CRITICAL
REVIEW
of
THE USE
OF MEDIA IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
(Written
by: Donna M. Brinton)
By:
Teguh Raharjo
NIM : 100221509261
Abstract
This paper reviews
the chapter entitled “The Use of Media in Language
Teaching” written
by Donna M. Brinton from the book “Teaching English as Second or
Foreign Language” Celce-Murcia (ED) 3rd edition. In this article,
the author will also give the pro and contra side about the material discuss in
the chapter. However, the author will not only criticize the chapter but also
he will give a solution or advice to the things being critic later on.
Keywords: Critical review, media, language teaching
A.
INTRODUCTION
In
the introduction the writer, Brinton, M.B, is a researcher on The Use of Media
in Language Teaching. She provides that media have undoubtedly always
facilitated the task of language learning for both instructed and
non-instructed learners but she does not mention how the teacher gets hold of
the material and how s/he designs exercises based on that material in language
teaching.
I
actually agree with Brinton’s article that written in the book “Teaching
English as a Second or Foreign Language.”
However, I would like to give some addition and criticisms. First, I will
discuss the role of mass media in language development and language teaching in
particular. Second, I will put forward a proposal for using mass media products
which involves discussing the role of mother tongue and of genre theory with
regard to dealing with diversity or different levels in the classroom. Third, I
will give some examples of the types of exercises that may be useful and easy
to design for using mass media resources in teaching English, or any other
foreign language.
B. BODY/DISCUSSION
According
to Carmen Gregori Signes (2001) in Teaching English in a Spanish Setting.València:
Universitat de València ) states that the First, the production of the mass
media is massive and that it is impossible to keep up with everything. So, how is the teacher expected
to select the material? How long is it going to take him/her to find that material?
And how useful is that material going to be? A part from the material that we
can easily buy (cassettes, videos, etc.) we can also devise our own material
from television, radio and newspapers data. Second question relates to a problem
that all teachers face: the design of exercises is time-consuming, especially
if it has to do with audio-visual material.
The
purpose of the writer here is to present examples of exercises which can be
easily updated with whatever program/printed material that you may be working
with. Such examples are not intended to be exhaustive but illustrative of the types
of exercises that one can devise.
1. The Role of Media in Language
Teaching
I
absolutely appreciate all arguments that are shared by Donna M. Brinton, but I
would like to give some criticism. First I think she doesn’t explain about the
role of media in language teaching. Media play a very important role in
learning a language. They can help the teachers easy to deliver the materials.
Meanwhile, for the students, they are easy to understand the material taught.
According to Locatis and Atkinson (1984) there are at least three general roles
of media. The first role is to entertain, for example: fictional stories and
poems. The second role is to inform, example: newspaper and magazine, and the
third one is to instruct, for example: when media is used for this purpose.
Media are usually a key mechanism for presenting information or providing
learning experiences, but teachers and trainers provide guidance and instruction.
Media is very important and for both
teachers and students in teaching learning process. They become vehicles for
delivering the information or teaching materials. According to Smaldino,
et.al (2005) media are means of communication and source of information.
A part from some types of media,
teachers should be wise in selecting the median used. Locatis and Atkinson
(1984) said that when selecting the most appropriate media for instructional
purposes, there are three alternatives available. They are adopt, adapt and
produce. Adopt means the selected media are used without change. So the
teachers can use the selected media directly without modify and change them.
While adapt means that media are changed or modified from the original form.
From the second alternative, the teachers or trainers can change and modify the
media according to their needs, purposes, and background of the students. The
teachers freely change them so that they are available. The last is produce. It
means that the teachers make a product of media. In this alternative, the
teachers must make a product of media in teaching language. It is better if the
teachers make appropriate media related to their purposes in language learning.
Donna M. Brinton discusses
neither the role of media nor the advantages of media in her article. Besides
media have an important role in language learning, they also have some
advantages. Bates (1995) states that there are some advantages to use media in
language teaching. Multimedia can be the most interesting and affective means
to achieve the teaching goals. Improving the attractiveness, they can make
easier and cheaper to create high quality learning materials.
According to Smaldino, et.al (2005)
there are three advantages of using multimedia. First, it can be interest.
Multimedia kits arouse interest because they multisensory. Everyone likes to
touch and manipulate real object-to inspect unusual specimens up close. Second,
it can be corporation. Kits can be an ideal mechanism for stimulating small
group project work. Third, it can be logistic. Kits have an obvious logistical
advantage. Being packaged, they can be transported and used outside the
classroom.
Pictures are one of media. There are
five reasons of why pictures to be one of selected media. The first reason is
picture is easy to prepare. The teachers can find the pictures easily. They can
look for in the internet, in the library or in the book store. Besides that
pictures are easy to prepare whenever they need. The second reason, picture is
easy to organize. Teachers can organize
the pictures easily according to the purpose of the teaching learning process.
The third one, picture is interesting. There are many interesting pictures. So
if the teachers use the interesting pictures the students will be motivated to
learn and follow the teaching learning process. The fourth reason, pictures can
be meaningful. Students will understand the materials easily using pictures.
They will memorize the materials by looking the media. The last reason why
pictures are to be one of selected media is authentic. Pictures are means of instructional purposes.
Spratt (2005) implies that the use
of picture is more meaningful. It provides students with reason for talking and
increases motivation and memorization. It gives reason for talking because it
gives ideas about something that students want to talk about. It increases
motivation by giving the students interest to learn language. The students will
be eager to learn through media (pictures) than only imagine the materials
given by the teacher. It also increases memorization because it gives visual
stimulus that will be easier to remember than only remember the teacher’s
explanation.
Wright (1992) states that pictures
as media are very important in helping students to retell experiences or
understand something since they can represent place, object, people, etc.
Pictures help students to understand a more general context which may be made
of pictures, the teacher’s actions, the students’ action, sound effect and
words.
2.
The Mass Media
As
teachers of foreign languages, we are now teaching a generation that is
privileged in their knowledge of mass media. As argued by Connell et al.
(1996), "no generation has a bigger media history because no previous
generation has had access to so many different kinds of media and such a range
of media products". Before radio and television, the students’ only access
to knowledge was the school. Nowadays, the media precede us. When students come
to school, they have already learned a great deal from TV, radio, internet,
etc., a fact that we should not ignore but take advantage of. There is practically
no way of avoiding the mass media. They are part of our life. Thus, if we teach
students how to analyze mass media products we are helping the student to
develop a whole range of individual, practical, social, cultural and
intellectual skills which they will need in the future. We ought to start
taking
TV, computer
games, internet, etc. seriously and use them not only as teaching material but
as an efficient way to motivate the students. We should make them understand
how these mass media work, that is, our students should be media literate.
Among
the mass media, it is clear that television has the greatest significant and
continued impact on our present culture. Watching television is the third
activity, after work and sleep which occupies most of our time. Thus, if
students learn about different genres used in the mass media, they will be
conscious about what they want to keep and what they want to change in them.
3.
Types of Exercises
3.1. Mass media
and everyday life
EXERCISE 1: Are you a media person?
Put a √ if you
have listened to the radio (any program, including music), watch TV or read a printed
publication while you were :
1.
getting up in the morning______ 2.
dressing up to come to school _____
3.
having breakfast _________ 4.
breaking for lunch______
5.
enjoying an afternoon_______ 6.
Doing the washing up_______
7.
Cleaning your motorcycle/ car______ 8.
having a drink with your friends_____
9.
studying for an exam_________ 10.
doing the household chores_______
Note: the list can
be as long/short as wished. I’d suggest a list of 20 questions. The purpose is
to make students realize how our lives are organized by the mass media and to
notice their presence in everyday life.
3.2. Television
EXERCISE 2. Your
favourite programs.
Ask the students to fill in the chart below after discussing with their group.
After the discussion ask them to tell the whole class about the results. You
will probably get reactions from the students, since they may agree or disagree
with the other groups' choices.
|
LIKE
Name 3 of your
favourite TV programs?
[find 3 common
to all the members of the
group]
|
Why do you
like those programs? what do you like about them? [Give 3 reasons common to
all the members of the group]
|
|
DISLIKE
Which series,
television programs do you
dislike? [find
3 common to the group]
|
Why do you
dislike those programs? what do about them? [Give 3 reasons common to all the
members of the group]
|
EXERCISE 3. Identifying Television genres.
You will watch a video with
several extracts from different television genres. You will have to identify and
give a label to the different genres.
|
1.
|
4.
|
|
2.
|
5.
|
|
3.
|
6. etc.
|
Preparation: do a bit of
zapping and record different types of programs from different channels, one bit
after the other on the same tape. The extracts should not be longer than five
seconds each. You will end up with an video extract which may contain examples
of: weather forecast, news, children’s programs, game shows, detective series,
etc.
Comments: the main
purpose of this exercise is that students realize how much they know about
TV genres; and most of all that
they are familiar with their generic conventions, allowing an immediate identification.
The ’difficulty’ of the exercise may be altered by: a) list of genres:
you may decide to provide them with a list of TV genres or not; b) giving them
a scrambled list; they will have to order them according to the VCR extract; c)
doing first a brainstorming exercise, and writing on the blackboard the genres
that they know; d) the exercise can be as long or as brief as we wish,
depending on the number of genres we want to introduce.
EXERCISE 4.
Television genres. Match
these programmes with their genre label.
1.
detective series • •
a. Nosolomúsica
2.
music programme - • • b. Matrimonio con hijos
3.
sitcoms • •
c. Se ha escrito un crimen
4.
cartoons • •
d. Bola de Drac
Note: you can vary
this list if you consult your TV guide or teletext. You can also vary the
genres according to what is
available. If you want, once they’ve done the matching, you can ask them to name
other programs of the same genre. You can also leave some genres without any
possible match and ask them to give you examples.
EXERCISE 5.
Identifying actions.
One of the best
genres to work with in order to practice actions is cartoons. You may decide to
do it with the volume on or off. There are several possibilities: a) Provide
the students with a list of actions and they will have to tick only those that
are performed by the characters.; b) Do a fill in the gap describing what’s
going on; c) Devise a true false exercise with actions. The example below is
from an episode of the Pink Panther entitled Pink and Quiet.
The Pink Panther tries to protect
himself against the girl. What does he do to get rid of the girl? TRUE or FALSE:
1. The Pink Panther dances with
the girl_______
2. The Pink Panther helps the
girl to bore a hole in the wall___________
3. The Pink Panther takes the
girl back to her parent’s caravan____________
EXERCISE 6: POKEMON.
Word Formation.
Pokemon is but one
example of a ’temporary fashion’ (others were e.g. Dragon Ball or even
films like Jurassic Park, or Star Wars). Students get hooked on
certain programs. and for a certain period. until something else comes out that
they like better. Marketing has a lot to do with it, thus, during that period,
it is easy to find and get hold of material related to those products.
Sometimes, as is the case with Pokemon, we can use that material as an
ignition to learn English. Pokemons’ names are lexically rich, since they
combine both meaning and pronunciation as well as external features (e.g. what
each Pokemon is capable of doing and its appearance) which, all together,
explain the name assigned to each.
Here are a few names of Pokemons.
Find out and explain the origin of their name:
|
1. Aerodactil
|
aero (prefix
for fly) + dactyl (zoology. any digit or vertebrate) prehistoric creature;
it can fly.
|
|
2. Blastoise
|
blast
(explosion; to destroy by using explosives)+ tortoise
|
|
3. Charizard
|
char+ lizard
|
|
4. Exeggcute
|
execute+ egg-
uses eggs for the battle
|
|
5. Gastly
|
gas + ghastly
(unpleasant or shocking, extremely bad)
|
|
6. Koffing
|
coffin = the
box or case in which a corpse is placed for burial
|
|
7. Mewtwo
|
mutant+ two
|
|
8. Squirtle
|
squirrel+
turtle
|
Each name uses
different devices for WORD FORMATION, so in 1) they use aero- a learned borrowing
from Greek meaning 'air' used in formation of compound names; while in 7), it
is a matter of pronunciation; in 6), it is the same sound with two possible spellings,
etc. All of them combine different words whose meaning we will have to learn in
order to understand the characteristics of each Pokemon.
EXERCISE 7. Storytelling and professional and cultural
stereotypes
Switch the
volume off. Show them an extract from a sitcom, piece of news, etc, and ask
them to describe the situation, what is going on, to tell you what kind of
people they think they are. You can give them a guideline, for example: Where
are they from?, What are they doing? What are their jobs?, etc.
3.3. Music
EXERCISE 8.
Group names & titles of songs. Compounds, Idioms, Fixed phrases. Culture.
Ask them to
bring to class about 10 group names in English. Ask them to explain the meaning
of the name of the group: e.g. Red Hot Chilli Peppers; Genesis; The Rolling
Stones; Iron Maiden; Foofighters. Many times you will find that names of
groups and titles of songs are good to explain compounds or fixed phrases, or
even idioms. Sometimes, they are also useful to explain cultural or historical
phenomena.
EXERCISE 9.
Music genres.
Here
is a list of different labels used for different types of music. Are you able
to name a group/a singer for each type of music? Suggestions: the
students can bring tapes to illustrate the different types of music. Or,
alternatively you can play the tapes they bring and ask the class to identify
the music genre to which it belongs.
1.
Dance;
2. Soul; 3. Coplas; 4. Heavy metal; 5. Indie; 6. Rock; 7. Pop/chart; 8. Pop
español; 9. Rave/jungle; 10. Jazz; 11. House/techno; 12. Rock; 13.
Reggae/ragga; 14. Classical; 15. Rap/hip-hop; 16. blues; 17.grunge; 18. gospel;
19. country;
EXERCISE 10.
Telling about your favourite song
You can ask the students to bring the
lyrics of their favourite song and ask them to tell the class what the song is
about, the story behind it. They can bring the copies for everybody and a tape
to listen to the song.
3.4. RADIO
EXERCISE 10.
Radio genres
What types of programs do you listen to?
Does your favourite radio station have: chat, quiz show, plays, magazine,
music, jingles, signature and theme tunes, live performances, self-advertising,
a studio based
play, a radio soap opera/play,
weather report,
3.5. NEWSPAPERS
EXERCISE 11.
Printed mass media
The odd one out. Identify √ those examples that belong to the
category printed media in the list below mainstream newspapers quality papers soap
operas mainstream magazines tabloid newspapers journal colour supplement
magazine teenage magazines regional newspapers fanzine
EXERCISE 12. Do you read any newspaper, magazine, etc.
regularly ?
What kind of information does it provide
you with? What characteristics do best define the type of publication you
normally/ sometimes read?
a.
it’s about sports ...
b.
it gives you the results of football matches....
c.
Sometime it talks about Rociito and Antonio David’s life........
d.
the publication is in colour.......
e.
it’s yellow press......
f.
there are car advertisements in it ......
g.
it includes large size colour posters.........
h.
talks about plants and agriculture.....
Note: the list can
be as long as you want it to be. Once completed, discuss with them the answers.
E.g. probably no one will tick m. A variation of this exercise in order
to increase ’difficulty’ is to ask them to complete a sentence such as the one
below and give as many details as possible about the publication they read.
1. The publication I normally
read...
2. The publication I normally
read...
3.6.
Computer-multimedia
EXERCISE 13.
Computer-games. Genres and instructions.
What types of games are these?
what are the main features of each type of computer game?
|
Sports
|
Beat-em-up
|
Driving Sims
|
First person
perspectives
|
Platform
|
|
Puzzle
|
Strategy/war
games
|
Flight Sim
|
Space Sim
|
Arcade
|
|
RPG
|
God Games
|
|
|
|
Suggestions: talking about
computer games can be useful in order to find out different genres within computer
games and also to practice instructions. If you ask them ’how do you
play X? they will necessarily have to practice certain structures.
REFERENCES
Bates,
A.W. I. 1995. Technology, Open Learning
and Distance Education. New york:
Rout Ledge.
Connell, B., J. Bridgley, and M.
Edwards. 1996/1999. Examining the Media. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Gregori Signes, C. 2000. A Genre
Based Approach to Daytime Talk on Television. València: Universitat de
València.
Locates, C.N.
& Atkinson, F.D. 1984. Media and
Technology for Education and Training. Ohio. Charles E. Merril Publishing
Company. A. Bell & Howell Company.
Smaldino, S.E,
Heinich, R. Molenda, M. & Russel, J.D. 2005. Instructional Technology and Media for Learning. (8th
Edition). New Jersey: Pearson Education inc.
Spratt, M.,
Pulverness, A., & William, M. 2005. The Teaching Knowledge Text Course.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wright A, 1992: Pictures for Language Learning. London:
Cambridge University press.
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