big “C” dichotomy and proposed the
following three categories: cultural practices,
products, and perspectives. Practices referred to
patterns of social interactions. Products consisted
of cultural achievements. Perspectives, the third
element proposed by the Standards, referred to
meanings, values, and ideas. In other words, the
Standards invited students not only to identify cul-
tural practices and products, but also to demon-
strate their understanding of the differing per-
spectives (meanings) underlying those practices
and products. We acknowledge that, since the
1996 publication, revised Standards have become
available (Standards, 1999). These updated Stan-
dards reexamine practices, products, and perspec-
tives. Practices consist of daily life interactions;
products refer to “formal culture,” including arti-
facts (e.g., business cards); perspectives comprise
meanings, attitudes, values, and ideas (see Stan-
dards, 1999, pp. 47–48). The expanded Standards
include a description of learning scenarios de-
signed to accomplish the cultural objectives set
forth in the earlier guidelines. They also list stand-
ards for specific foreign languages: Chinese, Clas-
sical languages, French, German, Italian, Japa-
nese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Whereas
we designed the current study prior to the dis-
semination of the updated report, our investiga-
tion supports definitions of culture in both Stand-
ards publications (1996, 1999).
The current research also differed from pre-
vious studies (Herron, Corrie, Cole, & Dubreil,
1999; Herron et al., 2000) in its concern with the
effects of a video component on the cultural pro-
ficiency of intermediate-level FL students. We
chose the intermediate level for several reasons.
First, an investigation at this level would build on
the previous cultural findings with beginners de-
scribed above. Second, Harlow and Muyskens
(1994), when outlining priorities for intermedi-
ate-level language instruction, noted that inter-
mediate-level instruction has often been ne-
glected in FL research. They stressed that a review
of literature on intermediate-level FL instruction
revealed studies that primarily describe course
design, focus on particular language skills, or sug-
gest teaching strategies. Research rarely had in-
cluded empirical projects. Contrary to this trend,
they designed a project with a total of 1,373 stu-
dents studying intermediate-level French and
Spanish at 12 universities to determine student
views on goals and activities. Regarding student
viewpoints on goals, the findings reinforced those
of Martin and Laurie (1993); that is, students’
40
learning goals in intermediate courses more
strongly related to linguistic than to cultural ob-
jectives. Yet despite this favoritism toward speak-
ing, listening, reading, and writing objectives,
Martin and Laurie also found that 87% of the
intermediate-level students in their study listed
that the cultural reason of “learning more about
the French way of life is” (p. 198) very or some-
what important as to why they enrolled in inter-
mediate French.
The finding that intermediate-level students
want to learn about culture suggests a need for and
the importance of research on how best to intro-
duce culture at this level. With respect to tech-
niques, Harlow and Muyskens (1994) also re-
ported that when students were asked their views
on the most effective classroom and out-of-class ac-
tivities for achieving their preferred goals, among
the top-ranked activities were films and video. The
current research is responsive to these positive stu-
dent views about video by investigating how well it
actually imparts information about culture.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CURRENT STUDY
In light of the review of literature and building
on previous research, this study addressed the
following six research questions:
1. Does intermediate French students’ overall
knowledge of French culture improve over the
course of 1 semester in a curriculum with a jour-
nalistic video component?
2. Do intermediate French students retain
more cultural practices or more cultural products
over the course of a semester in a curriculum with
a journalistic video component?
3. Do AOs to the journalistic videos enhance
students’ ability to draw correct cultural infer-
ences in short-answer tests administered immedi-
ately after video viewing?
4. Do AOs to the journalistic videos improve
students’ retention or comprehension of cultural
information on tests of free recall administered
immediately after video viewing?
5. Do intermediate students retain more infor-
mation about cultural practices or cultural prod-
ucts on tests of free recall administered
immediately after video viewing?
6. What are intermediate French students’ per-
ceptions of how many cultural practices and cul-
tural products are presented in videos and of how
much of that cultural information they learn?
We began the research with certain expecta-
tions in mind. Questions 1 and 2 dealt with long-
term retention of cultural information. For Ques-
The Modern Language Journal 86 (2002)
tion 1, concerning whether intermediate FL stu-
dents would improve overall knowledge of French
culture from a curriculum with a video compo-
nent, we hypothesized that students would learn a
significant amount of culture over the course of
the semester. We based this supposition on the
findings of Herron, Corrie, Cole, and Dubreil
(1999) and Herron et al. (2000) that beginning
students exposed to narrative video learned a sig-
nificant amount of culture over the course of a
semester. For Question 2, concerning the type of
culture more easily retained by the intermediate
students over a semester, we did not formulate a
directional hypothesis. Even though previous re-
search had shown that students’ overall cultural
knowledge benefited from video viewing, differ-
ences between the current study and previous re-
search did not suggest a directional hypothesis
concerning which kind of culture students would
remember better. Previous studies (Herron, Cor-
rie, Cole, & Dubreil, 1999; Herron et al., 2000)
had used episodic videos that presented a sto-
ryline, whereas the videos in the present study
were journalistic in nature (i.e., consisting pri-
marily of interviews with native speakers) and per-
tained to unrelated cultural topics (e.g., social
welfare programs, unemployment, higher educa-
tion, politics). This difference in genre could af-
fect the kind of cultural information remem-
bered. Also, our participants displayed a more
advanced level of proficiency than those in our
earlier research, a factor that also could affect
long-term retention of type of culture.
Questions 3, 4, and 5 dealt with short-term
learning and understanding of cultural informa-
tion. Omaggio Hadley (2001) suggested that the
testing of listening comprehension should in-
clude both short-answer responses and other
types of responses that allow students to respond
more freely. Therefore, in the present research,
our assessment of how much students remem-
bered or understood after viewing each video
combined data for short-answer with data for free
recall. Research Question 3 focused on whether
the students’ ability to make cultural inferences
on a short-answer test administered immediately
after viewing a video would be enhanced by an
AO. We did not frame a hypothesis because of
discrepancies in previous research findings.
Lively, Harper, and Williams (1998) had pre-
viously argued that “opportunities for meaning-
ful processing of the input texts can be effectively
realized only with the help of the teacher’s inter-
vention” (p. 83). In support of this proposition,
Herron (1994) showed that beginning students’
listening comprehension of narrative video was
Carol Herron, Sébastien Dubreil, Cathleen Corrie, and Steven P. Cole
facilitated by the presence of an AO. However,
some earlier research revealed AOs to be helpful
to students at the lowest levels of linguistic in-
struction only (Hudson, 1982; Mueller, 1980).
Questions 4 and 5 dealt with retention of cul-
tural information on a free-recall test adminis-
tered immediately after the viewing of each video.
For Question 4, concerning the benefits to free
recall of introducing the videos with an AO, we
had no hypothesis, due to lack of related re-
search. Question 5 emerged from analyzing the
qualitative data collected on the free-recall tests
and from finding that what students remembered
from each video could be categorized into cul-
tural practices and cultural products. In light of
previous findings (Herron, Corrie, Cole, &
Dubreil, 1999; Herron et al., 2000), we antici-
pated that students would recall more practices
than products on the free-recall portion of the
postvideo viewing tests and so hypothesized.
Finally, for Question 6, concerning student
perceptions of culture presented and learned, we
posited that the intermediate students would fa-
vor cultural practices on both measures. We
based this supposition on the findings (Herron,
Corrie, Cole, & Dubreil, 1999; Herron et al.,
2000) that a large majority of beginning students
believed that a vast number of cultural practices
had been presented and that they had learned a
comparable amount. By contrast, less than half of
the students thought that a large number of cul-
tural products had been presented or learned.
The current project built on former research
to provide a better understanding of the relation-
ship between a curriculum that includes a video
and the learning of culture in the FL classroom.
It distinguished itself from former research in
several respects: (a) in its focus on video that is
TABLE 1
Sample Student Characteristics by Group
Characteristics Group 1 Group 2
Gender
Number of Females 10 7 7
Number of Males 4 5
University Classification
% First-Year Students 64 50
% Second-Year Students 14 8 8
% Third-Year Students 25
% Fourth-Year Students 14 8 8
% Other 8 8
Years Experiencea
Mean 3.40 2.80
Standard Deviation 1.09 0.83
aOne semester of college French was treated as equivalent to 1 year of high school experience.
41
journalistic rather than episodic in nature, (b) in
including participants at an intermediate level of
linguistic proficiency rather than at the begin-
ning stage, (c) in incorporating an assessment of
the effect of an AO on students’ cognitive ability
to make inferences and to recall information
about a foreign culture, and (d) in assessing what
students remember culturally with short-answer
and free-recall testing.
METHODOLOGY
Participants
Fifty-one students enrolled in four sections of a
15-week, third-semester French course (FR201) at
a medium-sized, private, American university par-
ticipated in this study. The study took place dur-
ing the Fall 1999 semester. Four different teachers
taught the four classes (groups) of FR201. One
teacher was a native speaker of the language; the
other three teachers were nonnative speakers of
French. Chi-square analysis revealed no statisti-
cally significant differences between groups by
gender, ␹2 (3, N ⫽ 51) ⫽ 0.99, p ⫽ .80, or by
university classification (first-year students vs. up-
per classmen), ␹2 (3, N ⫽ 51) ⫽ 4.34, p ⫽ .23.
There were no differences between groups in the
number of previous years of formal instruction in
French, F(3, 46) ⫽ 1.96, p ⫽ .13. Table 1 presents
these measures by group.
General Classroom Procedures
Classes took place on the same days for all four
sections (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Fri-
day). Each session lasted 50 minutes. The instruc-
tional program for all four sections was Bravo!
Group 3 Group 4
7
6 5
85 50
42
8
2.92 2.64
0.86 0.50
42
(Muyskens, Harlow, Vialet, & Brière, 1998), a
book-based course supplemented by a videotape
and a workbook with aural and written activities.
The Bravo! textbook presents students with a mix
of texts, dialogues, grammar lessons, and exer-
cises ranging from written grammar exercises to
communicative activities. It reviews basics learned
in previous French courses and invites students to
build toward new concepts. Each chapter con-
tains cultural readings designed to explore a vari-
ety of subjects that include both cultural products
and practices. These readings and related activi-
ties purportedly sharpen students’ cultural aware-
ness (Instructor’s Guide. Bravo!, 1998).
An accompanying videotape, entirely in
French, contains a series of 5-to-6-minute-long
segments in a journalistic format consisting
mainly of interviews with French-speaking people
from France, Canada, and the French Antilles.
Each of the 10 segments presents two topics. The
topics reflect the themes, aspects of culture, and
functions of language presented in the text. The
scenes are recorded on location and present spot
interviews with a variety of native speakers using
authentic, contemporary language and with a
wide range of accents. The tapes are not easy, but
they are appropriate and well suited for the inter-
mediate level.
In FR201, students completed 9 of the 10
Bravo! chapters. All classes followed the same se-
mester-long syllabus that allotted an average of 4
days per chapter. They saw the supplemental
video on the day prior to the chapter test. Chap-
ter tests came from the testbank included in the
Bravo! program.
On the video viewing days, class activities in all
four sections were similar. The class hour began
with a brief conversational warm-up, immediately
followed by the study; that is, students were ex-
posed to an AO to the target video or not, de-
pending on experimental condition. Next, all stu-
TABLE 2
Counterbalancing of Treatments across Groups
AO Condition
(AO ⫹ Video)
Video 2 Group A and Group B
Video 3 Group C and Group D
Video 4 Group A and Group B
Video 5 Group C and Group D
Video 6 Group A and Group B
Video 7 Group C and Group D
Video 8 Group A and Group B
Video 9 Group C and Group D
The Modern Language Journal 86 (2002)
dents watched the video, which lasted approxi-
mately 6 minutes. Students then took the
postvideo viewing test (10 minutes). Afterward,
instructors collected the tests and did not discuss
either the test or the video with students. For the
rest of the class, the teachers reviewed chapter
materials to prepare the students for the follow-
ing day’s chapter test. The teachers did not dis-
cuss any of the targeted videos until after the
administration of the posttest at the end of the
semester.
Target Videos
The study included eight target videos: videos
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 (listed in both the order
in which they appear in the Bravo! series and in
which they were taught). Each of the four FR201
classes watched the same video on the same day.
The first of the eight videos was randomly as-
signed to either the AO condition or the non-AO
condition for two French classes. That video was
then assigned to the opposite condition for the
other two sections. Table 2 illustrates the counter-
balancing of treatment across groups. Assign-
ment of videos to conditions alternated for the
four classes. When summed across participants
and videos, the results are counterbalanced: Each
class had a total of four videos in each condition.
This counterbalanced design also compensated
for the fact that random assignment of students
to the four classes was not possible as classes were
preconstituted by the registrar.
Teaching Procedure
All four sections followed the same procedure:
The instructor showed the video of the week with-
out interruption, in class, on the same day. That
viewing was the first time any of the students in
the four sections saw the new video. In two of the
Non-AO Condition
(Video Only)
Group C and Group D
Group A and Group B
Group C and Group D
Group A and Group B
Group C and Group D
Group A and Group B
Group C and Group D
Group A and Group B
Carol Herron, Sébastien Dubreil, Cathleen Corrie, and Steven P. Cole
four sections, the teachers provided no introduc-
tory remarks about the video. For these sections,
the students watched the video segment in its
entirety without taking notes. In the other two
sections, prior to presenting the video, the
teacher administered a four-sentence AO in the
form of a transparency set on an overhead projec-
tor. The sentences were in French. The teacher
read aloud the four sentences once while the
students listened and read silently. Then the stu-
dents watched the video segment in its entirety
and took no notes. Sample AOs (with translation)
are found below.
Advance Organizer Video 2
La vidéo 2 présente . . .
1. comment offrir de payer l’addition en France.
2. différentes activités possibles pour une soirée
entre amis.
3. des informations sur l’histoire et la structure
de la Sorbonne.
4. des conversations avec des étudiants qui don-
nent leur opinion sur la vie académique et sociale
à la Sorbonne.
(Video 2 presents . . .
1. how to offer to pick up the check in
France.
2. possible evening activities to do with
friends.
3. information on the history and structure
of the Sorbonne.
4. students giving their opinions about the
academic and social life at the Sorbonne.)
Advance Organizer Video 4
La vidéo 4 présente . . .
1. des informations sur le classement des hôtels
en France.
2. des informations sur l’origine et le fonctionne-
ment du Club Med.
3. des interviews avec des vacanciers du Club
Med.
4. le récent changement d’atmosphère ou de vie
au Club Med.
(Video 4 presents . . .
1. information on hotel ratings in France.
2. background information on Club Med.
3. interviews with Club Med vacationers.
4. how life at Club Med has changed.)
Testing Procedures: Pretest and Posttest
In order to permit assessment of the main ef-
fect of video on cultural knowledge over time, all
students in the four FR201 classes took a multi-
43
ple-choice pretest at the beginning of the semes-
ter, prior to watching the first of the target videos.
At the end of the semester, after viewing the last
of the target videos, they took a test containing
the same items. The teachers informed the stu-
dents that neither the pretest nor the posttest
counted toward their final grades in the class. Of
the 37 items on the pretest/posttest, 15 related to
knowledge of cultural practices, 15 to knowledge
of cultural products, and 7 grammatical items
served as distractors for the purpose of reducing
students’ anticipation of being tested on culture.
The pretest/posttest was based on cultural infor-
mation contained in the target videos. Given that
the students were not exposed to any of the target
videos prior to taking the pretest, they had to
answer the questions solely on the basis of prior
knowledge. When they took the posttest, they had
been exposed to the target videos and, therefore,
to the cultural information covered. Below are
examples of pretest/posttest cultural items.
Pretest/Posttest Items and Answers
(The correct answer is starred. Practices
and products categories are indicated in
parentheses.)
1. What is distinctive about la Sorbonne?
(products)
a. It is the most expensive university in
France.
* b. It is the oldest university in France.
c. It has the largest number of students
for a French university.
d. Most public officials graduate from
there.
2. If one orders a fresh fruit juice drink in
a French café, what might the waiter bring
with it? (practices)
a. nuts
b. an extra glass of water
c. little cookies
* d. a carafe of water
The design was an adaptation of a study by See-
lye (1968) dealing with biculturation of U.S. citi-
zens in Latin America. For Seelye, test items had
been sorted into two major categories: (a) items
that were associated with the ability to function in
a society (little “c”) and (b) items that measured
knowledge not overtly associated with functioning
in the society (big “C”). Falling into the big “C”
category was “erudite academic knowledge” (See-
lye, 1994, pp. 216–217). For the current study, we
operationally defined practices and products in
the following fashion. Questions regarding cul-
tural practices pertained to the ability to function
44
in a society (i.e., communication in a cultural con-
text and social patterns and conventions). Ques-
tions regarding cultural products forced the stu-
dent to react to situations dealing with social
institutions (i.e., education, government, trans-
portation, religion), history, geography, national
products, literature, and fine arts.
Each pretest/posttest item consisted of a stem
and four possible responses. Each test item was
worth 0 or 1 point. Incorrect answers received 0
points; correct answers, 1 point. A participant’s
pretest/posttest score was computed by adding
the correct responses and dividing by the total
number of questions. The “practices” pretest/
posttest scores and the “products” pretest/post-
test scores were calculated by the same process.
Testing Procedures: Postvideo Viewing Tests (Short
Answer and Free Recall)
In order to permit assessment of their ability to
recall information and make inferences from the
videos, students in all four classes took the same
comprehension test immediately after viewing
the new video for the week. This test had two
distinct formats: short answer and free recall.
Short-answer items were designed and adminis-
tered first to students to reveal their under-
standing of the meaning (perspectives) of cul-
tural knowledge in the videos. The free-recall
portion that followed allowed students, with no
guidelines, to inform researchers of what they
retained from the videos, be it facts or their inter-
pretations of them.
For the short-answer section, students an-
swered two questions involving inferences based
on analysis of information in the video. No short-
answer test item asked for information that had
been included in the pretest or in the AO. The
investigators constructed the short-answer por-
tion of the postvideo tests to assess students’ abil-
ity to reflect on cultural information in the video
and to analyze it. This format allowed the investi-
gators to assess the students’ understanding of
the relationship between cultural practices and
products on the one hand, and cultural perspec-
tives on the other. For example, for Video 2, the
students listened to French students discuss life at
La Sorbonne, including classes, jobs, and free
time. On the postvideo viewing test, the students
were to explain financial constraints from the
perspective of a French student, not from their
own. After the students finished the two short-an-
swer items stressing cultural understanding,
teachers in all four sections told them to turn the
page to the free-recall test segment. The students
The Modern Language Journal 86 (2002)
had 3 minutes to write everything that they re-
membered from the video without further speci-
fication of the elements on which they should
concentrate. The teachers distributed the
postvideo viewing test immediately after the class
finished watching the video. They asked students
to record their answers on the test sheets. All
questions were in English, and students wrote
their answers in English so as not to confound
their cultural understanding with their skills in
writing in the FL. Each class had a total of eight
postvideo viewing tests. We provide examples be-
low.
Video 2 Postvideo Viewing Test
1. For French university students, Paris and
la Sorbonne are closely related in ways
other than geographical location. Why is
this the case?
2. Some French university students find
that being a student is financially easy, oth-
ers stress the difficulties. What is the basis
for this discrepancy?
(Students write what else they remember
about the video on the back of the answer
sheet.)
Video 3 Postvideo Viewing Test
1. What does the Sunday meal in Guade-
loupe tell you about family life in the Fran-
cophone country?
2. In France, more and more couples are
choosing to cohabitate rather than to
marry. What sociological factors might en-
courage them to do this?
(Students write what else they remember
about the video on the back of the answer
sheet.)
A list of criteria was established for each short-
answer inference question. An answer received 0,
1, or 2 points according to the level of adequacy
in respect to the list of criteria. Each question
received a separate score for the total number of
points awarded over the total number of points
possible. For example, a participant who received
1 point for each question received a score of 1/2
(i.e., .50) for each question and 2/4 (.50) for the
total postvideo test. A student who was awarded 2
points for each question received a score of 4/4
(i.e., 1.00) for the postvideo test. Each postvideo
viewing test was scored blindly by two judges in
order to establish an unbiased estimate of inter-
rater reliability. Both judges scored all postvideo
viewing tests. The interjudge reliability for the
Carol Herron, Sébastien Dubreil, Cathleen Corrie, and Steven P. Cole
short-answer questions was 90%. Disagreements
were identified and discussed, and the relevant
tests were re-scored accordingly.
The material on the back of the postvideo view-
ing tests was scored along lines suggested by vari-
ous researchers (e.g., Bernhardt, 1983; Bern-
hardt & James, 1987) who recommended grading
free recall in a somewhat objective fashion by
counting and awarding 1 point to any informa-
tion (in this case, cultural) that legitimately ap-
peared in the video and was listed by students.
This system has the advantage of giving students
equal credit for every item they remembered as
opposed to penalizing them for missing what the
teacher deemed important.
Prior to scoring the free-recall portion of the
test, we determined that the students’ free re-
sponses for Video 8 did not contain any cultural
information or indicate cultural understanding.
Consequently, we dropped Video 8 from the pool
of target videos available for scoring free recall.
As a result, for the free-recall measurement, 24
students were in the AO condition 3 times instead
of 4, and 23 students were in the non-AO condi-
tion 3 times instead of 4. By the same token, each
student had a set of two separate free-recall scores
for cultural practices and cultural products for
the same 7 videos.
Scoring the free-recall tests followed a specific
sequence. First, a designated investigator calcu-
lated the total number of cultural utterances re-
called by the students per video. This initial clas-
sification of all utterances per video into
“cultural” or “not cultural” was cross-checked by
a second investigator. Interrater agreement was
90%. Items that were not cultural were discarded
from further analysis. For example, investigators
did not count the response: “A family was inter-
viewed in the video.” They did count the re-
sponse: “The video showed how close families in
Guadeloupe are.” Once these cultural elements
were identified, the same designated investigator
categorized the elements into cultural practices
and cultural products. This next classification was
cross-checked by the second investigator men-
tioned above, with a rate of agreement of 92%.
When disagreement occurred, the two re-
searchers discussed and reached consensus con-
cerning how to count the particular utterance.
Second, each student had two sets of two scores.
One set represented how much a student freely re-
called in the AO versus non-AO condition. The
other set represented how much a student freely
recalled in terms of cultural practices and prod-
ucts. All individual scores were calculated by divid-
ing the number of cultural utterances that a stu-
45
dent freely recalled by the total number of cultural
utterances freely recalled by all students per video.
For example, for Video 2, students freely recalled
and listed a total of 87 cultural utterances. The first
student freely recalled two of those utterances
and, therefore, received a score of 2/87 or .02 for
that video. That score was entered as an AO or
non-AO score depending on whether the student
had viewed the video in the AO or non-AO condi-
tion. Next, the utterances of students were coded
as cultural practices or cultural products. A similar
proportion was calculated. For example, of the
two utterances listed by the first student for Video
2, one of the freely recalled items was categorized
under cultural products and one item under cul-
tural practices. The products score was computed
as 1 divided by 87 (total cultural utterances freely
recalled by all students for Video 2) or .01. The
practices score was computed in the same fashion
as 1 divided by 87 or .01. Final computations con-
sisted of calculating mean scores for each student
over all target videos in each condition (AO vs.
non-AO) and for each type of culture (practices vs.
products).
Testing Procedures: Cultural Questionnaire
At the end of the semester, all students com-
pleted a cultural questionnaire. At the beginning
of the questionnaire, students found a definition
of cultural practices and cultural products that
was designed to help them answer the questions.
This questionnaire included open-ended ques-
tions asking for students’ comments about the
presentation of cultural information in Bravo! as
well as comments about their acquisition of cul-
tural information from that same method. It also
included items concerning their perceptions of
the learning of culture, as well as their percep-
tions of how much culture they thought was pre-
sented in FR201 through Bravo! Finally, the stu-
dents answered questions regarding whether they
had had previous experiences in France or pre-
vious exposure to French (and, if so, under what
circumstances).
RESULTS
Before analyzing data pertaining to the re-
search questions, we calculated item difficulties
for the pretest/posttest and the postvideo viewing
tests. For the pretest/posttest, we calculated item
difficulty for questions regarding cultural prac-
tices and products separately. We ran t tests for
independent samples in order to reveal possible
differences between mean difficulty scores for
46
the pretest/posttest items (15 items for each type
of culture). There was no significant difference
between the mean difficulty for cultural practices
(M ⫽ .44, SD ⫽ 0.27) and cultural products (M ⫽
.51, SD ⫽ 0.21) items, t(29) ⫽ .88, p ⫽ .39. How-
ever, analysis of each item revealed certain items
that had a difficulty higher than .90 or lower than
.10. We removed these items from the pre-
test/posttest scores for all further analysis (i.e.,
item number 1, products; item number 28, prod-
ucts; item number 3, practices; item number 17,
practices; and item number 23, practices).
We also assessed item difficulty on the
postvideo viewing tests measuring cultural under-
standing. No item had a difficulty higher than .90
or lower than .10. Therefore, we retained all
items on the postvideo viewing tests.
To assess whether students processed cultural
information (and therefore whether changes in
overall cultural knowledge over the course of the
semester occurred) and to assess possible differ-
ences in long-term learning of cultural practices
and products, we subjected pertinent data to a 2
(pre, post) ⫻ 2 (type of culture) repeated mea-
sures analysis of variance (ANOVA). Data for 9 of
the original 51 participants were removed from
the analysis because they had missed either the
pretest or the posttest.
With respect to the main effect of video on
cultural knowledge over time, posttest scores (re-
gardless of culture type) were statistically signifi-
cantly higher than pretest scores, F (1, 41) ⫽
40.04, p ⬍ .001. The effect size (standardized
difference between the means) for this analysis
was 0.50. Table 3 shows the pretest and posttest
means overall and by type of culture. Regarding
the main effect of culture type, no statistically
significant difference (effect size ⫽ 0.07) be-
tween practices and products scores (regardless
of pretest or posttest) emerged. The Culture ⫻
Time interaction effect was not statistically signifi-
cant (effect size ⫽ 0.17).
To explore further the relation between pretest
TABLE 3
French 201 Pretest and Posttest Means (and
Standard Deviations) Overall and by Type of
Culture
Pretest Posttest
Practices .45 (0.15) .61 (0.16) .53 (0.13)
Products .46 (0.14) .56 (0.16) .51 (0.12)
Total .46 (0.11) .59 (0.13)***
***Posttest scores higher than pretest scores,
p ⬍ .001.
The Modern Language Journal 86 (2002)
and posttest performance, we computed Pearson
product-moment correlations between pretest
and posttest performance for the total scores and
for each type of cultural information (practices
and products). For the total culture scores, there
was a statistically significant correlation between
pretest scores and posttest scores, r(40) ⫽ .40,
p ⬍ .01. That is, students with higher scores on
the pretest tended to have higher scores on the
posttest, and the students who did less well on the
pretest continued to do less well on the posttest.
There was also a statistically significant correla-
tion between practices pretest and posttest scores,
r(40) ⫽ .35, p ⬍ .05, but a nonsignificant correla-
tion between products pretest and posttest scores,
r(40) ⫽ .27, p ⫽ .08.
To assess the effectiveness of an AO on stu-
dents’ ability to make inferences about culture
(Research Question 3), we employed a t test for
paired samples for the 47 participants for whom
we had complete data. A paired t test takes advan-
tage of the fact that each student performed in
both the AO and non-AO conditions. The total
AO mean score (M ⫽ .49, SD ⫽ 0.16) was not
significantly different from the total non-AO
mean score (M ⫽ .52, SD ⫽ 0.16), t(46) ⫽ 1.25,
p ⫽ .22, effect size ⫽ 0.27.
Regarding the effect of AOs on students’ ability
to recall freely cultural information from the vid-
eos (Research Question 4), we again used a t test
for paired samples to assess differences in mean
proportion correct scores between the AO and
the non-AO conditions. For the free-recall por-
tion of the postvideo viewing tests, the total AO
mean scores (M ⫽ .02, SD ⫽ 0.02) were not sig-
nificantly different from the total non-AO mean
scores (M ⫽ .02, SD ⫽ 0.02), t(46) ⫽ ⫺1.3, p ⫽
.20, effect size ⫽ 0.
For Research Question 5 concerning the kind
of culture freely recalled after viewing each video,
we conducted a t test for paired samples. Mean
scores for cultural practices were significantly
higher than for cultural products, t(46) ⫽ 4.53,
p ⬍ .001, effect size ⫽ 1.29. Table 4 presents the
mean scores for practices and products for all
subjects on the free-recall portion of the
postvideo viewing tests.
To determine the association between per-
formance on the free-recall portion of the
postvideo viewing tests and the posttest, we used
Pearson product-moment correlations. The
postvideo free-recall scores were significantly
correlated with all performance measures on the
posttest. In other words, students who per-
formed well on the free-recall portion of the
postvideo viewing tests (regardless of condition
Carol Herron, Sébastien Dubreil, Cathleen Corrie, and Steven P. Cole
TABLE 4
Free Recall Mean Proportion Correct (and
Standard Deviations) by Type of Culture for
Postvideo Viewing Tests
Type of Culture
Practices Products
Postvideo
Viewing Tests .02 (0.01)*** .01 (0.01)
***p ⬍ .001.
or type of culture) also tended to perform well
on the posttest (overall, for practices and prod-
ucts; see Table 5).
Regarding student perceptions (Research
Question 6), 45 of the 51 students completed the
cultural questionnaire. Of these students, 67%
thought that a lot or a vast number of cultural
practices appeared in the videos, and 13%
thought that a lot or a vast number of cultural
products appeared. Moreover, whereas 31% of the
students believed that they learned a lot or a vast
amount about cultural practices throughout the
semester, only 9% of the students believed that
they learned a lot or a vast amount about cultural
products. To test differences between type of cul-
ture presented and type of culture learned, we
conducted t tests for paired samples. Students be-
lieved that more cultural practices (M ⫽ 3.67, SD
⫽ 0.83) were presented than cultural products (M
⫽ 2.73, SD ⫽ 0.75), t(44) ⫽ 5.83, p ⬍ .001, effect
size ⫽ 0.98. Likewise, they believed that they
learned more about cultural practices (M ⫽ 3.07,
SD ⫽ 0.86) than cultural products (M ⫽ 2.24, SD ⫽
0.98), t(44) ⫽ 4.55, p ⬍ .001, effect size ⫽ 1.07.
Part of the information collected from students
pertained to previous exposure to French, pre-
vious travel to France, and previous exposure to a
foreign culture. Prior French instruction was
positively associated with posttest scores, r(42) ⫽
TABLE 5
Pearson Product-Moment Correlations (n ⫽ 41) between Student Performance on All Measures of the
Free-Recall Portion of the Postvideo Viewing Tests and Performance on the Posttest
Posttest
Practices
Free Recall in the AO Condition .52***
Free Recall in the Non-AO Condition .34*
Free Recall of Practices Information .49***
Free Recall of Products Information .41**
ap⫽ .06, statistically nonsignificant positive trend.
bp ⫽ .08, statistically nonsignificant positive trend.
*p ⬍ .01. **p ⬍ .01. ***p ⬍ .001.
47
.41, p ⬍ .01. Background in French was also posi-
tively associated with “practices” scores, r(42) ⫽
.42, p ⬍ .01. Given this correlational finding, we
ran a 2 (pre, post) ⫻ 2 (type of culture) ⫻ 2
(background group) repeated measures ANOVA
with the between-subjects background variable
defined as either 2 to 3 years French background
(n ⫽ 32) or 4 to 5 years background (n ⫽ 10).
There was a statistically significant interaction be-
tween background and the pretest/posttest mea-
sures, F(1, 40) ⫽ 4.19, p ⬍ .05, effect size ⫽ 0.63,
with the total culture mean score for the 4- and
5-year background group increasing from 0.47
(SD ⫽ 0.11) on the pretest to 0.67 (SD ⫽ 0.19) on
the posttest and the scores for the 2- and 3-year
group increasing to a lesser degree, from 0.46
(SD ⫽ 0.16) to 0.56 (SD ⫽ 0.15). The overall
pretest/posttest main effect remained statistically
significant, F(1, 40) ⫽ 44.46, p ⬍ .001, effect size
⫽ 0.53. There also was a nonsignificant trend for
a Pretest/Posttest ⫻ Type of Culture interaction,
F(1, 40) ⫽ 2.88, p ⫽ .09, effect size ⫽ 0.47. The
cell means appear in Table 3. In partialling out
the variability attributable to background, we ob-
served a trend for the cultural practices scores to
increase more than the products scores overall.
Finally, statistically significant positive correla-
tions between students’ background in French
and all but one of the performance measures on
the free-recall portion of the postvideo viewing
tests surfaced. Students who had more French
prior to the beginning of the semester were able to
recall more cultural information regardless of
whether they were in the AO or the non-AO condi-
tions. Students with more background in French
were also able to recall more cultural practices and
more cultural products information than students
who had less French (see Table 6).
No significant correlations were found be-
tween amount of French background and the
pretest scores. Nor were there significant correla-
Posttest Posttest
Products Total
.32* .52***
.29a .40**
.28b .48**
.44** .54***
48
TABLE 6
Pearson Product-Moment Correlations between Student Background and Performance Measures
Performance Measures
Postvideo Viewing Tests (n ⫽ 46)
Free Recall in the AO Condition
Free Recall in the Non-AO Condition
Free Recall of Practices Information
Free Recall of Products Information
Postvideo Viewing Tests (n ⫽ 49)
Inferential Items in AO Condition
Posttest (n ⫽ 44)
Practices
Products
Total
ap ⫽ .14, statistically nonsignificant positive trend.
*p ⬍ .05. **p ⬍ .01.
tions found between previous travel to France
and test scores, or between previous exposure to
a foreign culture and test scores.
DISCUSSION
Before drawing conclusions from this study, we
stress that any implications should be interpreted
cautiously in light of the following constraints.
First, to isolate the effect of the technological
media on cultural knowledge, we had to limit as
much as possible all teacher-related factors. We
did not take into account teachers’ views regard-
ing the goals of FL education, their perspective
on the teaching of culture, or the degree of pri-
oritization of culture in the classroom. With re-
spect to the students, although we did investigate
the effect of video on their cognitive skills, we
made no attempt to measure their motivation,
anxiety, or behavior when using video technology
as a tool for learning about French culture. Fur-
thermore, we did not consider the impact of po-
tential cultural conflicts between students and
teachers (different nationality, generation, gen-
der, etc., or the fact that teachers are teaching
another culture), which may constitute a likely
occurrence. Keeping the above limitations in
mind, we suggest the following conclusions in
response to the research questions.
Question 1: Does intermediate French students’
overall knowledge of French culture improve over the
course of 1 semester in a curriculum with a
journalistic video component?
Results of the current study indicate that inter-
mediate-level college French students do im-
prove their French and Francophone cultural
The Modern Language Journal 86 (2002)
Student Background
.34*
.39**
.37*
.36*
.35*
.42**
.23a
.41**
knowledge over the course of a semester in a
curriculum with an accompanying journalistic-
style video. At the onset of the semester, students
took a pretest on cultural information to which
they would be exposed via the video segments
throughout the semester. At the completion of
the study, students took the same test (posttest)
and scored significantly higher than on the pre-
test. These findings support the initial hypothesis
that the viewing of the short video segments that
accompany the text, Bravo! would help their cul-
tural knowledge over the semester. These results
were also consistent with previous findings (Her-
ron, Corrie, Cole, & Dubreil, 1999; Herron et al.,
2000) that beginning students of French im-
proved their cultural knowledge significantly
when exposed to a curriculum containing narra-
tive video.
It is important to note that we do not make the
claim that the video segments were solely respon-
sible for this improvement, because the structure
of the study does not permit us to evaluate sepa-
rately the curriculum, teacher techniques, and
the viewing of the videos. The findings suggest,
however, that after a semester of exposure to an
intermediate French program that included
video, students improved their factual knowledge
of French and Francophone culture.
The fact that students in the present study im-
proved in overall French cultural knowledge
could be at least partially explained by turning to
the correlational results between previous back-
ground in French and pretest/posttest perfor-
mance. We had found no correlation between
background in French and the pretest scores, but
there was a significantly positive correlation be-
tween background in French and posttest scores.
This finding implies that how much French the
Carol Herron, Sébastien Dubreil, Cathleen Corrie, and Steven P. Cole
students knew did not affect pretest scores but
did affect posttest scores. The increase in scores,
however, was associated with the level of French
background.
The analysis of variance that included the back-
ground measure revealed that the gains in overall
knowledge of culture were greater for the stu-
dents with more French background. Further-
more, ad hoc comments by students to teachers
during the study revealed their perceptions of the
difficulty of the videotexts. They expressed con-
cern that the videos were “very hard to under-
stand.” It could be that the significant difference
in favor of an improvement in cultural informa-
tion between pretest and posttest scores might be
related to the students’ French instructional
background at the onset of the study. If indeed
the videos were inherently difficult, it makes
sense that comprehension would favor the stu-
dents with more French in their backgrounds, as
our correlational and ANOVA tests indicated.
Our hypothesis was reinforced by the finding
that student linguistic background was also posi-
tively correlated with the ability to recall freely
cultural information. Furthermore, student per-
formance on the free-recall portion of the
postvideo viewing tests was positively correlated
with the performance on the posttest. This rela-
tionship suggests that the more background in
French students had, the more cultural informa-
tion they were able to recall from the video on a
short-term level (free-recall test) and the more
information they learned on the long-term level
(posttest). Given that student background was
not significantly correlated with performance on
the pretest, it did not help the students with un-
known cultural information. However, back-
ground did appear to help them retain new cul-
tural information once they were exposed to it in
the target videos.
These and previous findings encourage teach-
ers to enhance the cultural aspect of the first- and
second-year FL college programs by using a cur-
riculum that includes an authentic video compo-
nent. This message is especially important for
teachers in light of Harlow and Muyskens’ (1994)
findings that using video in the classroom was
given a high priority by intermediate-level stu-
dents and a rather low priority by instructors. We
concur with their suggestion that instructors capi-
talize on students’ interest in video as a worth-
while activity in spite of the time and expense
needed to implement it effectively. Not only can
a video component build listening comprehen-
sion skills as shown in previous research (Rubin,
1990; Secules et al., 1992), but the use of video-
49
tapes can also be effective for building cultural
knowledge. Our research design did not allow for
teacher mediation or intervention to aid student
comprehension during the video viewing. This
constraint, however, did not appear to affect the
retention of cultural information, particularly for
the students who had more background in
French. When preparing authentic videotexts,
teachers should remember that explanation dur-
ing the video could benefit the retention of cul-
tural information, especially for the students with
the least amount of previous French.
Question 2: Do intermediate French students retain
more cultural practices or more cultural products over
the course of a semester in a curriculum with a
journalistic video component?
With respect to the distinction between prac-
tices and products scores on the pretest/posttest,
the magnitude of the gains in cultural practices
scores was not different from the products gains
over the course of the semester. Also, practices
scores on the pretest and on the posttest were not
significantly higher than products pretest and
posttest scores. These results are not consistent
with previous related research (Herron, Corrie,
Cole, & Dubreil, 1999; Herron et al., 2000) re-
vealing that beginning students had statistically
significantly higher little “c” (practices) scores
than big “C” (products) scores on the pretest and
on the posttest and that for FR101 students there
were greater gains in little “c” than in big “C”
knowledge over the course of the semester.
It is possible that the current research revealed
no such differences because of the nature of the
authentic videotext. The journalistic video seg-
ments of Bravo! do not present students with an
adventure as did the French in Action (1994) nar-
rative videos used in earlier studies (Herron, Cor-
rie, Cole, & Dubreil, 1999; Herron et al., 2000).
Sometimes the video segments in the current re-
search presented French people around the
world talking about culture rather than demon-
strating it. This presentational mode, although
appropriate for the intermediate level, might not
emphasize behavioral representations. In the cur-
rent study, the students’ retention of cultural
practices could have been negatively affected by
the video’s possible lack of consistent behavioral
representation of everyday cultural acts. This
omission could explain why students performed
equally well on practices and products items on
the pretest/posttest.
A further reason as to why we found no signifi-
cant difference between kind of culture learned
50
relates to course expectations at the intermediate
level. Martin and Laurie (1993) found that when
intermediate-level students were asked to priori-
tize their course goals, they rated equally well
learning about both popular culture defined as
“the French way of life” and hegemonal culture
defined as “major aspects of French culture” (pp.
189–198). In their study, 86% of the students
indicated the importance of knowing some-
thing/more about French life and customs, and
84% of the students indicated the importance of
knowing something/more about some of the ma-
jor aspects of French culture. Martin and Laurie’s
practically identical response in students’ cultural
learning goals suggests a possible reason why stu-
dents in the current research performed equally
well on cultural practices and products over the
course of the semester.
We should note here that when a measure of
French background was included in the type of
Culture ⫻ Pretest/Posttest model, a trend ap-
peared for cultural practices scores to increase
more than products scores overall. That is, when
French instructional background was taken into
account, differences for the means in Table 3
were significant. This finding suggests that in-
structional background relates to students’ reten-
tion of cultural practices. It could be that the
students’ previous French programs emphasized
cultural practices more than cultural products,
but given the available sample information, it is
not feasible to assess this possibility in any precise
way. Future research that would more precisely
define the nature of students’ previous French
background could help explain this trend.
Question 3: Do AOs to the journalistic videos
enhance students’ ability to draw correct cultural
inferences in short-answer tests administered
immediately after video viewing?
Regarding short-term retention, the admini-
stration of an AO prior to video viewing did not
reveal a significant difference in cultural under-
standing between the AO and non-AO condi-
tions. This finding is consistent with previous re-
search indicating that AOs are most helpful to
beginning FL students (Hudson, 1982; Mueller,
1980). However, a close look at the mean propor-
tion of correct responses on the short-answer in-
ferential tests (49% correct in the AO condition
and 52% correct in the non-AO condition)
points to strong performance overall on test
items measuring students’ understanding of cul-
tural perspectives. On the average, students an-
swered approximately 1 of every 2 inferential
The Modern Language Journal 86 (2002)
items correctly. Most important, student per-
formance did not appear to be overly handi-
capped by short-answer items that required them
to reflect on the perspectives underlying the cul-
tural practices and products they viewed, which
entails a higher level of thinking than knowledge
of cultural facts. Correlational analysis disclosed
a positive association between student back-
ground and performance on the inferential items
in the AO condition of the postvideo viewing
tests. This result seems to indicate that, when
prompted by an AO, students who had more
background in French performed better on the
short-answer, inferential portion of the postvideo
viewing tests than students with less French in
their background. This finding also suggests that
students found the target videos difficult and that
the students with more French benefited from
the information given in the AOs.
Question 4: Do AOs to the journalistic videos improve
students’ retention or comprehension of cultural
information on tests of free recall administered
immediately after video viewing?
The administration of an AO prior to video
viewing did not enhance the intermediate FL stu-
dents’ free recall of culture embedded in the
videos. This finding was consistent with the result
above indicating that the AO did not improve
student performance on the more convergent,
short-answer items of the postvideo viewing tests.
This result could be an indication that AOs do
not appear to enhance cultural proficiency for
the intermediate-level FL student. Another possi-
ble interpretation would be that whereas the AO
treatment in this study (descriptive statements
summarizing the video’s topics) does not seem to
enhance cultural reflection, a different AO treat-
ment could benefit comprehension.
Question 5: Do intermediate students retain more
information about cultural practices or cultural
products on tests of free recall administered
immediately after video viewing?
Students recalled significantly more about cul-
tural practices than cultural products on the
open-ended postvideo viewing tests. The issue of
why student free recall favored practices is not a
question directly answered by this research. It
could be that aspects of daily life are simply easier
for students to remember than cultural products.
Or perhaps there might have been more in-
stances of cultural practices than cultural prod-
ucts embedded in the journalistic videos, which,
Carol Herron, Sébastien Dubreil, Cathleen Corrie, and Steven P. Cole
of course, would have favored the higher free
recall of practices. Although we had no reason to
think that this imbalance of practices over prod-
ucts was the case, in future research a detailed
content analysis of each video segment prior to its
use might be warranted. Even without an exten-
sive analysis of the content of the source video, it
appears that the cultural practices in the video
segments were the subjects of conversation rather
than demonstrated actions. However, even with
the relative absence of “culture in action,” when
asked to recall freely the most salient aspects of
the videos, the students still mentioned cultural
behaviors and values significantly more often
than cultural achievements and institutions.
One possibility for why the students recalled
significantly more information about cultural
practices than cultural products on the free-recall
tests but failed to perform significantly better on
cultural practices at pretest or posttest is worthy
of exploration. This difference in results could
find some basis in the notion that the free-recall
responses mirrored what students deemed as
memorable, in this case daily patterns of living,
whereas the multiple-choice items on the pre-
test/posttest were indications of what the investi-
gators thought students should remember. When
given a choice, students, in their responses, fa-
vored elements belonging to the area of cultural
practices. This interpretation has support in the
study by Martin and Laurie (1993) in which they
asked intermediate-level students to prioritize
reasons for choosing to study French. They deter-
mined that overall, nearly 87% of the students
studied were motivated to enroll by the desire to
study the French way of life whereas 42% of stu-
dents enrolled to learn about a particular aspect
of French culture, such as art or history. A tenta-
tive conclusion is that what originally motivates
students about cultural study might be an indica-
tion of what they will freely recall most effectively
from authentic video.
Question 6: What are intermediate French students’
perceptions of how many cultural practices and
cultural products are presented in videos and of how
much of that cultural information they learn?
Analysis of the data indicated that the students
believed that more cultural practices than prod-
ucts had been presented and that they had
learned more about cultural practices than cul-
tural products. These findings from the student
opinion poll in favor of practices are in line with
the results above that students recalled signifi-
cantly more cultural practices than products
51
items on the free-recall portion of the postvideo
viewing tests. Although the reason for this differ-
ence in recall remains elusive, when asked for
personal opinions or when given freedom of re-
sponse, these students appeared to be drawn to
anthropological culture. Our results suggest that
teachers should remember this preference and
include cultural practices in culture activities.
In conclusion, we would like to suggest direc-
tions for further research. Future studies could
measure students’ motivation, anxiety, or behav-
ior when using video to learn about culture. We
invite studies that will extend beyond factual un-
derstanding in the directions of cross-cultural
sensitivity and subjectivity. Future investigations
could explore the effects of video on the cultural
proficiency of advanced FL students, especially
with the current study’s finding that previous
background in French can positively relate to cul-
tural gain. The updated Standards (1999) empha-
size that all three aspects of culture are inter-
woven and inseparable. In the current study, we
chose to delineate between practices, products,
and perspectives, but we invite studies to explore
how they are interconnected. Researchers should
examine the advantages of interactive video deliv-
ered digitally to students via the Internet as com-
pared with teacher-controlled, classroom video
presentations.
With culture constituting a core element of FL
education and with language and culture en-
twined, we need to translate these principles into
practice. This study highlighted one aspect of
culture (knowledge), one learning approach
(video viewing), and one type of classroom activ-
ity (an AO). We hope it will foster a chain of
research on how best to teach culture at all levels.
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