Wedding of Cultures Or: How Windex Fixes Everything Weddings forge new connections, between two lovers, two families, and sometimes even different cultures. If you cannot organize a wedding to show students how to connect different cultures, why not just go and see one in the
Illustration 1: Gus Portokalos’ Cure-All: Windex
cinema? Jacqueline Bauer, Lisa Gagel, Gürcü Sakinc, Ramona Treffler University of Augsburg
Students are often not impressed by the latest technologies which seem quite hip to us teachers. In contrast: all we get are yawns and bored faces, while we enthusiastically present our latest achievement. A commonly known situation, that is both frustrating and embarrassing. However, there is one invention, which will never get boring: the cinema. Watching a film in a dimmed cinema auditorium, enjoying a captivating movie and listening to the Dolby Surround System while having your friends around you, is something magical, which cannot be recreated in a classroom. Therefore, this teaching idea will show how to combine a movie about intercultural issues and a cinema visit, to motivate the students and leave the classroom behind for a day. Introduction In the last couple of years, the importance of using different media to teach a foreign language has increased, due to the fact that pupils live in a world full of advantages provided by the use of the Internet and the number of usable media in the classroom. As an authentic method, which is not used on a daily basis, movies are a type of media serving to link the lessons to the world outside the classroom. By doing
so, they motivate the students and can become a welcome change to the school routine. However, there are a few points to consider when choosing an appropriate movie. What to Think About Beforehand First of all, the topics the movie deals with should be of importance to the students’ everyday lives. In nearly every part of Germany, students live in a mixed cultured society. Especially in the light of the recent wave of refugees coming to Germany, and the many other cultures who have moved here throughout the last decades, interculturality is one of the most important topics to address. Therefore, the teaching idea should help students become aware of the differences between people living in the same society, and give them the chance to find out strategies how to deal with the inevitable clash of cultures. Secondly, the level of language should be challenging, yet not overtaxing. Like Thaler (2012: p. 60) stresses, movies challenge the students’ abilities to understand conversations in an authentic setting and require them to overlook that they cannot understand each single word, but should rather
strive to figure out the gist of what is being said. Pre-phase exercises and repetitions are a useful means to help the students in this respect (Thaler 2012: p. 69). Additionally, it is relevant to think about the use of subtitles. Generally, they might be regarded as helpful, insofar as they provide the words that might not be understood otherwise. On the other hand, the use of subtitles has proven to be quite distracting, because they draw the students’ attention from the spoken language to the written word, therefore erasing the effect mentioned before. In order to avoid this conflict and not to distract the students, this teaching idea goes without the use of subtitles. However, before thinking about the various tasks and exercises the class can work on, the teacher is faced with the potentially most difficult task: choosing a movie. My Big Fat Greek Wedding, shown for the first time in 2002, is a perfect choice for grade 10 at a secondary school. The romantic comedy centers on the life of Toula Portokalos, a 30-year-old Greek woman living in Chicago, who has always struggled with the differences between the culture she was born into and the one she lives in. During her childhood and adolescence, she has felt like an
outsider to both cultures, effectively excluding her from a social life. This changes when she decides to take classes at a local community college, much to the dismay of her father, changes her appearance, therefore gaining confidence, and distances herself from her overbearing family. While doing so, she meets Ian Miller, a handsome American school teacher, whom she starts dating and eventually gets engaged to. The weeks and days leading up to their wedding day prove to be a real clash of cultures, showing the various conflicts, but also displaying how they might be overcome. Especially Toula’s strive to find the balance between meeting her family’s expectations and standing up for her own dreams and aspirations is a situation students will identify with and be motivated by to work with this movie.
norms (Thaler 2012: p. 271-272). Considering all these aspects, the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding seemed like a perfect choice, as it addresses all of the desired issues. This movie provides teachers with a basis for various social topics they might like to work on in future lessons, for example: interculturality, family structures, values, especially those of the Greek culture, and gender roles. By dealing with these topics, students should be taught to respect and appreciate the differences between their own and other cultures, learn strategies to cope with difficulties arising because of these differences, and be aided in assuming responsibility for the actions they take due to their own cultural identity. Due to the fact that this movie plays with many stereotypes, it is also very humorous, something that will surely appeal to the students. Moreover, watching a movie has the advantage of furthering other competences, including listening, watching, media and linguistic competences. These competences can be addressed through auditory and visual features, the relation between sound and image, the relevance and methodology (Thaler 2012: p. 170-172). Additionally, because of the discussions the students will have with their peers after watching the movie, they will practice their oral skills as well.
An additional benefit is the size of a movie theater, which allows to take more than one class to the movie showing, therefore creating a much more tangible situation, while being highly efficient at the same time. More students can profit from one trip to the cinema and all of them have more peers to discuss with what they have seen afterwards (Sabo/Haack 2013: p. 100). Many movie theaters have caught on to this trend and offer special school showings, either for recreational or educational purposes. Depending on the theater, the teacher can either choose a film that has recently been released, or an older one like My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Sometimes the cinemas will even offer discounted prices for the students and free admissions for the teachers, like the “Kinodreieck Augsburg” (http://www.lechflimmern.de/kino02/s chulkino.php).
Why the Cinema?
The Teaching Idea
At this point, one might ask why we suggest watching the movie in a cinema, instead of in the classroom. Moving out of the classroom and into a movie theater is a quite recent technique and closely linked to the idea of “edutainment”. The term “edutainment” refers to the notion, that learning
This teaching idea is based on the PWP approach. During the pre-phase the students should be prepared for what they are about to encounter. Furthermore, they should be given room to express their expectations concerning the plot and themes of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The focus of the
Integrating the Movie According to the ISB curriculum for class ten (ISB 2004) pupils should be confronted and deal with topics such as culture, relationship between generations, as well as videos and cinema. They should develop into “communicative, open, tolerant and responsible” adults, made possible through achieving the following three competences: 1. Sociocultural orientation knowledge; e.g. knowing about the different dialects and sociolects of the English language. 2. Skills of dealing with cultural differences; students ought to be made aware of their own and the foreign cultural peculiarities and should acquire the skills to deal with stereotypes. This enables them to compare their own world to that of the target language and to have a change of perspectives. 3. Forming strategies to deal with misunderstandings and conflicts and to be tolerant against other social
can be achieved through a combination of education and entertainment (Rymarczyk 2010: p. 126). Instead of watching a movie inside the classroom, the students get to move out of school environment and bring the learning experience into a social context. Rather than having the way the movie is watched dictated by the rigorous structure of a school day, students are allowed to enjoy the movie the way they would usually do in their spare time.
while-phase is the movie itself, supported only by small exercises, which also act as preparation for the tasks and discussions during the post-phase. This last phase will take place at the movie theater and consist of expressing the students’ observations, discussing their point of view, and a writing exercise. The length of each phase can be tailored to the specific needs of a class, however we recommend one school lesson of 45 minutes for the pre-phase the day before the movie screening, and at least a double lesson of 90 minutes for the post-phase. Ideally, the post-phase should take place directly after watching the movie; however, the students should have at least a 15minute break between while- and postphase. Pre-Viewing Activities It is necessary to prepare the students for the viewing of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, so they know what to expect and what aspects they should pay special attention to. Therefore, the teacher should introduce the topic of interculturality, including the different views that students might have on foreign cultures. At this stage, students should become aware of the fact that there are certain differences, but just as many similarities between cultures and, that stereotypes might not always be true. To that end, the teacher should ask the students about their experiences with different cultures. Ideally, there are students in the class with a different cultural background, who can offer up a different perspective. If there are none, students can be asked to imagine what situations they might encounter when moving to another country. As a second step the students watch the movie trailer, so they can get an idea of
what the story is about. Here, they should pay close attention to the introduction of three of the main characters– Toula, her father Gus, and Ian and write down everything they have learned about them on the provided task sheet. Showing the trailer once should be enough at that language level even though it can sometimes be difficult to understand and get used to the different accents. This task is mainly geared towards training their audiovisual skills. The information should then help them to answer the questions about where the characters are from and what their cultural background is. Furthermore, they should be able to identify some of the cultural difficulties the movie will deal with and how the protagonists might be able to overcome these obstacles. Discussing their answers in groups should help them to collect various ideas and support their speaking skills. As a homework exercise, the student might be asked to read up on Greek wedding traditions. This will help them to discern whether the movie offers up a realistic depiction of this particular culture.
While-Viewing Activities Before the movie starts, students should be separated into two groups and handed worksheets A or B of the while-phase. The first group will have the task to try and match the quotes to either Toula, her father Gus, her aunt Voula, or Ian. The second group will be handed a worksheet with pictures of different scenes of the movie. The task is to find this frame during the movie and find out what type of conflict the picture shows. The first task can help the students find out more about the characters’ personalities, the second task will help them identify the cultural conflicts and the strategies to deal with them that the movie offers. Both tasks should provide a basis for Task 8 in the post-phase. The students should take about five minutes to familiarize themselves with the worksheets before the screening starts. Before going into the post-phase, students should be handed the worksheets they are missing, to make sure they all have the same information.
Worksheet 1: Pre-Phase
Post-Viewing Activities As a next step, students should work on task 5 and voice their thoughts about the movie in general. Through this activity, the teacher can find out whether the movie was the right choice to bring the different topics across and motivate the students. After this general discussion, students should be asked to recount the plot of the movie, in order to check whether they have grasped the focal points. If necessary, the teacher might opt to fill in the blanks, or try to guide the students in helping each other to do so. To support the students in this, they should try and establish a timeline of the movie. This step is important, in order for all students having the same basis for the following tasks. After having established this timeline, the students can now start working on Task 7 individually. It is geared to display the changes Toula undergoes both physically and psychologically throughout the movie. As she starts liberating herself from her strict upbringing and starts distancing herself from her own cultural background, she also starts to change her physical appearance, practically blooming. This newfound freedom and self-esteem eventually enable her to become reacquainted with both her cultures, appreciate them both for all they have to offer and finally balance out the two of them. Students should now be able to answer the questions about the nature of the displayed cultural conflicts, and have a group discussion on how these problems might be faced and solved. This enables the students to train their speaking skills and to get the chance to talk more than in a class discussion. In
order to collect the ideas the students have come up with, they should prepare posters with instructions on how to overcome the different situations. Especially if the group of students is made up of different classes, the groups should be mixed to ensure the students have previously unknown discussion partners. The posters should be presented and explained to the rest of the class, and might even serve as a reminder of the project on the walls of their classroom at school. As a homework assignment, and also to support the writing skills, the students should write a short essay about the following questions: “How is your life impacted by other cultures and in what ways have you benefited from the experience?” This task makes it possible to see, if they have reflected about the content of the movie and how they would handle themselves if faced with a similar situation. These essays can be graded and used to give the students feedback on how to improve on their style of writing and their problem solving techniques. Conclusion Since going to the movie theater is something many students like to do in their spare time, it makes sense to turn a cinema visit into a teaching idea. The students can be motivated and it is possible to get a lot out of My Big Fat Greek Weeding in order to learn something about interculturality and, in this case, the clash of cultures. But not only is it a good way to support their language skills but also a perfect means to create a better atmosphere in class as well as a better connection to the teacher and therefore, make the daily school routine more interesting and fun.
Bibliography: Thaler, Engelbert (2010). Englisch unterrichten. Grundlagen, Kompetenzen, Methoden. Berlin: Cornelsen. Sabo, Isabella & Dennis Haack (2013). “Lean back and Learn – a Teaching English as a Foreign Language unit in the cinema on ‘This is England’”. Foreign language learning outside school: Places to see, learn and enjoy. Ed. Rymarczyk, Jutta. Frankfurt am Main: Lang. 99112. Rymarczyk, Jutta (2010). „'Gemütlich und dennoch lehrreich' – Kino als Ort außerschulischen Englischunterrichts zu Little Miss Sunshine“ Ed. Gehring, Wolfgang; Elisabeth Stinshoff Außerschulische Lernorte des Fremdsprachenunterrichts. Braunschweig: Schroedel-Diesterweg. 125-139. My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Dir. Joel Zwick. Perf. Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Michael Constantine. Gold Circle Films, 2002. Websites: http://www.isb-gym8lehrplan.de/contentserv/3.1.neu/g8.de/index.php?Sto ryID=26207 (10/08/2016). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2mecmDF E-Q (13/08/2016) http://content.internetvideoarchive.com/content/p hotos/10241/530904_007.jpg (12/08/2016) https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w300/fi3Qw8ySpxbIP HYkpNKV3sPVvww.jpg (12/08/2016) http://i3.p7.com/pis/ezone/b035qgELB38wdEBZftQHfHFPn4ON1n0D0sNVdu5YDnrUcfP4Wf PyOkfFhWf1WxdxWNMen5AsaeVGOEYO18yl6VJcgf SnfveV5M/profile:ezone-original (12/08/2016) https://content.internetvideoarchive.com/content/ photos/10109/644905_010.jpg (12/08/2016) https://www.photigy.com/wpcontent/uploads/2012/05/windex-alex-koloskov1170x914.jpeg (13/08/2016)
