Projector Modern Foreign Languages at Cornerhouse, Manchester

Projector Modern Foreign Languages is an inspiring example of collaboration between a publicly funded body and local universities, in consultation with secondary schools, to provide original, high-quality and appropriate learning experiences for teachers and their students. This initiative is very well established, having started in its current format in 2005, and has grown and improved in both content and reputation since then. It uses contemporary foreign language films as a tool to help GCSE and AS/A level students to learn languages, as well as to explore the culture of other countries, and contemporary cinema and filmography. It also offers teachers related resources (free of charge), and provides (at a modest cost) tailored practical training sessions designed to encourage and assist them in making the fullest use of film and other resources in their own teaching. The programme thus provides for both students and their teachers.

The aim of Projector MFL is to use cinema as a vehicle to enable the students to develop their language skills and to improve their study skills and independent learning. The usual format for study sessions are these:

Before the film, and in order to help them watch a film actively, the students are given:

An introduction to the film, director, scriptwriter, actors
General information about the themes, historical background and social issues
An understanding of generic conventions
Key vocabulary

During the film students are given tasks to help them:

Consider the narrative and characters
Pay attention to visual and aural elements
Note key sentences

After watching the film they take part in:

Exercises on the narrative, and on visual and aural elements
A critical discussion of the film
Follow-up activities at school or at home

Excellent and comprehensive study guides are produced for each session, carefully tailored to the subject matter and the linguistic elements of the film being screened. They are written by the university language professionals who conduct the study sessions, in consultation with teachers via a number of planning meetings with representatives from schools. The university professionals are foreign nationals and specialists in contemporary cinema, and are key contributors to the modern languages work that the Greater Manchester Arts Centre is doing with teachers and 14-19 year olds; their input is much appreciated and trusted by the teachers.

Cornerhouse is continually developing, refining and updating both the programme and the materials so that they fit into schools’ schemes of work, and meet the changing requirements for GCSE and AS /A2 language learning. The materials are of the highest quality in terms of both content and presentation. All of the study materials are made available online so that follow-up work can be done once the students are back in their schools (or indeed at home). Since the materials are available online, they are freely available to any teachers, not just to those in schools which buy into the study sessions. Consequently, Projector MFL is now reaching wider audiences, with requests coming in from mainland Europe, Australia and Canada.

A complementary, and, in our view, decisively important part of the Projector Modern Languages programme are professional development sessions for teachers providing training for small groups of about 15, in which they can learn more about how to incorporate film into their teaching.

Young people from local schools settling down to enjoy a foreign language film at Cornerhouse. After the viewing they will work with a tutor on the text in order to add to their knowledge of the foreign language, and will also study other related aspects such as the culture of the foreign country, the historical background, or film as an art form.

The presentation and study of foreign language films is particularly relevant and timely for teachers of A level languages, as new AS and A2 examination specifications have been recently introduced which include a wide choice of optional cultural topics, amongst them the study of contemporary cinema. Feedback from teachers is very positive, as the following extracts from a large number of complimentary evaluations show:

“My experience with Projector MFL has been excellent. I have already used Carmen’s materials with my AS and A2 groups and they are perfect for the students and an integral part of our course as film is part of the new A level……Without attending Carmen’s courses at Projector I would not have known how to tackle the teaching of ‘El Laberinto del Fauno’ nor how to structure my lessons to help the students analyse the scenes.

The teachers also thought that the opportunity to listen intensively for a whole day in the foreign language to be invaluable for their students, as was the opportunity to watch a film in a cinema rather than on DVD in college. There is also some evidence from the teachers’ feedback that the use of cinema in teaching languages has improved staying on rates from GCSE to A level:

“The fact that we are now doing film post-16 means that numbers have doubled from 9 students in this year’s AS to 18 in next year’s…Studying film for our students has become a real draw for continuing languages at A level”.

The work being done on projector MFL is of very high quality, both educationally and culturally. It is clearly having a significant impact on the 14-19 curriculum in many of the schools in the North-West, and is already beginning to do so much further afield via the downloadable online resources. This is an imaginative use of serious contemporary cinema to motivate and educate. The very high quality of the teaching resources and their availability – free of charge - on the Web, the high levels of professional knowledge of the university professionals, their ability to motivate both teachers and students, and the training sessions for teachers which appear to be influencing in a very positive way their teaching and their schemes of work for the 14-19 age range – all of these are impressive, and suggest that similar schemes could, with great benefit, be set up elsewhere.