Learning English with Animated Movies

Abstract

Many lower level EFL middle school students in Korea have difficulty becoming motivated in the English classroom (Exeter et al. 2010). Being identified as “lower-level” can be discouraging for certain students and some are even put into special after-school programs. As a result, these students become rather sensitive about their lack of proficiency. In my experience as a teacher in one of these programs, it has become clear to me that these students are discouraged by the textbooks’ level of difficulty; these books serve the purpose of preparing students for standardized exams, but do not really meet their levels nor peak their interests. In this special after-school program I teach in, I find it important to identify learners’ interests, needs, and learning styles and reflect those in the lessons I present. Without doing so, the results are boredom and a lack of motivation in students. My textbook is designed to meet the needs of middle school students with a lower level of English ability and low levels of motivation in this school subject. My main goal is to motivate students to become more interested in English as well as improve their English proficiency in a communicative manner in which students will interact in the target language in fun and meaningful ways in various social contexts. My target audience is approximately 12 lower-level students in their first year of middle school; they can be classified as novice-high in listening and speaking, and intermediate-low in reading, and novice-mid in writing, according to ACTFL. The primary aim of the class is learner motivation and making students feel more confident in English classes. I also seek to build upon their general communicative competence in English. Since there are no assessment requirements, I have a lot of freedom with curriculum design. In the needs analysis I conducted on my target group I found that learners were interested in watching movies and playing computer games. I also found that some of my students were shy and even ashamed to be in this lower level. In order to meet their interests and make them feel more comfortable in this special classroom environment, I have chosen to include movie clips in the chapter of my textbook that appeals to the target learners; these will act as catalysts for other fun, interesting and motivating classroom activities. My Portfolio, Learning English with Animated Movies, is my attempt at integrating media into this sort of communicative classroom setting.