Learning Potentials Afforded by a Film in Task-Based Language Classroom Interactions

Abstract

The use of films as teaching and learning materials can provide a variety of opportunities for interaction in second language classrooms. Research on the usage of films in language-learning tasks to provide opportunities for learning and interaction, however, is scarce. Drawing on a database of video-recorded interactions in an upper-secondary English-as-a-foreign-language classroom in Sweden and using multimodal conversation analysis, this study examines affordances of student interactions during a film-based discussion task. Taking a sociomaterial perspective, we focus on students’ co-narrations of the film in a group task and show how the emergent discussions about the film facilitate collaborative attention work (CAW). Our findings reveal that the CAW in this film-based discussion task unfolds when students (a) correct each other, or (b) collaboratively search for words while discussing the scenes in the film. Our analysis of these sequences reveals the learning potentials that emerge in film-based discussions. The findings have direct implications for the use of audio-visual materials—in particular, films and movies—in language-learning tasks.