Intercultural moments

in teaching English through film

Margaret Lee Zoreda *

Metropolitan Autonomous University, Iztapalapa Unit, Mexico.
* Department of Philosophy, Research Area in Foreign Languages and Cultures at the UAM- Iztapalapa. Email: mlmz@xanum.uam.mx.

Summary

This article describes the advanced level course "Intercultural Encounters in Anglophone Cinema" designed to
the English program of the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, and points out how the included films can lead us to an
intercultural reflection. Based on a discussion about the importance of culture in the foreign language curriculum and its relationship with
cinema, the author presents an overview of the course, summaries of the films used, and concludes with a reflection on moments conducive
to strengthening an intercultural perspective.

Keywords:

Curriculum
English

Movie theater

Intercultural

Abstract

This paper describes the advanced course, “Intercultural Encounters in Anglophone Film,” in the English program at the Universidad Autónoma
Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, pointing out why its various films can promote intercultural reflection. After indicating the importance of culture in the foreign
language curriculum and its relationship to film, the author presents a general overview of the course, summaries of the films analyzed, and describes
specific instances in which an intercultural perspective can be fostered.

Keywords:

Resume
English
Film
Intercultural
We are witnessing the change that at the
international level is considering that
intercultural attitudes are an integral part of
the teaching of foreign languages,
therefore, it is no longer enough (if it ever
was) to present only "cultural capsules" in
courses banal. Being intercultural means
going beyond stereotypes, acquiring
knowledge about the complexity of foreign
culture and the way its members observe
themselves and foreigners, being
intercultural means reflecting on one's
culture and on one's own perspectives in a
mental process of "decentralization" one ( Yram,
Gribkova and Starkey, 2002, p. 12). This
article will describe the course program
created for the teaching of English as a
Foreign Language ( EFL two for its acronym in
English) at the Autonomous University
tropolitana-Iztapalapa of Mexico City:
“Intercultural Encounters in Anglophone
Cinema”, where it will be highlighted why the
selected cinema films lead to intellectual
reflection. First, there will be a brief summary
related to
Photography: José Ventura
one Decentering. Decentralization: openness to the situation
of others, which also requires reflection on oneself.
Translator's note.
two English as a Foreign Language ( EFL).
tioned with the new emphasis on intercultural
competence in foreign language curricula,
followed by its relationship to film.
Subsequently, a broad view of the course
and its specific films will be given, focusing
on those moments of the class in which
students have the possibility of entering an
intercultural space while learning English.
The films discussed here are: Barcelona,
Black Robe, Iron & Silk, The Searchers,
Witness, Lone Star, The Treasure of the
Sierra Madre, West Side Story, Y A Passage
to India.
Competition
intercultural in
the education of
foreign languages
through the cinema
Given our present era of "interconnectivity"
or "globalization," defined as "the intensified
and accelerated movement of people,
images, ideas, technologies, and economic
and cultural capital across national borders"
(McCarthy et al. 2003, p. 454), it is not
surprising that foreign language teaching
curricula throughout the world are
incorporating a new emphasis on learning
about foreign language cultures into their
programs. The most important statements
of language politics, such as
Common European Framework of
Reference for Languages: Learning,
Teaching, Assessment ( 2001), Standards
for Foreign Language Learning: Preparing
for the 21 st Century ( 1996), and Education in
a Multilingual World ( 2003), indicate that a
deeper understanding of language cultures
is now necessary for students to develop an
appreciation and tolerance for the
complexities of foreign cultures, while
reflecting on the multiple dimensions of their
own culture of origin. The "Culture" here is
understood as the attitudes, behaviors and
products (both tangible
Reunion 47 ..................................... n 73
as intangibles) shared and displayed in
any society; that is, both "culture" and
"culture". Claire Kramsch has pushed that
definition further to include an imagined
social space:
[C] ulture can be defined as a membership
in a discursive community that shares a
common social space and history, and a
common imaginary ... [T] his diachronic
view of culture focuses on the way in which
a A social group represents itself and
others through its material productions over
time — its technological achievements, its
monuments, its works of art, its popular
culture — which mark the development of
its historical identity. (Quoted in Scott and
Huntington, 2002, pp. 622-623)
However, to create interculturality, it is not
enough simply to know what the white
culture is and its "imaginary" through the
method of the "inventory" of "cultural
capsules". For Bredella, located in the
same line as Kramsch (1993) and Byram
(1991), among the various traits of the
intercultural person, we find
decentralization or exteriority, 3
that is, the ability to see the world from the
point of view of others, and maintain a
voluntary personal distance from one's own
culture:
Being intercultural means rebuilding the
frame of reference of the other and seeing
things through their eyes in order to
overcome our ethnocentric tendency that
imposes our categories and values on
their behavior.
3 Outsideness. See things from the outside or as an outsider,
feeling or ability to feel alien to one's own culture. It is the point of
view of the observer who understands that the others and the
other have certain attributes or values that he must understand.
Although these attributes can be explained by some local theory.
Translator's note.
 Being intercultural means raising our self-awareness as cultural beings.
This makes us aware of the relativity of our beliefs and values, and
protects us from cultivating fanatical attitudes. (Bredella, 2003b, p.
237).
From this perspective, Bredella emphasizes a certain quality of
imagination and “flexibility of mind” as predispositions for
interculturality (2003a, p. 38).
This same author points out that experiences with art can
provide encounters of imaginary immersion and self-reflection that
characterize acts of interculturality in the same way (2003b, p. 230).
That is, all art forms have the potential to involve the reader-viewer
in an “outside” world: We share “otherness” 4 of an aesthetic text (or
Object), the point of view of the author-creator, his culture, etc.
Especially in the case of learning the English language, the power
of art— to immerse ourselves imaginatively and completely in
“otherness” and even more, in a truly complex Anglophone
otherness -, can play a decisive role in the formation of the
intercultural personality (Lee Zoreda, forthcoming).
Cinema and interculturality
Let us bear in mind that cinema, however, is not merely an art
object; it also falls within the sphere of popular culture, both of
the country that produced it and of the foreign countries that
consume it. Therefore, the recent call for students to develop
“multiple literacies” that include, among other capacities, critically
“read” the mass media in which they are immersed, with an
intercultural perspective, has been expressed by the New
London Group (1996), Douglas Kellner (1998), and Kress (Kern
and Schultz, 2005, p.
383). Since university students from EFL throughout the world are
virtually bombarded with "texts" from the United States and other
English-speaking metropolises, through film, music, television,
advertising, etc., it is clear that there should be an obligation in EFL to
teach to examine and interpret such international productions. After
all, the globalized mass media is now part of the popular culture of
our students — for better or for worse; We note that, from a
Gramscian point of view, popular culture is pedagogical in the
sense that it is:
in the place where our interpretations of the world are manufactured,
and that we take for granted: what we "know" about the world is largely
constructed through our interactions with popular culture ... [it is] where
identities are created and, therefore extension, is the
4 Otherness: Alterity, a philosophical concept of the other. Understand the meaning of the other. To be
another. Translator's note.
74 n ......................................... December 2006
place of considerable struggle for acceptance. (Dolby, 2003, p. 263).
Recently, within the specific field of EFL, there has been a
movement to promote critical interculturality and the reading of
the mass media as cultural texts. Sandra McKay criticizes the
trivial view of culture, which, unfortunately, most textbooks
present, if they present any culture at all. She suggests
integrating culture into programs EFL as follows:
. . . The materials must be used in such a way that students are
motivated to reflect on their own culture in relation to others, therefore,
helping to establish a sphere of interculturality. Second, the diversity
that exists within all cultures must be emphasized. Finally, cultural
content must be critically examined in such a way that students
consider what assumptions are present in the text and in what other
ways the topic could be discussed. (McKay, 2002: 100).
To develop such critical perspectives on EFL, John Corbett recognizes
the usefulness of drawing on literary, media and cultural studies, in
the intercultural classroom, to form "interpretation strategies" in order
to "foster the crucial ability to interpret the language and the broader
social practice of culture. specific ”(Corbett, 2003, p. 168-
169). He wisely points out that for cultural analyzes, we cannot
take mediated texts, such as cinema, television programs,
recorded music, advertising, etc., which are created for a
specific audience, with inherent values; 5 and that we must be
aware of “its function as entertainment or propaganda.
However, mediated texts also enter into current social
negotiations on what a member of a given culture should be at a
particular time ”(Corbett, 2003, p. 181-
182). Therefore, although students are not able to enjoy direct,
unmediated contact with the target culture (for example: living
and working for a long period of time in an English-speaking
society), the mediated texts are probably those cultural
experiences, more readily available to them, and have
undeniable cultural importance in target societies as barometers
of social and cultural identity. After all, popular culture is
intertwined with the society that produces and enjoys it; in the
particular case of cinema, society
5 At face value. It refers to the apparent merits of an idea, before the concept or plan has been
tested. Accepting something for what it seems at first without thinking about what else it might
mean. Accept that something is exactly what it apparently is. Note the translator.
he observes a reflection of his identity-image on the screen, and
subsequently, representations in the cinema continually alter and
shape that cultural identity. We can also say that the mediated
representations that are observed in the cinema are, in essence,
"the dominant forms or modes through which people experience the
world" (Ryan and Kellner, 2005, p. 213). In fact, many films become
so iconic that “some are recognized worldwide as a common frame
of reference” (Stempleski and Tomalin, 2001, p. 1).
Therefore, the power of cinema to create images of social
identities that are transformed into "truths" for subsequent human
actions requires an ability to critically evaluate it rather than
passively receive it as mere entertainment. This social force of
cinema is commented on in the words of Abrams:
The cinema has disseminated explicit discourses of identity by
translating abstract ideas of social class, race, gender, and ethnicity
into visible and concrete images consumed by millions throughout the
world. By doing so, cinema plays an important role not only reflecting,
but also shaping popular knowledge in these terms ... since cinema
attracts so many viewers it has had a profound influence on both
collective and individual consciousness (Abrams, 2005 , p. 1).
In this way, when critically analyzing Anglophone cinema,
students of EFL They can discover how English-speaking societies
look at their own social groups and those outside their cultures,
at the same time, students can consider creating their own
identities within their country. It is a necessary corollary that the
teacher of EFL You should place great value on developing your
own cross-cultural attitudes about English-speaking societies to
create the ideal classroom environment for students. Surely, this
could be a paradigm shift from a textbook with exercises aimed
at studying and teaching the English language and Anglophone
cultures from a critical perspective, or as Gee puts it:
The English teacher can cooperate in his own marginality by seeing
himself as a "language teacher" without any connection to […] social
and political issues. Or you can accept your role as someone who
socializes students into a world view that, given the power you have [in EU]
and outside of there, it must be viewed critically, relatively, and with a
constant sense of possibilities for change. Like it or not, the English
teacher stands at the very heart of the decisive educational, cultural
and political issues of our time. (Gee, 1990, p. 60).
The school and the course
The Autonomous Metropolitan University ( UAM) is a four campus,
urban public university, founded in 1973 in Mexico City, each
campus currently has a student population of approximately
10,000 (9,000 undergraduate and 1,000 graduate). As a
continuation of the advanced level of the General English
Program, the course "Selected Topics in Anglophone Cultures"
was created to perfect language skills as well as critical
intercultural skills. In the curriculum of the UAM- Iztapalapa, there is
no common core of humanities courses required for all
undergraduate studies; thus, in some way, foreign language
courses have served as a humanities component for all
specialties. The ten-week term presented here, “Intercultural
Encounters in Anglophone Cinema”, was offered for the first
time in 2002. Its main objectives, similar to those of the other
“Selected Topics ...” courses, are as follows :
● Explore and reflect on intercultural representations in a
selection of films spoken in English and consider one's own
cultural representations.
● Get up to speed with the complexity of Anglophone cultural history.
● Begin to critically appreciate, and therefore promote the enjoyment of the art
of cinema.
● To improve and diversify the ability to communicate in English
through the films that are observed, to read about art in cinema and
make critical reviews of the films in the course, to carry out
discussions in the whole group and in teams, as well as short written
assignments.
Its content consists of nine films— Barcelona, Black Robe, Iron &
Silk, The Searchers, Witness, Lone Star, TheTreasure of the Sierra
Madre, West Side Story, and A Passage to India - originating in
Canada, the United States and England and spanning a wide variety
of genres: adventure, futuristic, drama, suspense, western, mystery,
musical, and novel adaptations to the cinema. Many are classic films;
some are more recent. All have been selected because, in some
way, different cultures are shown that come into contact with each
other, often in a complex, conflicting or surprising way. Possibly it
can be said that the primary aspect to think about the course is: How
can one live with what is different?
Each movie has a guide to guide the student before they
see it, with a short summary and questions to think about
before, during and after watching it. These guides were
originally written to assist students in their visits to the
multimedia self-access foreign language center. All movies are
shown with
Reunion 47 ..................................... n 75
 subtitles or with optional coded captions 6 in English. The films are
shown during one of the two hours of weekly sessions, followed by a
discussion, which can be carried out in the whole group or in small
groups. Writings by William Costanzo drawn from his work are
included in the syllabus. "Great Movies and How to Teach Them
(2004)" 7 about the nature of the cinema and reviews of each film
obtained from the Internet or other sources.
To successfully complete the course, students must actively
participate in the sessions and submit written responses attached to
the film guides, as well as write and present a short essay in class
during the final week. The subject of the essay includes, among
others, evaluating the intercultural encounters in two or more films,
analyzing which of the films provoked, in the students, more
reflection on their own culture, and criticizing the reviews of the films
from their own perspective.
The movies
In this section we will briefly describe the films and indicate
which are the elements that were selected for their didactic
possibilities to provoke the understanding of intercultural
moments in students.
Barcelona, by the independent director, Whit Stillman, is
set in that city in the 1980s. It has to do with the love and work
experiences of two American cousins, Ted, an average business
executive, and Fred, an officer in the US Navy. United States.
Both have to confront the growing anti-American Spanish political
movement during the last decade of the dirty war. The film's
humorous tone and style, with the help of the disco music and
American pop songs of the 1970s, creates a somewhat
Brecht-like distance in the characters, as each sequence ends
with the screen fading. to black. 8 There is a constant flow of
words and comments between the two men and their romantic
counterparts, Marta and Montserrat, about
6 Closed Caption ( CC) is a type of subtitling that describes all the content of the film,
including ambient sound and music, using symbols for it. The texts, the description of the
ambient noise and the sounds appear in various boxes distributed in different parts of the
screen. The user can activate or deactivate this system at will. It has been applied to deaf,
deaf-mute audiences and in education to improve the spelling of listeners, among other
uses. Translator's note.
William Costanzo: Great Films and How to Teach Them ( 2004).
7
8 Blackout. Fading. In cinematic language it means that the film fades to black as the
sound fades smoothly, sometimes to silence. Especially in the middle of a story, the
music often continues after the image fades and is transformed into new music or
sound. A fade out usually ends a sequence (or scene) after which there is a black cut,
suggesting that there is a major shift from real time to the next scene. Source: Cinemaesencia
http://elokuvantaju.uiah.fi/ spanish / study_material / post-production / ristikuva.jsp.
Translator's note.
76 n ......................................... December 2006
how everyone sees American and Spanish culture
- especially cultural stereotypes and sexual and political
attitudes. An additional character, Ramón, is a journalist who
espouses anti-American leftist beliefs about US foreign policy,
while Spaniards insist that "Americans have a total lack of
culture," that they only eat hamburgers, and that they are
fascists. (face), Fred, the officer, proclaims that "it is well known
that anti-Americanism has its roots in sexual impotence," and
Ted sees life through the lens of the ideology of today's typical
business executive. In the end, Ted marries another Spanish
woman, Greta, and Fred to Montserrat, and they are all
enjoying a barbecue at EU, with the women commenting on "how
delicious burgers are!"
Since the whole film is really an intercultural encounter, it
gives the students a lot to think about. Are the representation of
the main characters stereotypes or not? Does your idea of
Americans match that of the women in this movie? Have you ever
traveled to another country (or within your own country) and have
had misunderstandings? How about the representations of the
Spanish? Do you think the director intends to make a satire of the
life and attitudes of Americans? Most of the students react
favorably to these kinds of questions when polling the film, thanks
in particular to the humor of the film. For this reason, it is a good
choice to start the course.
The next movie. Sole Witness ( Witness), directed by Australian
PeterWeir, uses the police action genre and popular star Harrison
Ford to allow us to enter Amish culture. A young widow, Raquel, and
her son, who are members of a self-reliant, cooperative, nonviolent,
and religiously Amish-oriented Amish community in Rural
Pennsylvania, travel to Philadelphia. At the train station, the boy
witnesses a murder, the murderer being a police officer. Another
detective, John BooK, gets involved in protecting them, and with John
injured, they go into hiding with the Amish. There, Book experiences
a life very different from that of an urban policeman. But the murderer
and his gang of conspirators in the police force arrive looking for the
child-witness. However, Book, with the nonviolent tactics of the
Amish, frustrates the intentions of criminals. Leave the community to
return to city life.
The richness of this film is the contrast it offers between
contemporary American urban culture and that of the Amish
community, which is pastoral, strict, and patriarchal. Despite the fact
that in the northern state of Chihuahua, in Mexico, there is a similar
colony: the Mennonite society, which is considerably large, most of
the students in Mexico City have not had contact with it.
However, there is no problem imagining and observing
similarities (and of course, differences) between the
Amish community and the culture of the small towns and also that
of the indigenous communities (even those close to urban areas),
with which it is probable that the students of the cities have had
some kind of first-hand contact. How would they react if they, like
Book, had to seek asylum within these societies and remain in
them for a long time? It can provoke a reflection on the image
that students have of these cultures, and even the recognition of
a real lack of knowledge about them, especially in the case of
Indians.
The third movie, Black Robe 9 is directed by another
Australian director, Bruce Beresford, in a Canadian-Australian
co-production. It tells the epic of a French Jesuit missionary,
Father Laforgue — SotanaNegra — who travels to the
Canadian wilderness of Québec to convert the Algonquin and
Huron tribes in 1634 while compiling a grammar and dictionary
of indigenous languages. Travel 1500 miles to the St. Lawrence
River with the Algonquins on their way to the Hurons, living and
enduring adversity like an Indian. Black Cassock is abandoned
by the Algonquins because they think he is an evil spirit. He
continues his journey accompanied only by the French Daniel.
Later, the Algonquins meet them, but are captured and tortured
by a warrior tribe of the Iroquois. Lonely Laforgue, finally
reaches its destination, a Huron town,
Although this film is all about the exploration and
settlement of the French in Canada, its narrative is similar to
what is practically a national epic immortalized in EJ Pratt's
Anglo-Canadian poem:
Brébeuf andHis Brethern ( nineteen ninety six). As such, one of its main
themes is survival, a theme that Canadian writer Margaret Atwood
believes is the main character of Canadian literature and identity
(Atwood, 1996, p. 359-
361). The priest's physical journey is also an inner search related to
his religious beliefs, and his relationship with the "pagan" tribes that
he wants to convert. In the beginning, he is very secure in his beliefs,
in his right and condescension towards the natives; in the end,
Laforgue comes to see the Indians as humans and to love them as
they are. Unfortunately, the intervention of the Catholic missionaries
makes some of the Indian tribes dependent on them, and
consequently vulnerable to other warrior tribes. Thus, with the
students, a key question is the role of the Church in the conquest of
America (not a small issue!): Do the "missionaries" (of any religion or
political affiliation) have any right to change the style life of other
peoples, for example, their culture? It is also
9 The title of the film Black Robe It had no translation into Spanish. It could be understood as Black
Cassock. Translator's note.
It is important to consider and contrast the intercultural experience
of Sotana Negra with the Spanish missionaries in Mexico and the
attitudes of urban students towards the Mexican Indian population.
Finally, students are asked to reflect on other film versions, which
can be found, that refer to the encounter of the “civilized” white man
with the “wild” Indian peoples, such as LaMisión ( TheMission), Dance
with wolves ( Dances withWolves) and Cabeza de Vaca.
Iron & Silk is an autobiographical, cross-cultural film based
on the memoirs of Mark Salzman from the late 1980s, who after
graduating from Yale with a university degree in Chinese,
becomes an English teacher for adult teachers of the system. EFL 10
in China and as a martial arts student, just as the country was
opening up to the outside world. Salzman himself wrote the plot
and is featured in it. The film explores the cross-cultural
encounters between Mark and his students in a rural town, the
people he works with, his teacher, both in calligraphy and Tai Chi,
the strict martial arts teacher Cazo "Iron Fist" and the woman with
which he falls in love.
What's interesting about this film is that the students end
up identifying with an American in their adventures, and their
subsequent personal growth, in what is really a foreign culture
for most Mexican students: China. In other words, they are
observing and reflecting on China through both Mexican and
American lenses. It must be admitted that Mark Salzman can
hardly be classified as a typical young American; however, his
frankness and openness are certainly present in the American
character, in contrast to the Chinese who is more circumspect
and reticent. On the other hand, throughout the film, we observe
Mark as he increases his understanding of communicating with
the Chinese and understanding their character. Thus,
The next three films, ElTesoro de la SierraMadre ( TheTreasure of the
SierraMadre), The Searchers eleven Y Lone Star.
They reveal, among many other qualities, representations of the
Mexicans themselves. The first film is based on the novel by B.
Traven, an author who is a mysterious legend in Mexico and who
died there. A parable about the terrible effect that greed can have.
It was filmed primarily in the northern Mexican state of Durango,
according to the setting of the novel. However, the students noted
that the scenes in the film where the
10 EFL. English as a Foreign Language. English as a Foreign Language.
eleven The Searchers. 1956. Desert Centaurs in Spain and More Heart Than Hate
in Latin America. Translator's note.
Reunion 47 ..................................... n 77
 Old gold prospector Howard is going to heal an Indian boy in his as Scar to a blue-eyed German actor, as was the custom to
town, they are not part of the north of Mexico, neither are the assign the roles of Indians that were above the roles of extras,
Indians that are represented from the north, rather, they are the film encourages students to reflect on their attitudes towards
typical of the central zone of Mexico. In fact, as one of the their own indigenous cultures and on Mexico, on his views on
students noted after a web search, those scenes were shot in interracial marriages, and possibly on the more subtle prejudice
the state of Michoacán, in central Mexico. The students realized of dark skin against light skin.
how Holiwood tends to view the "other" (eg, "Mexican Indians")
as uniform type, infantilized, with complacent women who are The same theme, the mixture of cultures, races and nationalities, is
just waiting for a gringo-type god to arrive. This can also lead to taken up again in the multinarrative film of Lone Star,
a discussion of Mexican stereotypes about Anglo women. Also, whose key story centers on Sheriff Sam Deed's search for the truth
in this movie we have the eternal American stereotype of the banditabout his father and how it leads him to discover that he is indeed
Mexican: Golden Hat ("We don't need those stinky badges"). the half brother of his childhood sweetheart and current crush, Pilar,
What is particularly amusing for the students is how Humphrey a first-generation Chicana . The setting is the fictional town of
Bogart portraying Dobbs, being chased by the Golden Hat and “Frontera”, it can be interpreted as a metaphor for the intercultural
his group, jumps for joy when the feds (the national police at the and interracial encounters that occur throughout this film. We have
time of the novel and the movie) come to annihilate the bandits. Pilar's mother, Mercedes, the owner of the restaurant, who arrived
As all Mexican students know, the people of Mexico feared the as an illegal, but now, as a respectable businesswoman, reprimands
feds because they arrested anyone suspected of a crime (or her Hispanic employees to "speak English!" And has a lot of impetus
that fell from the grace of local political leaders) and was to report to immigration authorities about new illegals crossing your
summarily executed by them. property. We also have the history of the mixing of African
Americans with Seminole Indians, and the interracial affair, in the
military, of an African American woman with a Caucasian officer.
Native Americans, as well as Mexicans living on the American side
of the border, are represented. After all, this film is ideal for
provoking discussions (as in the final scene when Pilar suggests that
Another work of art is John Ford's great Western " The Searchers “Forget the Alamo”) about how complex it is to maintain and erase
”, which takes place in both Texas and northern Mexico (although it differences.
was filmed in the legendary Monument Valley in Arizona) and tells of
Ethan Edwards' seven years of wandering to recover (and kill) his niece
Debbie who has been kidnapped since she was a child. by Chief
Comanche Scar (Chief Scar) and is now his wife (squaw 12 —In the The next film, the musical Amor sinBarreras ( West Side
original text—). In this quest, Ethan crosses into “Mexico” and we see Story) takes the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet and transposes it
him along with his nephew Martin, being entertained in a cantina by a into New York City in the twentieth century, with Maria and Tony
sensual young lady who expresses her desire for Martin by speeding falling in love despite the ethnic rivalry of two gangs of
up the click of her castanets as she dances! Again, we see the woman teenagers, the Sharks (the Puerto Ricans) and the Jets (the
from the other culture described as a sexually available individual; We Anglos and European immigrants). We see how clothing,
can also observe the confusion, very common in Anglos, between hairstyles, body movements, dance styles and family structure
Spanish and Latin American cultures. The dancers of northern Mexico through the lenses of the creators of this film mark each group
did not and do not use castanets when they dance. Additionally, this as Anglo or Latino. For example: the song “América” is a debate
film touches on a sensitive issue: miscegenation; 13 Here's Ethan who between choirs of women about the pros and cons of
can't bear to think of Debbie having sex with an Indian, expresses his immigrating to the United States or staying in Puerto Rico.
belief, paraphrasing: "better dead than red" 14 Although Holliwood (and Students can reflect on these perceptions and, of course, on
Ford) got to act their own feelings about how they view the United States and
Mexico.

12 Squaw, as well as its variants "skaw", "esqua," "squa," "skwa," "skwe" and others, are used in the
United States and Canada, sometimes in a derogatory way. It is a word derived from the Algonkina
language that means to be a woman. http: // www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/squaw.html. Translator's
note.
13 Mestizaje: miscegenation in English. Sometimes it is used in a derogatory way. Translator's note.
14 "Better dead than red" in the original text.
The last film of the course is Passage to India ( A Passage to
India), Based on the novel by EM Forster, it refers to the effect of the
British Raj — the British occupation of India — on colonized and
colonizers. We see different social strata in India, as well as the way
in which

78 n ......................................... December 2006

different English people respond to Indian culture. Mrs. Moore, the
future mother-in-law of Miss Adela Quested, is open to the different in
Indian culture, and is as fatalistic as the Hindu Godbole. The director,
Fielding, is an intercultural person who can understand both cultures
and see where points of conflict and confusion can arise. He is an
intermediary between the British and the Indians; but he does not
remain neutral, such as when he demands decent treatment in court for
the defendant Dr. Aziz. The crucial character is AdeleQuested, who at
first seems to want to be open to understanding Indian culture, but her
own psychological and cultural background prevents that and causes
great harm to many people, both Indian and British. All of these
conflicts allow students to witness that, authentically, the encounter
with another culture is not an easy thing; It can be rewarding, but also
arduous, conflicting, and painful as it removes possibly unrecognized
personal beliefs and experiences. As Ms. Moore puts it, "India forces
you to face yourself." One can substitute the word "India" for any other
country that is strange to oneself.
Comments
late
In describing these nine films, I have simply briefly touched on the
richness they contain to encourage English learners to reflect on
the cultural representations and situations that are narrated in
them, and on the equivalents and parallels in their own culture.
Furthermore, there are many other films that offer the same
opportunities for cross-cultural reflection on how one can live with
difference.
Personally as a teacher, I can only agree with the new
approach to intercultural immersion that English language
programs must have, to provide students with adequate training
to face what is truly a complex and interrelated world. In this, I
second Byram, Gribkova, and Starkey, who have already
astutely pointed out:
[...] the “best” teacher is neither the native nor the non-native, but the
person who can help students to observe the relationships between
their culture and other cultures, who can help generate interest and
curiosity about the others already be aware of themselves and their
own cultures, seen from the perspective of other peoples (2002, p. 10).
Bibliography
Abrams, Nathan, “Film and the Construction of Iden-
tity ”, in EncyclopediaofAmericanStudies, The
JohnHopkins University Press, 2005. Accessed
January 26, 2006.
<http://easref.press.jhu.edu/view?aid=48&format=print>.
Atwood, Margaret, “From Survival: AThematicGuide
to Canadian Literature ", in The Arnold Anthology of
Post-Colonial Literatures inEnglish,
ed. John Thieme, Arnold, London, 1996, pp. 359-362.
Barcelona, 1994 [2000], Dir. Whit Stillman, DVD,
Castle Rock Entertainment.
Black Robe, 1991 [2001], Dir. Bruce Beresford, DVD,
MGM Home Entertainment.
Bredella, Lothar, “For a Flexible Model of Intercul-
tural Understanding ”, in Intercultural Experience and Education,
ed. Geof Alred, Michael Byram, and Mike Fleming,
Multilingual Matters, Clevedon, 2003 to, pp. 31-49.
- - -, “Afterward. What Does It Mean to Be Intercultural? ”, In Intercultural
Experience and Education, ed. Geof Alred, Michael
Byram, and Mike Fleming, Multilingual Matters,
Clevedon, 2003 b, pp. 225-239.
Byram, Michael, “Teaching Culture and Language:
Towards an Integrated Model ”in Mediating Languages
and Cultures: The Social and Intercultural Dimension
Restored, ed. Dieter Buttjes and Michael Byram,
Multilingual Matters, Clevedon, 1991, pp. 17-30.
Byram, Michael, Bella Gribkova, and Hugo Starkey,
Developing the Intercultural Dimension in Language
Teaching. A Practical Introduction for Teachers, Council
of Europe, Strasbourg,
2002. Accessed on January 25, 2006.
<http://www.coe.int/t/e/cultural_cooperation/
education / languages / language_pol icy /
Policy_development_activities / Intercultural_
dimension / Guide.pdf>.
Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment,
Cambridge University Press / Council of Europe,
Cambridge, 2001.
Corbett, John, An Intercultural Approach to English
Language Teaching, Multilingual Matters, Clevedon,
2003.
Reunion 47 ..................................... n 79
 Costanzo, William, Great Movies and How to Teach
Them, National Council of Teachers of English,
Urbana, IL, 2004.
Dolby, Nadine, “Popular Culture and Democratic
Practice ”, in Harvard Educational Review
73, 3, 2003, pp. 258-284.
Education in aMultilingual World, UNESCO Guidelines
on Language and Education, UNESCO Education Position
Paper, Paris, 2003. Accessed 3 November 2003. <http:
//www.unesco.
= org / education>.
Gee, James Paul, Social Linguistics and Literacies:
Ideology in Discourses, Falmer, London,
1990.
Iron & Silk, 1991 [2005], Dir. Shirley Sun, DVD, Lions
Gate Home Entertainment.
Kellner, Douglas, "Multiple Literacies and Critical
Pedagogy in aMulticultural Society ”, in Edu- Scott, Virginia and Julie Huntington, “Reading Cul-
cational theory, 48, 1, 1998, pp. 103-122.
Kern, Richard and JeanMarie Schultz, “BeyondOral-
ity: Investigating Literacy and the Literary in Second
and Foreign Language Instruction ”, in The Modern
Language Journal, 89, 3,
2005, pp. 381-392.
Kramsch, Claire, Context and Culture in Language
Teaching, Oxford University Press, Oxford,
1993.
Lee Zoreda, Margaret, Forthcoming, “Art and Imagi-
nation in English Language Teaching ”in Intercultural
CommunicationStudies, Saint Anthony.
Lone Star, 1995 [1997], Dir. John Sayles, Videocas-
sette, Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment.
McCarthy, Cameron, Michael D. Giardina, Susan
Juanita Harewood, and Jin-Kyung Park. Afterword.
Contesting Culture: Identity and Curriculum Dilemmas
in the Age of Globalization, Postcolonialism, and
Multiplicity ”, in
Harvard Educational Review, 73, 3, 2003, pp. 449-465.
McKay, Sandra Lee, Teaching English as an Inter-
national Language, Oxford University Press, Oxford,
2002.
80 n ......................................... December 2006
New London Group, “A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies:
Designing Social Futures ”, in Harvard Educational
Review, 66, 1, 1996. Accessed May 20, 2001. <http:
//www.edreview. org / harvard96 / 1996 / sp96 /
p96cope.htm>.
A Passage to India, 1984 [2001], Dir. David Lean,
Videocassette, Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment.
Pratt, EJ, “From Brébeuf and His Brethren ", in
TheArnoldAnthology of Post-Colonial Literatures in
English, ed. John Thieme, Arnold, London, 1996, pp.
331-334.
Ryan, Michael and Douglas Kellner, “The Politics of
Representation ”, in The Philosophy of Film: Introductory
Text and Readings, ed. Thomas
E. Wartenberg andAngela Curran, Blackwell, London,
2005, pp. 213-224.
ture: Using Literature to Develop C2 Competence ”, in Foreign
Language Annals, 35, 6,
2002, pp. 622-631.
The Searchers, 1997, Dir. John Ford, 1956, DVD, Warner Home
Video.
Standards for Foreign Language Learning: Prepar-
ing for the 21st Century, National Standards in Foreign
Language Education Project, Yonkers, New York,
1996.
Stempleski, Susan and Barry Tomalin, Film, Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 2001.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 1948 [2000], Dir.
John Huston, Videocassette, Turner Entertainment Co.
and Warner Home Video.
West Side Story, 1961 [2000], Dir. Robert Wise and
Jerome Robbins, DVD, MGM Home Entertainment.
Witness, 1985 [2001], Dir. Peter Weir, DVD, For-
mount Pictures.