The Language Teacher
01 - 2000

Eiga Shosetsu as a Source of Massive Comprehensible Input for Japanese EFL Learners

Rube Redfield




Eiga shosetsu (movie tie-in novels) are popular movies transformed into print, faithful to the movie but with the sights and sounds transformed into dialog, interior monologue, narration, and description. They appear after movie releases and fit somewhere between graded readers and trashy, popular fiction. In outward appearance, they are indistinguishable from other popular fiction in paperback form. Eiga shosetsu are not movie transcripts, they are a novelized form of the movie itself.

Underpinnings of the Eiga Shosetsu Program

Theoretical. The Eiga Shosetsu Program is based on the idea that comprehension is a requisite for learning. Simply put, learners must in some way or another understand the meaning of what they encounter in their learning environment, be it in written or oral form, if they are going to learn. Regardless of whether one is inclined to support the strong version of the Interaction Hypothesis (Long, 1983a), asserting that comprehensible input leads directly to language acquisition (Krashen, 1982), or the weaker version of the hypothesis, that comprehensible input under certain restraints can, but does not necessarily, lead to acquisition (Ellis, 1986), both researchers and professional foreign language classroom practitioners would agree that without comprehensible input no meaningful language acquisition is likely to take place (but also see White, 1987). A corollary of this need for comprehensible input is that more input is better for learning than less input. The amount of comprehensible input in other words, matters. Reading eiga shosetsu seems an ideal vehicle for supplying this needed comprehensible input, because once the movie has been viewed, understanding is assured. It then becomes a matter of sitting down and reading the accompanying eiga shosetsu through.

Anecdotal. Personally, I was a hopeless classroom foreign language learner, but now I am fluent in four foreign languages. Back in the days when foreign languages were a required part of the US curri culum, I never passed a single final exam in my first foreign language, German. Memorizing article paradigms and verb declinations, what I like to call 'spreadsheet German,' was beyond me. I was interested in using the language, not studying it. Of course when I went to Germany I couldn't speak a word. Every morning I diligently attended my beginning German class at the university, where we transformed active sentences into passive, present tense phrases into the past tense, and direct speech utterances into indirect speech. While the other students presumably went home after class to pour over their spreadsheet German texts, I went to the movies. In those days you could see a double feature 'Macaroni Western' for 25 cents US. I saw four or five a week. The westerns were pretty basic and soon I found myself understanding the dialog. After about four months I still couldn't pass any of the written grammar tests we were given, but I could understand spoken German way better than my more 'serious' classmates. Watching movies, and paying attention to meaning rather than form, was the key, I now believe.

A second key was learning how to read. A French classmate told me that if I really wanted to learn German, I would have to 'sacrifice' five books. By sacrifice she meant slog my way through without real understanding. No dictionaries, no grammar texts, no translations, just pure reading. I didn't understand the first novel at all, nor the second. A bare glimmer of understanding came with the third novel. I could understand some of the fourth book, and most of the fifth. At the end of that time (and it took time, maybe six months), after duly sacrificing five well-known novels, I found that not only could I now really read German, but that all my other language skills had improved as well. So reading was the second key. (See Smith, 1979, for a discussion on reading).

Being in a country where the language was spoken, playing rugby with a German club, attending classes at the university, all of course were contributing factors to my success in German. Nevertheless, I think the two keys in my particular case were watching movies and reading novels. I believe now that the real key was the massive amounts of comprehensible input that accompanied these activities. I went on to learn Spanish, French, and Japanese the same way, without even the dubious (for me) value of having studied those languages formally in a classroom before traveling abroad. If watching movies and reading novels (among other things, to be sure) helped me learn, perhaps the same activities would help my Japanese students learn English as well.

The Eiga Shosetsu Program

Students enrolled in the Eiga Shosetsu Program saw the first ninety minutes of six contemporary films (such as Top Gun, An Of ficer and a Gentleman, The Dead Poet's Society) at one month intervals throughout the academic year, at the rate of one film per four week cycle. The rented videos were shown during the first class meeting of each monthly cycle. Students were also instructed to read the six corresponding eiga shosetsu outside of class (approximately 1500 pages), and encouraged to watch the complete video at home a second time, paying attention to the spoken English. Each subsequent class period (one per week for the traditional ninety minutes) began with a fifteen minute silent reading period, in order to give the instructor the opportunity to see how the learners were progressing in their reading, and to give learners an English warm up period before the oral part of the class began. As an additional reading check, and to fulfill the composition requirement of the course, five-page movie/book reports were to be handed in each month, one for each movie/book. The learners were also required to read one additional novel as homework over summer vacation. The rational behind the program was, of course, to provide massive amounts of comprehensible input, in order to facilitate language acquisition.

The Survey

Instrument. A twenty-five item, five point Likert-type classroom evaluation survey was employed to measure participant satisfaction with the Eiga Shosetsu Program. The instrument consists of twelve pairs of mirror items, one part of the pair worded positively ("This class was too easy for me") and the other negatively ("This class was too hard for me"), plus one additional positively worded item. The areas covered by the survey include the famous four skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), plus items on culture, methods, materials, teacher and general class evaluation, the grading system, and learner-perceived usefulness, learning, and interest. Each of the items is weighted equally, and a converted "Class Evaluation Score" is determined (see Larson & Redfield, 1998).

Class Evaluahon Score. The Class Evaluation Score for the Eiga Shosetsu Class was 91.21. The Class Evaluation Score was designed to be immediately interpretable to anyone familiar with the standard A-B-C-D-F, 100-point scoring system prevalent in educational institutions. The leaners (N = 47), in other words, thought the Eiga Shosetu Class worthy of an "A." This should be seen as a strong endorsement of the movie tie-in class.

Written evaluation. Learners were also asked to evaluate the Eiga Shosetsu Class in a more subjective, free-form manner. All of the participants (N = 47) took advantage of the final twenty minutes of class time allotted for this written evaluation, some writing a sentence or two, most a full paragraph. Excerpts citing the most common themes are cited below by category. I have taken the liberty of correcting only the spelling. The rest of the words are the students' own.

Reading

1. I have good experience, because I can read without dictionary. I thought I can't read English book.

2. Reading books are so hard, but at last I feel it get's easier just a little. I don't know my speed of reading became faster or not, but it was good experience. I'll last reading.

3. This class is very hard! I had pressure to read many foreign books and write my opinion, but reading them was very good experience.

4. I think it is good for us to read English paper book every month. By doing that, could touch English.

These students found the reading segment of the program quite hard, but also very useful. It is doubtful if many (or any) of them had ever read an English novel in its entirety before, so they naturally found it difficult. Having finished several books, however, their confidence began visibly to grow.

Writing

1. I wrote my own words of English which was important for me.

2. But to write book reports was good to translate thinking myself into English.

3. After we watched video of each stories, we write about that story, which is very nice. By reading novel, I can't only memorize the word but also read and write easily.

4. I don't like writing, but this class is fun.

Writing in English does not come easily for these students (many said it was hard to write five pages per month) but the Eiga Shosetsu Class at least gave them something to write about. Several commented favorably on how the program gave them the opportunity to write in their own words.

Listening

1. At first I couldn't understand that the instructor said. But thanks to a lot of conversation time, I gradually could understand English.

2. I got power listening to English more than ever, and writing, too.

3. When I hear Americans speaking in the tape, I thought I should study English.

4. And when I look at movies, I can hear English rather than before.

There were many comments as to how hard it was to understand authentic spoken English at the beginning of the year. As shown above, however, learners soon began to understand more of what they heard.

Integrated skills

1. This class is different from the others. In this class, we can learn 'English Conversation.' And it is interesting for me to read "Eiga Shosetsu." Although writing "book review is very difficult. And when I look at movies, I can hear English rather than before.

2. This is the writing class but not only writing. The reading, speaking and listening I learned.

3. In this class, we could see some interesting movies. So I enjoyed it very much. But it was hard for me to write five pages report, because I didn't have enough time to read the book. But I could learn many things, for example how to speak, how to read and so on.

4. This class is like a communication class, I think. Through this class, I often watch foreign movies! I believe it is good for studying English.

The Eiga Shosetsu Class was not just a writing class.Writing was one of the four skills integrated into a whole language program. Language cannot truly be divided into separable skills, but is best learned as a 'whole.' Several of the students seemed to appreciate that.

Method

1. I thought this class was the best class in this college. I want to increase the class like this class. I felt I studied real English in this class.

2. And it is good to read movie-book and write for the report. By the way, I can understand more the story. I hope to see you next 3 grade again.

3. This class is better than any other English class. Especially I like the teaching method. The teacher's speech is very interesting. And I think that women are superior to men in this class.

4. I like his teaching way. For his teaching way is different from the way I had ever learned in school.

The eiga shosetsu teaching method seemed popular. Through watching popular films and then reading movie tie-in stories, learners received the input necessary to acquire English. The oral part of the class was devoted to listening and speaking out on topics of contemporary interest, which thereby gave the learners the opportunities necessary for comprehensible output. The combination proved to be both effective and, according to the students' own evaluations, highly popular as well.

Interest/usefulness

1. This class was very interesting and useful for me. I thought this class was the best class in this college.

2. I had a very good time this class. Other writing class. . . my friend said not interesting. I enjoyed. I think this class is the most useful for my future.

3. This class was so different from other English class. It was so interesting and stimulating for me. I want to take your class again.

4. This class was very different from others. It was interesting.

These particular students thought the Eiga Shosetsu Class was quite useful, more interesting than their other classes, and in fact one of the best classes offered in the institution. To me this is a very ringing endorsement, especially coming from the people who really matter, the course participants.

Learning to learn

1. American native teacher taught and taught us how to study English.

2. I found the way to study English from you, and I think it's really useful. I'll try to do. I wanted to study how to study English more and more.

The most gratifying of all the quite generally favorable comments on the Eiga Shosetsu Program, to me as a professional language educator, were the two comments on learning to learn. We know we have done our job when our students learn how to learn by themselves, and no longer need our guidance.

Conclusion

At its core, the Eiga Shosetsu Program consists of supplying meaning through video and then having the learner connect the acquired meaning to the English found in the accompanying movie tie-in novel. The results from the survey above show, I hope, how promising this approach can be. More research, both quantitive and qualitive, with different learners in different situations, is of course necessary to insure that that promise is reached.

References

Ellis, R. (1986). Understanding second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford university Press.

Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and ractice in second language acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon.

Larson, S. & M. Redfield (1998). A down and dirty classroom evaluation procedure. Paper presented at the Communications Association of Japan International Conference, Nihon University, Tokyo, June 25,1998.

Long, M. (1983a). Does second language instruction make a difference? A review of research. TESOL Quarterly, 17, 359-382.

Smith, F. (1979). Readingwithout nonsense. New York: Teachers College Press.

White, L. (1987). Against comprehensible input: The input hypothesis and the development of second language competence. Applied Linguistics, 8, 95-110.



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