Towards a multimodal framework for video-literature teaching in the EFL/ESL classroom

Abstract

This paper reports on work carried out as the result of a UCM (Complutense University of Madrid) collaboration with the FLAME (Film, Languages and Media in Education) Research Group of the Manchester Metropolitan University. In this context, an inclusive multimodal framework for the implementation of literary works with film adaptations was developed as part of a video/literature workshop designed for one of our Master’s courses aimed at the training of EFL/ESL secondary teachers in the UCM. This multimodal framework was motivated primarily by the fact that literature has recently become an essential part of the curriculum in Bilingual Secondary Schools in Madrid. The reality that the use of film adaptations of literary texts facilitates the implementation of literature in the EFL/ESL classroom was also a key factor. The lines following not only describe the framework developed, but also provide one example of implementation of the model for the teaching of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath (1477), among the best known of The Canterbury Tales (1478); without any doubt, one of the hardest texts to tackle in the EFL/ESL classroom out of the literary works recommended for the bilingual official curriculum.