Teaching A-level MFL (3) - working with film and literature

This is the third post in the Teaching A-Level MFL series of four. This time we are talking about the teaching of film and literature. Since working through a film and a book occupies at least a third of a department's time during parts of the course, it's worthwhile looking at this carefully. I'm going to divide this post into two parts: film, then literature. Some of the same principles will apply to both.

In terms of assessment, which we shall come to in the final blog, A-Level teachers must teach either a book and a film, or two books. (This reveals a certain bias, by the way, suggesting that the DfE value literature more highky than film.) Although practice varies from school to school, departments usually teach a film first, then a book. They often tackle the film in Y12 and the book in Y13, the perception being that the book will be more linguistically challenging.

Film

Which film?

Exam boards choose films based on previous teachers and student feedback, so they can all be successful. What YOU are most passionate about? If you are keen on the film and the director it's likely your enthusiasm will come across. If you don't know any of the films, watch them on DVD, YouTube or a streaming platform. Keep in mind how your students will watch in class and in their own time. Facebook groups will help you determine where and how students can watch. The choice may be partly dictated by which DVDs or other resources you already have. Make sure your film has English captions (watching with no captions makes comprehension too hard).

When choosing a film, don't just consider its themes or dramatic qualities. Is the language easy to understand? The film will be a source of masses of input, so you want it to be as comprehensible as possible.

Does the film need to tie in with other sub-themes in the course? There are two ways of looking at this. On the one hand, matching the film to anothet topic will deepen knowledge; on the other it will reduce the range of cultural areas you cover in the course. I never felt the need to match a film to other topics. I went with enjoyable movies I was personally interested in that had language which was as clear as possible.

Lastly, as with books, think about how much scope the film offers for exploration of ideas. Is there a lot to talk about? For example, on the AQA list for French, you have Les 400 Coups by Truffaut, which allows you to talk about a lot of issues, inlcuding the whole area of the new wave filming techniques.The nature of your class may influence your choice of film. I they are highly able, you may take on a more themtaically challenging movie.

Organisation

In general you need to allocate between 10-12 weeks to working though a movie and developing the skill of essay writing. I'm assuming that this involves roughly two hours classroom contact time per week, plus about two hours of homework. Keep in mind that students will also be working through their other sub-themes at the same time.

The detailed preparation for teaching would have been done the previous year, possibly during the 'gained time' teachers get in the summer exam season. The preparation would include:

• Watching the film at least twice.
• Writing a scene-by-scene summary (including timings, place, characters on screen, musical score). I did these as an A4 printed booklet.
• Reading about film-making techniques and the language of film such as close-ups, subjective camera, jump cuts, aerial shots, angles of shooting and much more.
• Reading around some of background, e.g. what critics wrote, the director's other films, historical context, themes raised, etc.
• I would plan any pre-reading work based on the above.
• Preparing a set of worksheets. I would divide the film into about 8 sections and produce one worksheet per section. 
• I would plan how to build up the skills needed for assessment (see the next post).

Worksheet design

Think of a worksheet like this as any other language worksheet, but with a greatre emphasis on the content of each section of the film. Remember that you want your students to focus less on storytelling and much more on critical analysis (in line with the demands of the specification). Your worksheets might contain the following elements:

• A bilingual vocabulary glossary. 
• True/false
• Questions in L2 about the scenes. Questions could be closed and factual, or more open-ended to invite slightly longer analytical paragraphs. They may also focus on linguistic aspects, e.g. 'Explain what X said'.
• Occasional questions in L1, notably where ideas become very difficult to follow and express in the target language.
• 'Who said?' statements to identify.
• 'Who might have said?' statements to identify.
• Describing an imagined deleted scene.
• Describing the musical score.
• Describing a film technique.
• Gap-fill, e.g. providing a summary paragraph with gaps to complete (with or without options).
• Correcting false statements about the scenes.
• Transcription of short dialogues.
• Written smmary of chosen sections.
• A grammar exercise based on a structure or structures encountered in the text.

By smart worksheet design you can get the students (the novices) to think like you (the expert). Mind you, you'll have some very sophisticated students who will bring their own ideas to the table and make you think.

Resources

You choice of film may be influenced by the availability of support resources. For a guide on film which I wrote for AQA, see here. It offers more ideas on choosing texts, planning and activities you can carry out. Pearson-Edexcel has a useful page here. For some of the best support resources for teaching film, look at this site. You may be able to obtain revision guides or easy books for your school library. The exam boards have useful resources of their own and Facebook groups can be very helpful. Pearson-Edexcek produced this useful resource to support work on film.

Week to week planning

After some pre-film work, students would first wtach the film with captions, uninterrupted, as if they were watching any film for pleasure.

Then my practice was to have students complete a worksheet a week before we discussed it in class. They would bring in their work, perhp have a few minutes to compare their answers with those of a partner, then their answers would become the basis of our lesson. Lessons would there fore involve working though responses, discussing them and giving feedback. I often found that in the early early lessons students needed encouragement to write longer answers. If you ask questions with skill and insist on answers of a certain minumum length you can avoid issues.

When it comes to classroom discussion, here is a little tip: if a particular idea is hard to express in L2, you can rehearse answers in English first, the work on how the same ideas will be expressed in L2. As with all general discussion and analysis, this can be done either with the teacher or in pairs. Given that A-Level classes are often small, working directly with the teaacher may be suitable. 

Note that the process of writing answers to well-chosen questions gradually builds up students' skill in paragraph writing, which will subsequently make them better essay writers. By he end of the 10-12 weeks each student will have a file of worksheets containing answers which can eb the basis for their revision and essay writing.

That's not to say that you would never do read-alouds. There will be certain key sections in the book that you need to focus on in more detail and where you want there to be no misunderstanding. Never be frightened to just explain things to classes. Some students need more ‘spoon-feeding’ than others.

As the weeks proceed, students will get into the habit of thinking like you and becoming expert. Towards the end of the 10-12 week cycle you will be working on the skill of essay writing. Again, more on that in the next post.

Literature

Students taking A-level may start with mixed feelings about studying literature at A-Level. Taking on a novel or play may feel like a daunting challenge and many A-Level students may not be doing the course through a love of literature. Those who are also studying English literature may be at an advantage, while others may need some persuading that analysing literature at all is not worthwhile. In reality, by the end of the course, many students report that the literature (and film) were the parts they enjoyed most. Once a book has been studied, students have learned a lot about the target language culture and how to analyse a literary work. It is very satisfying.

Straight away I want to refer you to an excellent book on this subject, one I wish I had owned as a young teacher. It's called Teaching Literature in the A-Level Modern Languages Classroom (Raithby and Taylor, 2020). I wrote a review of it here. Thye get into the fine detail of activities you can carry out when working with a book.

Which text?

This echoes what I wrote above about film.  Exam boards choose texts based on previous teachers and student feedback, so they can all be successful. Keep in mind most of all what YOU are most passionate about. If you are keen on the text and the author it's likely your enthusiasm will come across. If you don't know any of the set texts, you'll need to read them - they are usually not too long. Seek guidance from colleagues or on relevant Facebook groups. Your choice may be partly dictated by which books you already have in the stock cupboard. Incidentally, most departments still use paper texts, not ebooks.

Preparing for teaching a book is more of a pleasure than a chore. You'll hopefully find the process instructive and rewarding.

Organisation

In general you need to allocate between 10-12 weeks to working though a book and developing the skill of essay writing. I'm assuming, as with film, that this involves roughly two hours classroom contact time per week, plus about two hours of homework. A book may take a bit longer than a film. Keep in mind that students will also be working through their other sub-themes at the same time.

The detailed preparation for teaching would have been done the previous year, possibly during the 'gained time' teachers get in the summer exam season. The preparation would include:

• Reading the book thoroughly.
• Familiarising yourself with the language of literary analysis (character, style, metaphor, imagery, etc).
• Noting any vocabulary the students are unlikely to know.
• Reading around some of background, e.g. what critics wrote, historical context, themes raised, etc.
• I would plan any pre-reading work based on the above.
• Preparing a set of worksheets. I would divide the chapters into about 8-10 sections and produce one worksheet per section. 
• I would plan how to build up the skills needed for assessment (see the next post).

If you studied literature at university you have an advantage, so you may need to do less reading around.

Students may like to read the book in an English translation. The exam boards have nothing against this.

Worksheet design

Think of a worksheet like this as any other language worksheet, but with a greater emphasis on the content of each chapter or group of chapters. Remember that you want your students to focus less on storytelling and much more on critical analysis (in line with the demands of the specification). Your worksheets might contain the following elements:

• A bilingual vocabulary glossary. (You don't want students' time taken up too much by looking up words.)
• True/false statements.
• Ticking off correct statements.
• Questions in L2 about the text. Questions could be closed and factual, or more open-ended to invite slightly longer analytical paragraphs. They may also focus on linguistic aspects, e.g. 'Explain what X means'.
• Occasional questions in L1, notably where ideas become very difficult to follow and express in the target language.
• Gap-fill, e.g. providing a summary paragraph with gaps to complete (with or without options).
• Correcting false statements about the text.
• Translation into English of chosen sections.
• Written smmary of chosen sections.
• A grammar exercise based on a structure or structures encountered in the text.

By smart worksheet design you can get the students (the novices) to think like you (the expert). Mind you, you'll have some very sophiticated students who will bring their own ideas to the table and make you think.

Resources

For a guide on literature which I wrote for AQA, see here. It offers more ideas on choosing texts, planning and activities you can carry out. For more good resources on literature look at this site again. Facebook professional groups are a great source of shared ideas and resources. There may be a group for your specific book. Pearson-Edexcel produced this useful resource.

Week to week planning

My practice was to have students complete a worksheet a week before we discussed it in class. They would bring in their work, perhaps have a few minutes to compare their answers with those of a partner, then their answers would become the basis of the lesson. This then avoids you falling into thee trap of spending lessons just reading aloud sections. Lessons would there fore involve working though responses, discussing them and giving feedback. I often found that in the early early lessons students needed encouragement to write longer answers. If you ask questions with skill and insist on answers of a certain minumum length you can avoid issues.

Note that the process of writing answers to well-chosen questions gradually builds up their skill in paragraph writing, which will subsequently make them better essay writers.

That's not to say that you would never do read-alouds. There will be certain key sections in the book that you need to focus on in more detail and where you want there to be no misunderstanding.

As the weeks proceed, students will getinto the habit of thinking like you and becoming expert. Towards the end of the 10-12 week cycle you will be working on the skill of essay writing. Again, more on that in the next post.