TEACHING TEXT AND CONTEXT THROUGH MULTIMEDIA

Claire Kramsch
University of California, Berkeley

http://llt.msu.edu/vol2num2/pdf/article1.pdf


This article emphasizes the importance of multimedia for teachers and language learners to teach and understand some aspects of the culture of the target language. It is an analysis of a multimedia Quechua language program and its relation between text and context.

Multimedia permits learn a second language not only as a set of grammatical rules, but also watch, listen and interpret how language works when native speakers interact in real situations. Through multimedia we can take into account verbal and paraverbal behaviors, gestures, body movements. According to the text most of the video-based multimedia materials are focused on linguistics and grammatical items, the same as textbooks. The filmmaker decides who is going to appear on the screen and those who do not. Therefore he or she leaves out some aspects of the culture and maintain others, which is quite different from being in the host community where you can confirm or eliminate some beliefs or insights about a certain culture.

New technologies such us Internet, videos and CD - ROM shift the traditional form of teaching, linguistic items, to teach values, beliefs and ways of speaking of a certain group of people. Of course when you are learning a new language you cannot learn the context, it must be experienced. This is the importance of multimedia, students can learn about culture of the target language no matter if they are in the host country or not. Students can go back to previous materials or go further and rearranged the conversation or situations in order to make new interpretations or confirm previous conceptions.

Multimedia offers a wide variety of authentic videos that help both teachers and students to have a better understanding about the target language and culture. To learn a new language it is necessary to know how to use grammar and meanings of words but also it is necessary to know how native speakers express feelings, desires or angry.