Use of Film Scripts and Their Translations in Teaching English as a Foreign Language

Abstract

Although millions of EFL learners benefit from watching subtitled/captioned movies andTV shows in non-instructional settings, one almost untouched area is the development ofstrategies in benefiting from film scripts and their translated versions as well as audiolanguage-subtitle combinations. This paper reports research subsequent to theresearcher/teacher's guided work on the use of film scripts and their translated versions. Thestudents guided were required to notice and list chunks as well as technical and creative useof language in these scripts with their immediate contexts. This was carried out comparingthe original scripts and those translated in Turkish and do creative dialogue/anecdote writingfocusing on appropriacy and variety in language use. However some students' self-reportedlack of focus on the jargons and formal language. The research was conducted with 1-5Likert type questionnaires and closed-ended yes/no questions. The participants, the studentsof the research/teacher of the present paper, are the undergraduate students taking advancedlanguage skills course as part of the curriculum of their major, the English language andliterature. The results demonstrated that the film scripts can be used to convert the inputprovided by the film scripts to intake and uptake and provide good examples regarding theapplication of own language use in ELT.