This article aims at taking a look at a genre that is popular with both children and adults, yet mostly neglected in curricula: animated films. As a study conducted in a German secondary school demonstrated, the potential of this genre for Teaching English as a Foreign Language lies mostly in its strong visual language as well as its connection to the daily lives of the students. After briefly discussing why animated films by Pixar can be considered as a genre and how this genre (re-)presents popular culture, the theoretical basis for the integration of the films into Teaching English as a Foreign Language will be laid out. The topics addressed by Pixar animated films will then be described. Also, a task typology and some actual tasks that can be used when addressing the topic in the English as a Foreign Language classroom will be introduced. Finally, one task that was actually used during the empirical study, and how the students responded to it, will be brought into focus. The main example will be the film Up (2009) but other films from the Pixar oeuvre will occasionally be referenced to illustrate certain points.
We suggest that complex tasks can be introduced to learners as early as primary school level with the help of digital media in the form of different apps. As a theoretical basis, we will first outline the principles of teaching English in (German) primary schools. Secondly, we will look at the framework of Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) according to Nunan (2004) and explore how digitally-mediated tasks can be connected to this framework. Then, we will look at complex tasks as outlined by Hallet (2011) and present an example of a complex digital task for young English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners that we developed and tested in a German primary school classroom. It is suggested that TBLT at the primary level is a motivating alternative to playful teaching techniques traditionally championed at the primary level. Moreover, it may be a way of bridging the problematic gap between the primary and secondary levels as tasks can prepare young learners for the challenges they will face at the secondary level.
In our paper, we propose that intermediality and participatory culture are intertwined concepts that are both part of the digital world. By using Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) as a pedagogical framework, we argue that digitally mediated tasks can be beneficial for the EFL classroom while at the same time including aspects of intermediality and participatory culture. In the last part of the paper, we present task examples that tackle this issue and were tested in the EFL classroom.
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