서강대학교

초록/요약

In seeking new and novel ways to heighten motivation in language-learning student groups, this research project works from a Freirean liberatory pedagogy while undertaking to explore the possibilities of teaching language learners to play creatively with the language they are learning. Conducting a series of experiments with third grade middle school students in real-time classroom environments, my thesis takes creativity as not only humanizing but a teachable skill which, through a series of in-class exercises, supplements and improves both approaches toward and outcomes produced by young Korean students engaged in learning English as a foreign language. In this investigation, I have used both text and film versions of The Hunger Games, and have chosen this particular text for my young adult language learners because of the possibilities for empathetic engagements with the text: namely, it is assumed here that students are more likely to productively interact with protagonists engaged in themes reflecting the language learners’ own themes and life narratives. I explore in this research project how adding film to the text may produce a suite of positive outcomes: when language learners are required to undertake a reading experience, this project understands how (for some) they tend to regard this reading as an academic task, with all the potential demotivation this presents. Indeed, it is not easy for students to read a book in their learned language, and the assumption here is that these digital natives are perhaps more comfortable, more familiar, and more motivated toward other non-textual mediums(TV series, games, songs, films, and so forth) than reading a work of fiction in their non-native language. It is for this reason that I have paired the film version of The Hunger Games to the novel by Suzanne Collins; for younger English language learners, the film supplements (and indeed seems to improve) engagements with the novel. I next require students to make their own versions of scenes from the story (contained in both the novel and film), and explore here how undertaking creative writing exercises can augment and solidify the making of particular target grammar formations. In terms of the actual experiments: six lessons have been conducted, delivered to five third-grade middle school students who are not used to reading literature in a learned language. Using two different mediums (novel + film) employed cooperatively in the classroom, my lessons are designed to prioritize ekphrastic processes in order to make inter-texts which require particular linguistic exploration from students. And though the data set is very small, the results suggest that after a reading experience supplemented by a film, my student language learners have elaborated imaginative and reflective experiences into exploratory creative inter-texts; this early data suggests that my hypothesis regarding creative writing as a motivational tool in language learning contexts is indeed proven. These creative writing activities have effectively stimulated and improved not only motivation in language learners but also proficiencies within a learned language.