The Butler. A Teaching Unit (PDF)

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject Didactics - English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 2,0, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Amerikanistik), language: English, abstract: The overall topic of this teaching unit is the Civil Rights Movement of America, which will be taught in the 12th grade of an advanced course.

The students will have acquired a deepened intercultural understanding before leaving school and encountering the real world, possibly visiting foreign countries after their abitur. The topic will be used to teach the cultural studies of America and expand their intercultural competences with this historical and political background knowledge. The teaching unit comprises eight lessons; two of them are discussed in more detail regarding the subject matter, didactic and methodological analysis. The used material and teacher's expectations for two of the lessons can be found in the appendix.

In a globalized world characterized by international private and professional relationships, above all in Europe, acquiring communicative and intercultural competences, crucially in the lingua franca English, is ever more important. These competences are also anchored in the scholastic standard for the subject of English and implicate the necessity to teach students skills, which enable them to communicate in a sensitive and differentiated way. They will then be prepared to take on international jobs, to be prevented from falling foul of misunderstandings, to question their own behavior, to be tolerant and to treat others respectfully.

One good method of teaching these competences in an English lesson is the use of films. The widespread assumption that films only function as entertainment has to be revised, because films offer an important insight into the culture of English speaking countries and contribute a lot to communicative competences such as writing and listening. In comparison to other media, films contain an interaction with visual and acoustic features which opens new ways for interpretation and creative methods.

Furthermore, films offer the possibility to practice intercultural understanding, introduce dialects and native-speaker tempo. The earlier students are confronted with such a tempo, the better they will tolerate the reality that not every word needs to be understood. Also, the fact that nowadays students are surrounded by new media every day justifies the usage of films. Their film reception starts already in childhood through watching TV; hence they should be taught how to analyze what they see so that they do not become mere passive consumers, but critical ones.