Result of " Using Movies in EFL Classrooms: A Study Conducted at the English Language Institute (ELI), King Abdul-Aziz University" Journal

Hi fellas! Good night! (the ones of you who read this article in the night 😃) for those of you who don't, whatever the situations are, morning, evening etc, I'd like to say welcome and how are you? It's been 2 week I don't post my article esspecially regarding to my Critical Academic class' project, as I had the Midterm Test for the first semeter of this year. But right now I glad to catch you again, Midterm test is over so time for me to do relaxing, yes relaxing to do any kind of assagment like this 😃. You know what there won 't be a time to have kind of relaxing before the Final test come over, and means that in this time I still busy to do another assigmenst my lecture give. So yeah, still surviving.

And for today post, I will be continuing to review the journal article the "Using Movies in EFL Classrom", today moment I'm going to finish my review through this journal, and this is time to review or giving you the result of that research. If you all curious enough, just read and finish itu because I would also state the Discussion, Limitation, and the Conclusion of the journal. So, let check this one out!

Discussion 

The results indicated that the majority of the students agreed that the integration of movies in their English language classes could help them improve their language skills. This supports the results of a study conducted in Turkey (Seferoğlu, 2008) in which the participants acknowledged that besides improving listening and speaking 

skills, watching movies in English provided them a wealth of knowledge on slang, accents and cross-cultural information. Knee (2001) argues that movies can be integrated into English lessons to foster not only the linguistic competence, but also the interactional competence of the students.

The participants in the current study found that the integration of movies in their classes has significantly increased their motivation to learn the English language. This finding agrees with a study conducted by Florence (2009) which found that films in English provided the participants in his study with authentic contexts as well as motivation to learn the language. The findings of Florence’s’ study also revealed that movies enabled students to learn faster and remember longer especially in terms of vocabulary; as well as the study in South East Europe (Ismaili, 2013) which concluded that using movies in the classroom stimulated the perceptions of the students directly and made the class livelier and led to more teacher-student discussions. The results of the study support King’s (2002) argument that movies in itself is a stimulus, in which learners can be motivated” to communicate in contemporary colloquial English” (King, 2002, p. 33). This can only be accomplished when students are provided with a meaningful and authentic context, in which language proficiency can be improved and students feel less stressed and encouraged to use English as a tool for communication. This also supports the findings of a more recent study which argues that films are highly effective owing to the fact that they “attract the human psyche as they thrill, motivate, shock, entertain and render the masses powerless to resist the temptation of the silver screen” (Macwan, 2015, p. 49).

The findings of the study indicated that movies are valuable authentic materials for improving students’ speaking  skills. The participants found themselves more interactive and engaged in the lessons when the teacher used films more than when the teacher used the textbook or other learning materials. The participants also reported that movies are beneficial for enhancing their interactional skills. Students in the present study reported that through films they were able to learn how native speakers initiate and sustain a conversational exchange, negotiate meaning, and nonverbal communication. This agrees with Katchen’s claim (2003) that the textbooks usually do not teach for instance small talk and conversational interaction; thus, movies can be an effective way to motivate learners to develop their interactional skills, since movies usually present the most current and real language with different interactional situations.

The participants in the current study welcomed the exposure to the real English used by native speakers in the movie, which as they mentioned helped them become more confident to speak in English. An authentic and meaningful context is believed to establish a solid ground to effective EFL instruction. This is supported by Eken’s argument (2003) that a film’s rich and popular context makes it both a medium of enjoyment and a popular of people daily conversations. Accordingly, the participants in this study became more confident and engaged in the discussions and the post-viewing tasks. They also liked the exposure to informal and conversational use of English, which helped them learn the slang and informal phrases used by native speakers.

It can be seen from the results that the students found the pre viewing introduction to the movie of immense help in understanding and comprehending the movie. The teachers who participated also agree that it is important to have activities related to the movie in order to fulfill its pedagogical use. This conclusion also agrees with studies conducted by Keene (2006) which suggests that an anticipatory mind that is made so with the use of an introduction to the movie may contribute to better understanding and contextualization of the new material. Fisher & Frey (2011) consider viewing full-length feature films an unnecessary waste of good instructional time. Li (2012) concluded in his study that with pre-viewing introductions, which he calls advance organizers, the students are able to remain motivated and know what to listen for without losing focus. King (2002) believes that a pre and post viewing discussions allow students to explore relevant issues raised from a variety of perspectives, develop critical thinking skills, and elicit responses. Moreover, these activities can help students converse freely on all aspects of the film they watch and release them from inhibiting grammatical rule-binding and detailed-oriented learning habits. Stephens et al. (2012) also supported and promoted the use of pre-viewing activities in order to hasten the students’ understanding of the movie.

The findings also suggest that movies are unlikely to be useful for learning if the teacher does not provide learning aids. Films can be invaluable pedagogical tools if accompanied with appropriate learning activities. The audiovisual supports provided in the films helped create a meaningful learning experience for the students. This supports the assertion by Soh and Kaur (2007) that students learn faster and better in a rich context provided by movies, which gives them a better understanding of the events portrayed and stimulate more discussions in the classroom.

To conclude, the results of the study indicate that movies can be effective pedagogical tools when used appropriately. King (2002) argues that the integration of movies in language classrooms is effective when meaningful and useful tasks are planned to assist learners along with watching the film. Language instructors should be careful when selecting films for their lessons. Their choice should be based on the interests and the proficiency levels of the students.

Limitations 

There were several limitations to this study. The most prominent one lies in the fact that the sample size was relatively small. The number of the participants in the study was a meagre 50 students. In addition, due to the gender-segregated higher education system in Saudi Arabia, all the participants were female students; thereby, this did not provide variance in population. In addition, the researcher had a limited time frame in which to conduct the study. Moreover, the participants in the current study were all at the same level of proficiency in the English language. If the study was conducted across different proficiency levels, it would have been a more valid manifestation of the effect of using movies in the EFL classrooms.

Conclusion

The results of the present study conclude that movies are powerful instructional tools that can help in developing students’ language skills. The participants in the study have positive attitudes towards the integration of movies in their classrooms to improve their English. The study also indicates that using movies in the foreign language classroom could enhance the students’ motivation to learn the language. Teachers in the current study stated that movies increased students’ participation and engagement in the classroom. The students also believed that movies could help improve their vocabulary acquisition as they provide them with a wealth of information about  a variety of vocabulary, phrases, and colloquial expressions. However, in order to fulfil its pedagogical purpose, movies should be strategically selected based on the course syllabus, students’ interests, and their proficiency 

level. While designing the tasks and the materials that incorporate the movies into classes, the main goal of using this authentic material and the objectives of the specific lesson should always be kept in mind. In addition, language teachers should not ignore the importance of planning useful and meaningful tasks for students before and after viewing in order to make the teaching focus more explicit, hence students want treat it as a pure source of enjoyment and entertainment.