静岡県立大学
短期大学部
研究紀要第11-1号
1997年度Using Films as Authentic Spoken Texts

59

Using Films as Authentic Spoken Texts

Mika Higuchi

1.1 Introduction
In this essay, I will explore the problems when we use authentic texts in the classroom. Here I
take spoken authentic texts to discuss. The reason why I do not include written authentic texts
here is that at first I also tried to study about the case when literary work, for example shortstories written in the target language, is used as written authentic texts. However, this attempt did
not seem to work well because reading literary work does not require reading skills only, but also
the sense for or sharp insight into literary work. Therefore I could not concentrate on how todevelop reading skills using literary work. On the other hand, films are originally produced forentertainment, and thus usually they do not require deep insight into their contents. It means thatfilms are easier and more suitable to be adapted into teaching materials for language skills
development.

1.2

Authenticity

It seems very difficult to define what is really ‘authentic’. Some would say that authentic texts
are only natural everyday conversation without any transcriptions.
Some would say, on the other hand, that films, TV dramas, TV or radio news programmes, orinterview shows can be included in authentic texts, because they are produced aiming to address
those who understand the language as their native tongue. In my essay, I define the term ‘authentic
texts’ as texts which are not especially produced as language teaching materials. In this sense, I
will discuss the case when we use films produced and spoken in the target language as authentic
spoken texts. The reason why I choose films is that they are relatively easy to adapt into teachingmaterials as I mentioned in the above section. In addition to this, films are rather easy to acquire,
and to use them as teaching materials in classrooms we need scripts of them in order to exactly
grasp the contents and meaning of each sentences. Nowadays many films’ scripts are sold at bookshops so that we can easily get them.

1.3

Films

As Brown (1993) mentions in his book that “technology (films, videos, televisions, audiotapes,
computer software) can come to the aid of nonnative speaking teachers who are not very proficientin the second language to teach effectively”(p.246). Although I agree with his statement and thinkthat using films in the classroom might make the lessons fun, there are not a few difficult points
to make the films suit the classroom use.

Any general films are not produced to build the

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Mika Higuchi

language learners’ listening skills. This means that films cannot be teaching materials without any
extra devices. Therefore teachers who are trying to use a film have to make some adaptations,which will be a hard task and I will talk about this issue in a later section.

1.4

Fluency

What we can expect the most from using films as authentic texts is that the learners will develop
their fluency in listening. When we use coursebooks for listening skills, the main focus is mostly
on accuracy.

Accuracy is indeed a very important aspect in learning the second language.

However, on the other hand, Brown (1993) points out that “fluency and accuracy are seen ascomplementary principles underlying communicative techniques.

At times fluency may have totake on more importance than accuracy in order to keep learners meaningfully engaged in languageuse” (p.245). McCarthy and Carter (1995) also state that “in informal spoken data that they havecollected, speakers’ grammatical choice has less to do with tense in a strict sense, and more to dowith modality, enabling speakers to give more emphasis to the overall content of the message than
to the authority, or certainty, or the precise words with which it was uttered” (p.212).

These

reports show that language learners should be trained to develop fluency in listening for the sakeof obtaining the ability of smooth communication in the target language. Films as authentic texts
are suitable for this kind of practice because the characters are continuously sending messages tothe audience or the learners; these receivers need not catch every word they are speaking, but needto understand and retain the overall content in their heads, even if several words go out of memory
instantly.

1.5

Procedural knowledge

Johnson (1994) presents two types of knowledge: DK (declarative knowledge, which means
knowledge about), and PK (procedural knowledge, which means knowledge how to). He says that“for tasks such as spontaneous conversation where immediate access to knowledge is required, PK
is important” (p.122). It is obvious that students cannot take part in the conversations in a film;
they can only watch and hear it.

However, they have to understand the overall content

spontaneously to follow the story. It can be seen that students are involved in pseudo-realconversation, or quoting Brown’s expression, to watch and hear a film resembles being “encouraged
to deal with unrehearsed situations” (1993: 245). In this respect, using authentic texts can help
learners to obtain PK.

2.1

Facets of mentality and ability in language learning

When films are used as texts, it must be difficult for learners to follow because those spoken texts
are so similar to real-world situations.

Hence using films as authentic texts in the classroom

requires of the participants both mental facets and the ability to acquire the second language at ahigher level. Firstly I will consider the mental facets concerning language learning.

2.2

Motivation

There are several categories of motivation proposed by researchers. Johns (1991), who plans andUsing Films as Authentic Spoken Texts

61

carries out a DDL (data-driven learning) approach successfully says that his way of teaching may
work well for the students who are “intelligent, sophisticated, and well-motivated” (p.12). Usingfilms in the classroom is not such a difficult task as his DDL, where he teaches “by stimulating
student questions and by doing linguistic research in the classroom on a cooperative basis” (p.12).
However, every sentence spoken in a film can be seen as raw data which the students have to deal
with, so they are also required to have nearly the same ability as DDL students.

2.3

Ausubel’s six needs

Brown quotes six needs undergirding the construct of motivation proposed by Ausubel. These
needs make up motivation and motivation will lead the learners to such a desirable condition as
Johns suggests.

Ausubel states six needs: (1)exploration, (2) manipulation, (3)activity,(4)stimulation, (5)knowledge, and (6)ego enhancement (cited in Brown, p.152-3).

When thesesix needs spring from students’ minds, they aim for a higher level of second language competence,and then the use of authentic texts will work well. Still, it seems that few students own and feelsuch needs. To arouse such needs from students’ minds may be one of the language teachers’
most important tasks.

2.4

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

Brown (1993) cites a claim by Maslow, where he presents two types of motivations, intrinsic andextrinsic. Deci explains in detail about intrinsic motivation:
Intrinsically motivated activities are ones for which there is no apparent reward except theactivity itself. People seem to engage in the activities for their own sake and not because
they lead to an extrinsic reward... Intrinsically motivated behaviours are aimed at bringing
about certain internally rewarding consequences, namely, feelingofcompetenceandself-determination. (cited in Brown, pp.155-6)
Brown explains about the other motivation in which “extrinsically motivated behaviours ... arecarried out in anticipation of a reward from outside and beyond the self” (p.155-6). As Maslow
says, intrinsic motivation is clearly superior to extrinsic. Ausubel’s six needs underlie this claim.
However, practically, most of the learners’ motivation seems to be extrinsic because the second
language is taught at schools and good ability in foreign language sometimes gives a good postin one’s occupation. This is quite true in Japan.

2.5

Instrumental and integrative motivations

Brown (1993) also cites the research by Gardner and Lambert. In their research, they found two
types of motivations: instrumental and integrative motivation.
Instrumental motivation refers to motivation to acquire a language as means for attaining
instrumental goals: furthering a career, reading technical materials, translation, and so forth.

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Mika Higuchi

An integrative motive is employed when learners wish

to integrate themselves within theculture of the second language group, to identify themselves and become part of that society.
(cited in Brown, 1993, p.153)
Instrumental motivation is almost equal to the extrinsic one. As I mentioned in the last section,
learners in Japan mostly have those external motivations. Talking from Maslow’s viewpoint, thesemotivations might not lead learners to higher competence in the use of the target language. It isagain the language teachers’ task to arouse students’ intrinsic motivation (integrative motivation is
not always necessary because not all the learners want to immigrate to places where the target
language is spoken).

2.6

Intrinsic motivation and films

Films themselves are interesting and fun so that it can arouse students’ intrinsic motivation.

It

seems that films have some kind of power that enables students to deal with the target language
while apart from their academic records or professional careers.

There are pseudo real-world

situations in films, with which many students wish to get more or less contact. In accordance with
this, they will come to feel the six needs that Ausubel proposed, they will want and need to
explore what they do not know, to manipulate and change the environment with the target
language, to do some activities and exercise using the target language, to be stimulated by thetarget language, to process and internalise the knowledge about the target language, and to be
known and accepted by others through the target language. This procedure will lead them throughintrinsic motivation.

2.7

Facets of language ability in advance

Next, I will consider the ability in the target language before students start the class using spoken
authentic texts. As Macarthy and Carter (1995) say, in informal spoken language the sentences
are sometimes or often ungrammatical; verbs or subjects are often dropped. This is because theconversations are “taking place before their [speakers’ and hearers’] receptive eyes, a lot ofknowledge is shared, and a lot of referents can be mutually taken for granted” (p.209).

This

pattern is also true of conversations in films. Although the students are watching the scene, they
are actually not involved in the conversation. They are only audience members with handicaps inlistening comprehension. They cannot share all knowledge with the characters in the film, and attimes it is hard for them to figure out the referents which should be taken for granted.
situation what the students have to utilise is inference or guesswork.
inference is the knowledge of core grammar.

In thisThe foundation of theIn other words, solid core grammar knowledge

enables students to infer the dropped or elided words that should have been in the sentence. Thus,
the students who are going to take the class using films should have mastered solid core grammar.

2.8

Listening skills

This class using films puts focus upon developing fluency in listening. Therefore the students who
are going to take this class should have acquired accuracy at a certain level. It does not require

Using Films as Authentic Spoken Texts

63such a high level. They should have been trained to improve accuracy in listening at a natural
speed spoken in a clear voice. For the improvement of accuracy, coursebooks designed for
language learners seem better than the authentic ones, such as general films, because clarity of thevoice and acceptable standard English can be seen as important points in training lower
intermediate students’ comprehension ability in listening. Thus, using authentic texts (in this casea film) is most suitable for upper intermediate or advanced learners.

3.1

Selection of the film

In this section, I will explore the two most important points when we choose a film to study inthe classroom. There are a huge number of films in the world so that it is quite hard to selectthe most suitable one for classroom use. The one with which the class goes should

encourage

students to learn authentic target language. Firstly I will consider the film’s quality in terms ofwhether it is suitable for classroom use or not.

3.2

Property of a film

Although using authentic texts, here films, puts focus upon developing fluency in listening, as
Brown points out “fluency should never be encouraged at the expense of clear, unambiguous, directcommunication”(1993: 245). ‘Direct communication’ means in this case to understand without
much trouble. There are a lot of films using too much slang, jargon, strongly accented ways of
speaking, dialect, or too fast ways of talking.

These films are not suitable for classroom use.

Some might argue that to know slang through films is good. However, I would say that slang isin a sense vogue words which fade away quickly. If a student remembers a slang expression ina film and actually uses it later, it may sound too old-fashioned and odd.

In addition to this,slang expressions seem to have a strictly limited range of use where they can be used andeffectively convey the speaker’s thought or feeling.

Thus, it is difficult to teach slang in theclassroom, even if using films. Slang can be obtained by language learners when they live in aplace where the target language is spoken.

3.3

Language level criterion

Brown (1993) introduces Krashen’s term, ‘1 ＋ i’, which indicates the learners’ comprehension
ability.

Krashen says “the language which learners are exposed to should be just far enoughbeyond their current competence that they can understand most of it but still be challenged tomake progress. ... If an acquirer is at the stage of level 1, the input he or she receives should
contain i ＋ 1” (p.280). When teachers consider the vocabulary level and the speaking styleinterms of speed and clarity, speech level, language register and so on, this suggestion is very usefuland practical.

3.4

The contents of the film

When teachers select a film, it is also very important to pay attention to the contents. There can

64Mika Higuchi

be a case in which some themes, scenes, characters, episodes, or overall atmosphere in a film
might be offensive to some students.

If this happens, even though the participant has alreadymastered core grammar, and acquired a certain level of accuracy in listening comprehension, andis well-motivated, he or she will not make much further progress. Offended feelings or dislike
towards the film prevents the participant from improving his or her skills in second language
learning. This is because films originally belong to the domain of arts so that the individual’s
mentality greatly influences what they watch and listen to.

Teachers should understand eachparticipant’s cultural backgrounds and other things which might be influenced by their mentality.
There are a good many films which do not have such risks cited above and in which the story
itself is rather easy. In many cases it is not so difficult to know the preference of the participantsin the class. In my case, the students are all Japanese girls aged from eighteen to twenty. Talking
from the viewpoint of motivation, some are quite highly-motivated, and some are not so much but
are at least interested in learning authentic second language. All of them have mastered knowledgeof solid core grammar and even beyond that level. However, their listening comprehension levelis lower than their grammatical knowledge and reading skills. Strictly speaking, their accuracy inlistening is not very good. I selected Roman Holiday directed by William Wyler in 1953 in the
U.S. The story is easy and enjoyable for young women. The main characters speak at a natural
speed or even slower than usual quite clearly in standard English (a few supporting roles speakin Italian accented English, though). This is a very old film, but their ways of speaking are notold-fashioned; they sound quite standard even today. In regard to these points, this film meets
Krashen’s term, ‘ i ＋ 1’, and also my proposals for participants’ mentality towards the contents ofthe film.

4.1

Need of Adaptation

Because general films are not produced to build language learners’ listening skills, there is a needof adaptation to the film. Firstly teachers should pay attention to the length of a scene which
students watch at a time. It seems that videotapes produced as teaching materials can be goodmodels. I examined three videotapes① which are designed to use in foreign language classrooms,
and found that in these three, one episode takes three to five minutes, no longer than six minutes.
This seems to mean that language learners can concentrate on listening to the target language forthat duration. Therefore, teachers should select a suitable scene considering the length and also
how the scene can be utilised in teaching. Since this class puts focus upon developing fluency inlistening, scenes to be shown should be suitable for understanding the overall content. I could findseveral such scenes to match to these points in Roman Holiday.

If the teacher is a nonnative

speaker of the target language, the script of the film is necessary. The film which the students
watch should not contain subtitles either in the students’ native tongues or in the target language,
since even if the subtitles are in the target language, students tend to depend upon the written
phrases, not upon what they are hearing. This often happens because students at this level aremuch better at reading than at listening in their language skills.

Using Films as Authentic Spoken Texts

4.2

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Checking the students’ comprehension

To check how much the students comprehend the scene is important and also difficult. Because
here the main focus is upon understanding overall content, the usual dictation practice is notsuitable. After watching for the first time, the teacher will ask the students about the rough outlineof the scene or simple questions. For example, “Who were in the scene?”, “Where were they?”,“What is the name of the man?”, “How did the princess introduce herself to Joe?” and so on. The
questions gradually become more detailed. ‘True or false’ questions sound rather easy, but may beeffective to check how much the students understand the overall content of the scene. On
answering the questions, some students may depend on the picture in the scene, not what they
heard.

However, it seems not to be a problem, because this can be seen as an example of‘language-in-action’ proposed by McCarthy and Carter (1995); they say that “‘language-in-action’
involves participants in using language to refer to action in easy and unproblematical ways because
they are taking place before their respective eyes” (p.209). If the teacher feels compelled to checkthe accuracy, dictation practices will be good.

Even in this case, the students should be

encouraged to try to write down or repeat all the lines which a speaker said at a time. In thismanner the students will come to grasp overall content even though not so perfectly, but roughly
and correctly.

4.3

Illustration-Interaction-Induction

McCarthy and Carter present an approach ‘Illustration-Interaction-Induction’, or it is abbreviated to
3Is (1995: 217).

This approach occurs at first to supplement the traditional approach of 3Ps(Presentation-Practice-Production). In this film-using class, the 3Is approach seems to be suitable
to conduct the tasks for developing fluency in listening. Here illustration is to watch and listen
to the scenes in the film. Questions and answers about the contents of the scenes between theteacher and the students are not only checking the comprehension of the students, but also belong
to the interaction. Although this class puts focus upon developing fluency in listening, it seems
that the teacher should add practice in interaction other than listening for the sake of leading thestudents to the stage of induction. Other practices should be devised in order to reinforce fluency
in listening.

4.4

Congruence

McDonough and Shaw (1993) in their book quote a claim by Madsen and Bowen, which says
“effective adaptation is a matter of achieving congruence”(p.83). McDonough and Shaw also cite
Stevick’s term “bridging a gap” (p.83). There must be some students who are unsure about thecontents of the scenes and how much they can follow in the way they are being taught. Therefore
practice in other skills (writing, reading, and speaking) are conducted to help learners smoothly
progress in fluency in listening.

4.5

Speaking

After checking how much the students comprehend the contents by questions and answers and true

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Mika Higuchi

or false questions, the teacher may ask some students to tell the outline of the scene.

Theiranswers may be simplified but it is good if they tell roughly the overall content. Role-playing
exercise may take place utilising the scene.

Here students speak the exact words that thecharacters in the film spoke; therefore, the script is needed.

4.6

Writing

The teacher may ask the students to write the outline of the scene or their impressions about it.
As a more advanced task, the teacher may divide the participants into small groups, and ask themto make their own skits modelling the scene, and write down the skits, then act them out in frontof the class.

4.7

ReadingI mentioned previously that the teacher should select the scenes to show in the class, not showing
the film all the way through. Therefore there are several episodes which the students do not know,
but need to know to move on to the new scene. Here the teacher writes down a summary of
unseen scenes and lets the students read them. Through this procedure the students can ascertain
what they have watched and listened to so far, and also what they have missed.

5.1

Pathway of DK to PK

Generally elementary level students are taught grammar as matters of

DK.

Learners are taught‘knowledge about’. Johnson claims that “teaching through DK; through a process of automisation
this knowledge becomes proceduralised, and so automatic that it is eventually indistinguishable inperformance from knowledge internalised by that pathway [pathway of DK to PK]” (1994: 123).
Here what we have to recognise is that DK is the starting point of PK. Students have assimilated
knowledge about the target language by being provided grammatical items by teachers or grammarbooks. Through this training, learners come to proceduralise the grammatical items by themselvesautomatically.

The final stage is to be able to perform smoothly in the target language.

Internalisation is essential to develop the automatic procedure into more productive action. The goalof DK can be seen as the perfect mastering of core grammar. The participants in this film-usingclass can be considered to have reached this level. Therefore, they can be seen to have achievedto the level where they are able to internalise rules from what they are exposed to.

5.2

Pathway of PK to DK

There is another pathway, PK to DK. In the case of this film-using class, the students are on thispathway being directly exposed to the language, namely listening to unknown sentences inauthentic spoken language. Johnson points out the danger of the pathway of PK to DK, because
in this style DK will never be achieved (1994: 123). However, in the case which I have beenarguing, students have mastered core grammar in the sense of DK, so that what they should try
next is to acquire PK, in other words, to use their knowledge in actual language performance.
Therefore the direct exposure to the authentic spoken language will stimulate their knowledge inUsing Films as Authentic Spoken Texts

67

their
heads, and lead it to the performance, namely, fluency in listening.

5.3

Rule internalisation

Here I quote two opinions about internalisation or creation of rules by language learners. Firstly,
Willis, Shortall, and Johns (1996) say as follows:
Basically, rules are created when the language input is processed in the mind. This either
involves only general problem-solving mental processes (when the learner has no linguisticknowledge with to which to compare the data) or the interaction (in the mind) of the datawith some other knowledge which the learner already possesses. (p.20)
These three researchers also quote a claim by Smith in their book.
The truth of the matter is that the learners do not take in the rule. They take in examplesof the rule which they use to ‘crack the code’. So they in fact create or recreate rule systems
for themselves. The only thing which is internalised is raw data (input), which as the term
‘raw’ indicates, has to be processed by the learner and turned into mental representations, i.e.,knowledge of some sort. (cited in Willis, Shortall, and Johns, p.20)

5.4

Recreation of rules

Recreation of rules seems to hold true in the case of a film-using class where the main focus isupon developing fluency in listening. The participants have the knowledge as DK, but it is still
hard for them to use it actually. When they are directly exposed to the authentic language, in thiscase listening to the sentences spoken by the characters in the film, they try to go through theprocedure of understanding the overall content.

What the characters speak can be taken as‘examples of the rule’, or ‘raw data’. These are proceduralised in their minds and interact withthe knowledge which they have obtained previously as DK.

At first rules are explained byteachers or grammar books and the learners input each item into their minds; this can be seen as
the first creation of the rules. However, this receptive way of creating rules cannot solidly takeroot in their minds; there is a need for a more productive attitude toward obtaining the rules.
Thus, being exposed to the authentic spoken target language, they make great efforts to utilise therules that they receptively obtained.

There they notice seemingly new input and existingknowledge about it. By interaction between these two, they recreate the rule as solid knowledge
which is able to become actual performance, in this case correctly grasping overall content. This
process of recreation of rules can be seen as internalisation.

Films can be a good device forstimulating students’ rather frail knowledge in terms of performance.

6

Conclusion

In conclusion, I have been discussing the problems when we use authentic texts, here films, in the

68Mika Higuchiclassroom.

It can be said that whether this way of conducting the class will succeed or not

depends on how much the students want to be exposed to authentic spoken target language, to gain
communicative competence, or fluency in listening. Even though they are so well-motivated, theyshould have previously acquired solid core grammar, and a lower intermediate level of accuracy inlistening. In terms of the teacher’s task, this is much harder than using the usual language
coursebooks.

The teacher always has to think how to adapt the film to be suitable for the

students. In this task he or she should consider how the film can be utilised in order to recreate
or internalise rules in students’ minds.

Nevertheless, using films must be enjoyable (when theteachers pay attention to what I mentioned in section 3) for both students and teachers. When theteachers bear in mind what I discussed in section 4, films can be very good teaching materials todevelop students’ fluency in listening, which will lead them to gain communicative competence ofa higher level.

Note①The three videotapes I examined were Family Album, U.S.A. (Cooperson and Lefferts, 1991), The
Snowman (Natsume and Natsume, 1991), and Summer in Seattle (Berlitz

School of

Language (Japan), 1990).

References
Berlitz School of Language (Japan). 1990. Summer in Seattle. Tokyo: The Berlitz School of
Language (Japan) Inc. and C. Itoh and Co., Ltd.
Brown, H. D. 1993. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. Englewood Cliff,
N. J.: Prentice Hall Regents.
Cooperson, A. and G. Lefferts. 1991. Family Album, U.S.A. Tokyo:

Japan Broadcast Publishing

Company.
Hunter, I. M. and J. Digton. 1953. Roman Holiday. Cine-Script Book (ed.), 1995. Tokyo:
Magazine House.
Johns, T. F. 1991. Should you be Persuaded - Two Examples of Data-Driven Learning materials.
In Johns and Kings (eds), Classroom Concordancing ELR.
Johnson, K. 1994. Teaching Declarative and Procedural Knowledge. In M. Bygate, A. Tonkyn and
E. Williams(eds), Grammar and the Language Teacher. Hamel Hampstead: Prentice Hall.
McCarthy, M. and R. Carter. 1995. Spoken grammar: what is it and how can we teach it? ELT
Journal, 49 (3): 207-18.
McDonough, J. and C. Shaw. 1993. Materials and Methods in ELT. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Natsume, H. and Y. Natsume. 1991. The Snowman. Tokyo: Gemco Publishing Company.
Watanabe, Y., K. Soneda and L. Sanders. 1991. From Hollywood with Love: The Only and BestWay to Get the Four Skills: Roman Holiday／Love Story／The Seven Year Itch. Tokyo: New
Current International Co., Ltd.
Willis, D., T. Shortall and T. Johns. 1996. MA TEFL／TESL Open Learning Programme
Pedagogical Grammar. Birmingham: The Centre for English Language Studies, the Universityof Birmingham.
〔1997年10月27日

受理〕