TEACHING LITERACY THROUGH FILM

INTO FILM
BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE
WEEK 1 Visual Storytelling
1.5 Why Use Film To Improve Literacy
[00:00:00.00]
[00:00:02.61] TIM BLEAZARD: I think using film as a text is a really powerful thing.
Some people think that if you're using film, it's at the expense of written text, from
books, but it just couldn't be further from the case. It's a really symbiotic
relationship.
[00:00:17.10] MARK REID: There are many different ways of improving children's
literacy, of engaging them with stories. And particularly of building on the skills that
they've already developed, long before they arrive at school. So children, from the
age of one and a half or two years old, have collections of DVDs. They can operate
remote controls. They're watching films and TV programmes over and over and over
again. And what they're learning about are things like genre, narrative, how
characters work, how stories use settings. So bringing that expertise, and those
skills and knowledge into the classroom, I think should be really fundamental, as a
way of teaching literacy.
[00:00:57.14] CLAIRE DUNSIRE: It's had an incredibly positive impact. I've taught it
now within three different ages. The main part, first, was the engagement of the
boys, who were very switched off to literacy. They actually said they didn't see it as
an English lesson.
[00:01:12.03] PHILIP WEBB: Within the Bradford Media Literacy Study, over the
three years of the project, the children have demonstrated above average progress
in writing, which was the original aim of the project. But as a spin-off, there's also
been an improvement in their reading results, particularly because we can use film
to develop children's reading comprehension.
[00:01:31.48] ROXY GRANT: Our standardised assessment tests, we saw that this
year, there was a dramatic increase in the percentage of children that achieved a
level four in reading. So this year, the results were 93 per cent, and the previous
FutureLearn


year had only been 77 per cent. We feel that the percentage increase this year was
a result of using the film project.
[00:01:53.42] PUPIL: Makes people want to work more, and they'll make people have
more fun, and want to come to school.
[00:02:00.63] TIM: For the vast, vast majority of teachers that we've worked with,
they say that film has changed the way that they teach. It's changed the way that
children engage with them. And it's really switched them on to writing and reading
in the classroom.
[00:02:12.96] MARK: If we accept that film is-- if it's fundamental to children's lives,
their cultural lives, their personal and their social lives, I think there isn't a part of
the curriculum that wouldn't be served well by incorporating film, incorporating the
moving image.

FutureLearn 2