Teaching Media Studies

I remember taking English in my high school years and let me tell you, the only thing I enjoyed was reading because it was an escape from the teacher and the classroom. Eventhough English was a second language to us,I went to school in Puerto Rico, the school's curriculum used books for native speakers of English. we had two periods of English, one for Language and one for reading. We would disect sentences into the grammar diagrams, most of thepeople not knowing what the sentences meant. Reading was done inthe classroom, with everybody falling asleep over their texts. We would then answer questions onthe board. I To top things up, our teachers were native speakers of Spanish and their English was not very good either. So you get an idea of the kind of pronunciation we were taught. Sometimes, a studenthad to jump in and correct the teacher for pronouncing or defining a word wrong. This is how bad it was for me. It was pretty boring and not to mention unproductive.

Here is a plan that I would like to defend in the creation of new ideas and the integration of media and technologies into the English curriculum. Hopefully, it will make teaching and learning English a more pleasurable and productive explerience.


The English Curriculum in our district has been quite diffrent for some time. We have ben tyring to enhance the new technologies that are up and rising in our community. Today, technologies play a big role in our lives.Everybody is esposed to media some way or the other. We believe that the curriculum in schools should provide our students with the literacies nessesary to operate in the world. This said, we should not ignore the Basic of reading, writing and critical thinking skills that must be developed in English class.

Our new perspective on the curriculum is to integrate media to the curriculum through integration.
Let's take reading first.There are studies that prove that once students can relate to literature, they can better understand and appreciate it.
Our purpose is to make students combine media with literature. We could do this through the use of:

Computers/ internet- Students can post their ideas and reactions to the books in a way where they will not feel thay are doing homework. It would be simmilar to what they do when they speak to their friends on web groups, email, blogs etc. The teachers may create a source of communication in the virtual world, such as yahoo groups.
The teachers will correct for reading reactions and cover the grammar correction as well. Teachers will state their rules and grading criteria before they begin the process.

Movies- after the students read and discuss a book, they can watch the movie and discuss other people's interpretations. They can by the way notice the diffrence between a boolk and a movie and better appreciate the readinmg experience.

Advertising- Reviewing and criticizing adversitements in the print, film, and virtual media. They can find allusions to the classics in the advertising, they can interpret and develop their critical thinking skills. they can learn to distinguish when they are being influenced by the mainsrteam forces.

With theintegratoin of technologies and median into the curriculum teh students will still be able tolearnthe use of correct grammar, they could still rad their novels anc classics, and they can develop critical thinking skills in new environments.

Writing and composition, and even typing, skills will be developed with the use of a computer.

Reading, and research skills will be developed trhough the search and reding of e-books and the use of virtual libraries.

Critical Thinking skills will be developed through discussion forums online, both in chat and in asynchronic forums.

Diction and pronunciation- ESL students can benefit greatly from listening to video clips and dictionaries online that provide the correct pronunciation of words. They cn also learn the idiom sof the american culture throught the viewing and listening of films and advertisements.