Television and English as a Foreing Language lessons

I.S.F.D. n° 30 Expesión escrita Teacher: Blas Bigatti

Research paper

Niell, Valeria Ricchezza, Betina Vellere, Paola

Television and English as a Foreing Language lessons: Introducing students´ interests in the learning process

All television is educational television. The question is: what is it teaching? Most of young people state that they spend most of their time in front of “the box”. Television tends to be criticized as useless and of poor quality. However, relying on our experience as teachers, we can say that this device within our classrooms is a useful tool, since the famous “box” is one of young adults´ main interests. Whether television is good or bad, it cannot be ignored that children and adolescents spend too many hours in front of it. It also cannot be ignored that students feel bored in the classroom, especially in English lessons. This is a clear

example or complaint found in Antimoon. How to learn English effectively: ¿Por qué no nos gustan las clases de inglés? (2011): Casi todos los profesores de inglés usan libros de texto. ¿Quieres saber por qué?

Porque les hace el trabajo fácil. No tienen que prepararse para cada clase, simplemente necesitan hacer la siguiente unidad en el libro. Los libros de texto hacen fácil dar clases y hacen el aprendizaje aburrido y poco efectivo. Tienes que leer estúpidas historias acerca de Michael Jackson o de una mujer que vivió en la jungla africana por dos años. Entonces tienes que responder preguntas acerca de ellos y hablar de ellos con los demás estudiantes. ¡Esto es absurdo! Todo ese sin sentido que no te interesa. Esto te hace pensar que aprender inglés es aburrido.

A possible answer to this problem could be the way the lessons are planned. A promising solution would be to entwine students’ interests with the school subjects, in order to avoid repeating the negative experience mentioned in the quotation above about boring lesson with text books. The focus of this paper is to find a way of making English classes more appealing.

Television could be used as a tool to design lessons. An analysis made of the results of a survey among young adults will provide teachers with new ideas in order to engage students in their English lessons. In fact, several studies have been carried out during the last years.

The significant role of television in children and young adult’s lives opened the path to psychological research, examining both the harmful and beneficial effects of the television.

Although the results are mixed, psychologists have attributed the powerful nature of television to different theories related to development and learning, such as those theories of Bandura and Piaget.

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I.S.F.D. n° 30 Expesión escrita Teacher: Blas Bigatti

Research paper

Niell, Valeria Ricchezza, Betina Vellere, Paola

Background and methodology In order to find out what young adults prefer watching on TV, a survey was carried out with students from the school ESB N°6 and ESS N°1 in Ituzaingó, Buenos Aires. Both are public schools, situated in working class areas. The students that have been inquired range from 12 to 18 years old, from 1st to 5th year of secondary school. They were asked to answer three multiple choice questions about their taste in television programs. (See Appendix) Students were polled about their preference on films, TV series, soap operas, anime, sports, documentaries, reality shows, the news and entertainment programs. The answers were grouped according to the coincidences and they are showed in three pie charts.

Results The data gathered in the survey showed that 90% of students polled preferred to watch films, 80% preferred TV series, 70% soap operas, 20% anime, 40% sports, 25% documentaries, 20% reality shows and 40% entertainment shows.

Films TV Series Soap Opera Cartoons/animes Sports Documentaries Reality shows News Entertainment progammes

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I.S.F.D. n° 30 Expesión escrita Teacher: Blas Bigatti

Research paper

Niell, Valeria Ricchezza, Betina Vellere, Paola

Action Drama Science Fiction Terror Comedy History films Musical Children´s films Fantasy

Simpsons Harry Potter El secreto de sus ojos Anime Fast and furious Cartoon Films

The avengers Resident evil Twilight

Thirty six adolescents chose action films, being Fast and Furious and The Avengers the most watched ones. Twenty nine students chose horror films, there were few coincidences that do not worth mentioning. As regards comedy, 25 students said to prefer them but there were no relevant coincidences to mention. As regard drama, seventeen students said to prefer them, 3

I.S.F.D. n° 30 Expesión escrita Teacher: Blas Bigatti

Research paper

Niell, Valeria Ricchezza, Betina Vellere, Paola

and again no coincidences were found. Thirteen students chose Fantasy movies as their favorite, being Harry Potter and Twilight the preferred films. As for Sci-Fi films, ten students checked them as their favorite, being Resident Evil and Avatar the most mentioned. Musicals and Animated films are close together, with nine and eight students which preferred them, respectively. In this case, for animated films, Shrek and Ice Age were the most mentioned. As regards History films, five students checked this box, yet, none of them mentioned a single History movie when asked.

Interesting Facts Another fact that called our attention was that one student chose terror as his or her favorite (this student preferred to remain anonymous), nevertheless, when asked about his/her favorite movies, he/she wrote Titanic and Las vueltas de la vida, which is obviously odd, since both films belong to drama.

We noticed that most of the polled students "cheated", i.e, copied from others the answers, but, from our point of view, at least one of them was honest when he/she (another anonymous) wrote in his/her favorites movies "Hentai", which is animated pornography.

His/her confession was appreciated because three students "chose" as their favorite movie El Secreto de Sus Ojos when they checked Terror and Comedy as their favorites.

It was interesting to note that their spelling of English movies was either good or terrible. We gathered answers like "Escarimuvi" (Scary Movie), "Toys Tory" (Toy Story) and "Twilling" (Twilight, we believe). But we cannot expect them to have excellent spelling in English when their Spanish one is weak, for example, "La Guerfana" (even without dieresis) and "La Hera de Hielo" The most watched TV series is The Simpsons, with the 40% of students.

Discussion Taking into account the aforementioned results, television could be an excellent tool for teachers when the time of planning comes. The research in this paper is focused on traditional forms of television. Nevertheless, investigation on newer technologies, such as internet, could be considered for others to review. Many times teachers of English complain about their students´ poor engagement in their lessons because textbooks do not apply to young adults´ interest or to their real lives. Besides, the English language itself is too far from their reality.

This kind of discouraging experiences could be the starting point for teachers to make a radical change. First of all, teachers should think about a students´ familiar context. Watching television series and movies is one of the activities most developed by them. By focusing on students´ answers from the survey, the teacher of English as a foreign language could plan a lesson about any content contextualized, for instance, in the “Simpsons” series. Indeed, many of the students´ preferences are English-speaking series and films, such as Friends (series), 4

I.S.F.D. n° 30 Expesión escrita Teacher: Blas Bigatti

Research paper

Niell, Valeria Ricchezza, Betina Vellere, Paola

The Avengers and Harry Potter (Films) therefore, teachers have a lot of authentic material to include in their lessons. Not only teachers of English can use this device, but any teacher of any subject can contextualize their lessons with television material.

In this way, television could be a powerful implement for any teacher to engage their students in an attractive context and to develop successful lessons. But in order to place Television inside our school bags, as any other school supply, it is necessary to carry out the above mentioned proposal to compare these expectations with the reality of the classroom.

References •

Dictionary online: www.wordreference.com

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Dictionary online: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/

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Ranwa Hammamy. 2006. “The value of educational television” http://www.smcm.edu/psyc/_assets/documents/smp/showcase/0607rhammamy.pdf

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Barbara Seels, University of Pittsburgh. “Research on learning from television” At:http://coe.csusb.edu/faculty/newberry/classes/archive/fall2008/etec_674_fall_20 08/readings/12.pdf

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