In my experience as a second language teacher, I can’t tell you how many times I have come across people who tell me “I learnt Spanish with Pedro Almodovar movies”, or “I learnt English watching Friends“. Some people have this uncanny superpower of learning a complex interactive communication system such as language, by passively observing people on screen speaking what I can only imagine is gibberish (at first).
Bastarda!
I have personally tried this approach with Italian. I was told to put the subtitles to the spoken language, no translations as a crutch. I was told to start with small repetitive words and observe the body language. After a while, I was supposed to notice repetitive expressions and word chunks (in the second language vernacular). But, and I think you can see where I’m going with this, I got frustrated after the first hour. Clearly, this was not a good approach for me. But as the Whole Language Approach would advocate, you have to dive in and use authenticity as a motivational leverage. Right?
I must admit I was indeed motivated to resemble the main character’s searing ability to placate her cheating lover in Italian (adultery being a common theme in Italian movies), but aside from cursing “bastarda” I couldn’t string together a convincing burn in Italian from watching movies. So how as adult learners, can we re-acquaint ourselves acquiring language in this immersive almost invasive method? The short answer is we can’t (except for the admirable outliers), but the mid answer is ‘scaffolding’.
Scaffolding is Key
In education, scaffolding is known as the support we put in place to make a difficult task manageable. In other words, you don’t modify the task per se, but you modify the introduction to the task, how to interact with the task and what you want to get out of the task. For example, with my Italian movie, I could view a list of key vocabulary beforehand and see that vocabulary in context. While watching the movie, I could ask simple comprehension questions that also leverage body language, and after the task, I could review the questions and vocabulary and set up simple conversation tasks that put that vocabulary into action.
Mauril: an application that has it all
Too much work you say. I hear you. So the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) has done it for you in its Mauril application. This amazing application (and website) uses original clips from TV programs, news broadcasts, and series and adds the scaffolds. You can search your material by vocabulary point, or functional use (e.g. introductions, job interviews, etc.). Each lesson comes with a vocabulary list, clip, and comprehension questions. Or you can simply suggest it to your students as a self-directed learning tool. It is truly the whole package. FYI it is also available in French.
