Abstract:

The current paper examines 21st century preoccupations with representing language learning and teaching on the silver screen, and specifically examines the methods and approaches (Richards and Rodgers, 2001; Larsen-Freeman 2000) consistently showcased regarding language teaching on current Hollywood’s screens. Evidence from over 30 recent Oscar-winning and blockbuster titles demonstrates a systematic preference for traditional language teaching methods, in particular a romanticization of the defunct memorization-based methods of Grammar Translation, and the drill-based methodologies endemic to Audiolingualism. Additionally, the results of these teaching methodologies are consistently presented as resulting in immediate, effortless and ‘flawless’ language learning on the part of on-screen learners. Why this seeming fetish for traditional language teaching methods on the part of Hollywood? —the subject of scrutiny of the current paper.
This paper argues that scenes of language teaching on the silver screen far from being innocuous filmic inclusions, function within a broader sociolinguistic framework (Fairclough 1992)—one of global Englishization. Consequently it is argued, screen-spotlighting of a bilingual-based method such as Grammar translation assuages audience fears about first language loss, while at the same time satisfies mimetic phobias concerning the true complexity of language learning. It is further argued that the drills of Audiolingualism are cinematically spotlighted in movie after movie in a bid to subvert the true complexity of effort required in language learning (Brown 2000) by highlighting the communality of effort involved in language learning. In Hollywood, language learning is presented as a cheerful, communal choral linguistic act with immediate, potent linguistic results in terms of linguistic fluency. In short, language learning is presented as instantaneous and easy. It is argued that by trivializing the effort required to learn languages, it becomes easier to license global monolingualization in the face of competing multilingualism—for one can without much effort ‘easily’ master another tongue as evident on the silver screen. In the market-driven industry of globalization, Hollywood functions as powerful purveyor of linguistic desire, and functions in the larger role of advertising the teaching and learning of English world wide.

Keywords:

Language Teaching Methods, Global English, Language and Film.