Teaching Films: For and Against
Teaching films have been with us for a few decades. In the process of learning teaching films are considered to be helpful, but still teachers do not seem to be on friendly terms with them.
The advantages of teaching films.
A teaching film is certainly considered to be one of the most effective visual aids that exist. If the teaching films are good, students learn faster from them and remember new foreign words and phrases longer than the same words and phrases are presented verbally. Teaching films facilitate thinking and problem solving. But a teacher shouldn`t forget that on the other hand a foreign language film is such a sort of activities that students cannot observe or become involved with. While watching a film students can identify themselves with the actors and the situations. It makes films especially valuable for image forming and language learning. The teaching films have been used with considerable success by really good foreign language teachers. They can be used in quite varied situations. When teachers and students get tired of every day classroom routine, a teaching film can work wonders. It can easily break the monotony of classroom and laboratory work. As a result the whole atmosphere in class changes for better and the students get ready to work and to think. Creative teachers use feature and science-popular films at the advanced stage of learning. A teaching film can be used as subject for class discussions and debates for evaluating their artistic value.
The reasons for not using teaching films in class.
The main stumbling block often lies in the lack of professional competence of a teacher himself. A lot of teachers prefer old blackboard to any innovation. They simply don`t want to feel embarrassed in front of the pupils, because they cannot handle audio-visual aids. Very often it is the lack of methodological competence. Some teachers take feature films and show them to pupils in the hope that it will result in learning. More often the effect is opposite. If the students are not prepared for such a procedure, they don`t make out and as a result don`t understand what the actors say. The incomprehension leads to discouragement. If a teacher wants his pupils to make progress, they should be prepared for watching teaching films and the quality of technical equipment and films should be excellent.