Diary of learning

In this part, I am going to tell you what I have learnt during my experience as a learner of the Second language learning and teaching Master of the Cantabria University. 

Experience with cinema and literature in the ESL classroom

I would like to start by telling you that before taking this subject, cinema and literature, I had not seen the advantages of watching a movie in class. During my experience, as an English teacher, I implemented this strategy once with 5-year-old learners. It was in a dramatic play center where students should use the L2 to buy the food and the tickets to watch the movie. In my opinion, children did not enjoy the movie very much since it was in English, and they could not understand it very well. Before and after that experience I had not considered cinema as a resource due to the short time of the class.  

I have seen that some teachers play a movie when they had to be with a group in their free hour without any purpose if a teacher was not at the school. I made connections between what the teacher has taught and the experience I’ve had, and I realized that I, as a second language teacher, can implement cinema in the EFL classroom with the purpose of involving students in the foreign culture and it can help them to be more critics.   

Saving time

At the beginning, I was worried about all the duties that I had to fulfill not only to the master's degree but also with my personal life. Therefore, I had to find for strategies to make effective use of time.  Since it takes me forty-five minutes to drive from my house to the university, playing the audiobook of ‘The Great Gatsby’ while driving was very helpful in this quest.

Cinema and literature involve culture

In my opinion, cinema and literature bring to us different cultures around the world. They help us in gaining knowledge about people's beliefs, stereotypes, attitudes and how they lead their lives. Also, cinema and literature introduce us to various art forms. So, knowing some of the advantages that cinema and literature have, I could include them in the English Foreign language not only for fun but to improve or strengthen the English skills using strategies such as reading aloud, reading workshops, a discussion about the movie and even gamification.  

Advantages and disadvantages of cinema and literature

As there are advantages in the implementation of literature and cinema in the classroom, there are also disadvantages. One of them is the time that the teacher has to dedicate to prepare, select, organize and adapt activities to for the students. On the other hand, including cinema in the classroom is a new way of learning that is more fun and innovative. Besides, literature in the English classroom favors students' contact with authentic language.