Intercontinental Study in the Use of Works of Culture and Media Ecology in English Language Teaching
Article information
Abstract
The article describes an experimental study which sought to make its participants more aware of their media-filled environments and how their virtual representations could be utilized in language instruction. This innovative and experimental approach involved a series of extracurricular meetings of two groups of students: from Poland and Korea, under the guidance of their academic teachers. The task given to the students was to provide others with a brief overview of the highlights from their week, presenting them in the form of pictures or short videos and describing them in English. These moments, captured visually, were based on what they encountered in either the real world or in works of culture they consumed. Regularity of the meetings was key, as they would slowly develop the students’ ability to recognize what is the most effective in engaging their audience. Although the time was restricted, the groups were small-enough to guarantee that enough attention was paid to everyone. Consequently, the students would gradually learn how to prepare their own, inspiring teaching materials based on either their local environment or the virtual world of popular culture. For that purpose, they were also instructed on various basic aspects of visual language and media ecology.
I. INTRODUCTION
The series of virtual meetings described in this article entailed participants from across the world, yet its scope was to make them more aware of the environment they were currently in. This was an unorthodox teaching approach, even though similar virtual methods of language instruction are consistently being practiced and researched. The purpose of the study was not to foster globalized, virtual learning (for that see e.g., Guo-Brennan, 2022) but rather self-reflection of the learner, who can later use the knowledge in further self-education or in their own future teaching practice. Its goal was to present a way to become more aware of what they individually perceived and encountered in either the virtual world of the works of culture (usually digital) or in the real world events, sights, encounters, and activities, frequently experienced on a deeply personal basis, and can easily convey them to the learners.
The term “intercontinental experiment” requires some explanation. It should be stressed that the present study was focused on the local, real-life environment of the participants as well as on the virtual environments they engaged in. As such, it was closer to intercultural than global learning as defined by Guo-Brennan (2022). However, when referring to the learning experience, the term “intercontinental” is used instead because it is the firm belief of the author that one cannot completely bridge a gap between continents nor between the cultures which inhabit them. Accordingly, this arguably unachievable goal was not attempted. Instead, the participants were encouraged to engage in and probe the environments they were already inhabiting, and to become more aware of their qualities. For that purpose, they would gradually be instructed in the principles of media ecology: how they and their environments are affected by the media they use. It was hoped that this would lead them closer to the fulfilment of the Delphic maxim “know thyself” and by extension, being closer to knowing (and being willing to get to know) others. By presenting the details of where they spend their time in the real and virtual worlds, they would come to a greater self-knowledge but at the same time could learn to appreciate the interests of people from another culture.
As a consequence of concentrating on one’s own environment(s), the approach did not require the participants to focus on various aspects of learning at a distance through telecollaboration or virtual exchange (as described in Dooly & Vinagre, 2022). The virtual form of the activities was required but also secondary. The primary consideration has always been on the understanding of the use of what personally interested the participants and trying to engage others. The question leading the effort was what can be gained in language learning classroom by appealing to the topics for which one feels a particular affinity. It was the desire of the author to demonstrate that through the use of one’s own interests (whether it belonged to the real or virtual world) one could spread that curiosity and personally felt enthusiasm to one’s students. Unfortunately, it is not easy to share one’s interest with unknown people without a fear of ridicule or mockery. Therefore, it was the purpose of the series of meetings described in this article to motivate the participants to articulate their own fascinations to strangers and try to make them as interesting to others, as they were to themselves.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
While research on any given topic related to engagement or motivation in English second language learning and teaching is quite extensive in its own right, the methods used in the study are both prototypical and experimental, since, to the knowledge of the author, they have not yet been conducted in such a configuration. As will be demonstrated below, numerous aspects of the study’s focus, considerations, purpose and methods were described in literature of the subject, yet not in such a combination, which relies on several measures that were expected to produce the desired result. One of them was the appeal to the students’ and well as teacher’s interests and sources of fascination in either the virtual sphere or the real world events and places. The second component of the study was the crosscontinental form of communication employed, which led to a meeting of people from distinct countries and cultures. Finally, rather than relying on the usual teaching methods of English as a foreign language, the study stressed the teacher’s instructions on the theories describing the digital media and visual arts, so that the students would become more proficient in creating their own teaching materials in their later teaching practice.
As has been mentioned, the experimental project described in the article was both akin to and different from studies described in the literature on the subject. The meetings benefited from the principles of virtual exchange such as promoting learner autonomy, use of second language for meaningful communication, as well as one of its key features, the “ideal opportunity to engage students in social interaction and collaboration with other participants whom they would be less likely to meet in ‘normal’ educational circumstances” (Dooly & Vinagre, 2022, p. 394). As demonstrated by Jauregi et al. (2011), students can benefit e.g., in terms of motivation from cross-cultural, virtual communication which has been integrated into a foreign language classroom. Their research involved interactions between participants in secondary and tertiary education speaking four different languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Dutch) as part of a two-year “Networked Interaction in Foreign Language Acquisition and Research” project.
Among many, smaller studies involving computer mediated communication which had been documented in the recent years one can mention a “cross-cultural” project involving participants (“pre-service teachers”) from a Polish and Romanian university which led to the conclusion that “cross-cultural collaboration online, and not only in EFL didactics courses (…) not only stimulates learners’ reflectivity, but also brings out their potential and allows them to develop skills they need to function in today’s increasingly complex and globalized world” (Wach, 2015, p. 34). Another thought-provoking study of a virtual exchange teacher training between Polish and German universities was described by Kurek and Müller-Hartmann (2019), which focused on teacher’s presence in a blended learning environment. As it demonstrated, the presence of the teacher “serves the additional modelling-in-action role” and his or her actions can impact the attitudes of the students (especially prevent tensions between the students and promote an amiable atmosphere), as well as develop trust within the group (Kurek & Müller-Hartmann, 2019, p. 68). In our study, the presence of the teachers was key.
In this context, an influential article by O’Dowd and Ritter should be mentioned. They argued that virtual exchanges (which they referred to as “telecollaborative”) can lead to a better understanding of other cultures (“intercultural awareness”), yet are fraught with difficulties, which can lead to misunderstandings and interaction’s failure (O’Dowd & Ritter, 2006, p. 638). Hence, the way the teacher conducts the virtual meetings and navigates the metaphorical ship of the cultural exchange is crucial in keeping it away from entering shallow or troubled waters and preventing the catastrophe of the breakdown of communication from occurring.
Yet another study was conducted by Satar et al. (2023) at institutions of higher education in the UK and Turkey. It stressed the importance of developing “critical digital literacy” in teachers and students, by analyzing the changes in participants’ examples of cross-cultural self-representation. Furthermore, it explored the effects of “multicultural and multimodal group identity creation” (Satar et al., 2023, p. 86) and the influence online interactions had on the participants’ attitudes towards members of other cultures (Satar et al., 2023). Albeit the results of the study were highly informative, its focus was entirely contrary to the intentions described in the present article. Our purpose was not to consider the semiotic meaning of culturally-informed power relations or to train the participants in how to promote their desired self-image on social media—quite the contrary. Student participants were dissuaded from making selfies and were to focus on their physical and virtual environments instead of themselves.
An excellent source of examples and insights of telecollaborations can be found in the recent monograph Virtual Exchange for Intercultural Language Learning and Teaching: Fostering Communication for the Digital Age (Potolia & Derivry-Plard, 2023). The author of this article has neither the intention or the space to engage with such thoroughness in a discussion of the complex, yet fascinating teaching and learning opportunity that is provided by virtual exchanges. Instead, the article proposes one short discussion of a pilot study that could lead to further research on its practical applicability under the standardized, measurable conditions. As such, it expresses the generalized quality of McLuhan’s “exploratory probe” and is very deeply steeped in his tenets of the media ecology (Dall’agnese et al., 2020, p. 224). McLuhan assumed that the users of technology were shaped by the media they used and in most general terms making the students implicitly aware of that notion was a key purpose of the meetings. Hence, the basic task of assembling few of the most impactful or interesting sights they encountered within the last two weeks, whether in real life or in the works of culture they consumed, was serving the purpose of making them more aware of their environments, the way they perceived these environments, and, finally, how others reacted to their descriptions of these environments when they shared their impressions.
III. METHOD
1. Participants
As a result of the cooperation my cooperation with Professor A, from a university of education in South Korea, a series of online meetings between students and academic teachers from Poland and Korea were held on the Microsoft Teams platform. The participation was voluntary, and occurred every two weeks at a fixed time on Saturdays. Its participants were three academic instructors (myself, Professor A and Instructor A), four BA students from a university of education in South Korea and four Polish students a university in Poznan, Poland (two of them were 3rd year BA students of English Philology in Education, and two were 2nd year MA students of English Philology with Pedagogy). The virtual meeting thus spanned three continents: five participants were in Poland, five in Korea (Instructor A and four students), and one instructor was at the time residing in the USA (Professor A). This naturally meant that the participants were in different time zones: in Poland the meetings occurred at noon, in Korea they were in the evening, and in the USA in the very early morning. All the meetings were held in the English language and lasted 60 minutes. Since the language instruction was not the focus of the meetings, the level of proficiency was not an important consideration and it was sufficient for the students to know English at an intermediate or upperintermediate level. Both BA and MA students were engaged to ensure a wider range of age groups with varying interests and learning experiences.
2. Material
The communication which occurred across the three continents had to face a set of challenges. Among them were the hours of meetings, which put restraint on their length—and, consequently, on their contents. If all the student participants and the author were to give their short presentations, which would then be followed by others’ commentaries and questions, there was very little time (or not at all) for a follow-up discussion or further, extended instructions. Hence, the procedure of the meetings was as follows. The virtual meetings occurred every two weeks. The students were asked to present several pictures or short videos of what they encountered in their daily lives. They were asked to focus on objects, which they considered especially interesting or moving. They were also supposed to comment on what they were presenting, so that they would speak for at least several minutes during each meeting. The pictures or short videos had to concern the virtual world of works of culture (films, games, books, or any form of electronic media) as well as what they observed and managed to take picture of in their own daily life. The purpose of this approach was to ensure that there was always a common ground to be covered by other participants. Even if what they shared concerned their own culture (e.g., the particulars of a holiday they celebrated or a dish or drink that was only served in their country) there would always be something they referenced in the works of culture which had global reach and appeal. Consequently, the latter would almost always be known to the members of the other country or could easily be seen or experienced afterward.
One of the major goals for this activity was for the students to get used to presenting their interests and to become more proficient in talking on those subjects in English. The participants were also instructed on the dangers or oversharing details of their private lives, which has been observed to be the danger typical for mediated forms of communication. Videoconferencing especially can create a false sense of closeness or intimacy, which would not occur when meeting someone in person (Kern et al., 2023). This could make them vulnerable to criticism of their hobbies or interests and could further lead to a breakdown of the exchange. Moreover, since this experience was seen as a prelude to using the appeal of their own, private interests in their later teaching practice, oversharing could threaten the comfortable distance present in the teacher-student relations.
In such a safe environment, which was close to their heart but not too private, they could use the opportunity to become aware of other people’s reactions to them. Since during the virtual exchange everyone had their camera on the whole time, and could ask questions or comment on the presentations at any moment. On the one hand, to increase their interest in the subject, to use their passion that they devote to extracurricular space (outside of duties) and to use it for learning, e.g., perceiving a hobby in the form of playing video games or watching films as a source not only of linguistic information but also an interesting environment, from which they can extract materials to use, e.g., in lessons (just as is done with recordings from public media—e.g., news or advertisements, photos that are supposed to stimulate conversation, etc.). It was also assumed that the media students use in their free time could be perceived as a source of such materials. At the same time, the premise of the experiment was to activate in them such a skill and awareness of the extent to which their consumption of media content could be thus utilized. Hence, they would realize that it is possible to use the things they like in less pleasurable activities, i.e., daily pedagogical practice but also in their own, lifelong learning.
The overarching assumption was that even if the teacher’s personal interest concerns a hobby or work of culture that is not strictly related to teaching or learning a foreign language, the enthusiasm one feels for it can still be contagious and be passed on to the students. As teachers, they would have to learn the value of their interests in the eyes of other people. To achieve this, their presentations had to be properly (i.e., efficiently) formatted. Their freedom was very much curtailed with regards to form, since they could not talk for an hour about what interested them (which is easy for people fascinated by a given topic) or invite friends to their home, e.g., to play a game, watch a film, or talk about the content of an entire book and what feelings it evoked in them. In this respect, the activity would resemble publishing posts on Instagram or similar platforms, where users record or photograph something unusual and want to interest our followers or friends, in order to show that they lead an interesting lifestyle. However, it was also a very much different experience: the participants had to abide by the designated rules and the context of the meetings. The latter, despite its format of a lighthearted discussion, was clearly educational and not merely entertaining.
As previously stated, a major guiding principle of the experimental meetings was the consideration of the tenets of media ecology. The reason behind it was the notion that a foreign language teacher who wants to use electronic media effectively should develop a few skills that are not so obvious. As teachers and learners, they should treat electronic media as separate environments that also have their own language which needs to be learned. As was stated by one of the great founding fathers of media studies, Marshall McLuhan, “[u]nder electric technology the entire business of man becomes learning and knowing” (McLuhan, 2017, p. 86). Limiting ourselves as teachers to only language learning and teaching is not enough. To flourish in the environment created in and by electronic media one has to become versed in their effects as much as in their use.
Finally, the use of works of culture during individual presentations required that the instruction or comments of the teachers also concerned the basic aspects of popular culture, along with its most famous works. As was noted, popular culture could be used as the common denominator, using another form of non-verbal language which appeals to people around the world, regardless of their culture. This is especially visible in universally popular works, which are globally recognizable, e.g., Star Wars (the original and prequel trilogies of films, released 1977-2005), whose success in no small part is due to recognizable elements of not only West but also Far East (Skweres, 2019). Another example, mentioned during one of the meetings were the works of Akira Toriyama, whose series Dragonball (original manga published 1984-1995) gained popularity as an effective mixture of Western and Eastern culture.1 The contrast between such works of popular culture and depictions of local culture or environments had to be striking to participants and cause their own reflections. It was also assumed that the greater comprehension of what makes popular works appealing to the mass, international audience in the virtual space, would also allow the participants to learn how to more effectively present aspects of their own, local culture or their more niche, individual and unique interests. It was hoped that they would gradually start to start to think about the structure of the image they are presenting (guided by the materials presented by the teacher), and at the same time get to know themselves, i.e., become more aware of what interests them and may also interest others. Consequently, the students would become more media literate and later use it in language instruction.
3. Case Studies and Example Meetings
The following are several cursory descriptions of how the meetings usually proceeded. The content of the presentations was always selected by the students only and was only commented on by the teachers after the presentation was delivered. The only exception were the pictures and videos presented by the teacher. They were very consciously planned to illustrate various issues relevant to a better understanding of the selection procedure, best practices, and visual and cultural analysis. They also gradually and unobtrusively introduced broadly understood principles of media ecology without the use of any technical jargon, so that they resembled in form the students’ presentations as much as possible.
1) Meeting on December 13, 2023
(1) Context
The topics covered during the meeting largely refer to the upcoming Christmas, since in Poland it is one of the most important holidays during the year. It is associated not only with religious rites and family gatherings, but also with a long period of free time (at the academia constituting the winter break until the beginning of the new year).
(2) Presentations
Student 1 (Polish, male) presents photos and a short video of the city of Kalisz to the city’s vibrancy before Christmas; he mentions that the town square was being renovated, shows Santa Claus displayed on the town hall, and people attending the Christmas Market and its main attractions. He is asked to explain whether the market in Kalisz is known (the answer concerns the city’s history, etc.). The next photo shows a look behind the scenes of a movie, and he comments how much is changed in the filming process due to CGI. Next, he presents a screenshot from a duel scene in the film Princess Bride, which is not known by Korean students, but recognized as iconic by the Poles. He is asked why he likes this movie, to which he answers that it is due to its music and side characters.
Student 2 (Korean, female) discusses a photo of a canvas that she colored while Netflix played in the background, as she finished the picture and filled it with colors. The next photo depicts a house with its edge covered in snow.
Student 3 (Polish, male) shows a photograph of a nativity play at his younger brother’s school. The next is a photo of a dish - a traditional salad in his family; he later posts the recipe on the group’s message board. The third photo depicts covers of a game and its sequel. The drawback of the presentation is that he only shows graphics from the cover, not photos from the game itself, which would make the situation in the game much clearer. This encouraged me later to modify the instructions so that the students focused more on making the pictures understandable to others, so that they could describe it even if they are not players.
Student 4 (Korean, female) talks about the photos depicting food she received as gifts: chocolates, tea, and seasoning. The photo is very pleasant to look at, behind it is a box that is in the shape of a bear with a halo, alluding to Christmas presents; the photograph is well framed. Next she presents a card from a student to a teacher—she notices that the last letter on the card is stylized to look like a dragon. The last picture presents a place famous for its beaches, which leads to questions about the local climate.
Student 5 (Polish, female) shows two screenshots from the game Horizon Zero Dawn. Both pictures are wellcomposed, its protagonist is standing in front of beautiful natural landscapes. She is asked several questions, from the technical (about the console she is playing on) to one connected with the language (if she plays in Polish or English); to the latter she answers that she does it in Polish so that her family members can sit next to her and watch her play and enjoy the story alongside her. This causes an emphatic and positive reaction from others in the meeting.
Student 6 (Korean, female) presents a picture of food, and proceeds to show a picture of a diary, which she bought for 2024 to write down her new year’s resolutions. She discusses the choice of the design. She finally asks what other people had for new year’s resolutions.
Teacher (my own presentation): I am the last to share, and I show a store front window with attractive and untypical Christmas decorations, and analyze what it implied to the customers, inviting them inside as if there premises of the company themselves were a beautifully packaged present for the visitors. The second picture relates to a recent award show. Alluding to the presentation of the Student 2, I also state that I sometimes draw on such occasions and try to creatively work with the images that I see on screen, using them for my own purposes. In that case, as I show in the third picture, I can use them to analyze the look of the people and how it could further be used in one’s own designs, concept art, etc.
(3) Comments
During the meeting, the participants frequently smile, the atmosphere is relaxed and congenial. The two groups managed to develop great rapport and became more proficient in conveying their ideas and emotions despite the restrictive, virtual character of the interactions. Guo-Brennan argued that a safe environment is important for learning but also that the incorporation of intercultural components into classes fosters self-reflection (2022). Accordingly, great care is given to the preservation of a rather light mood which would allow participants to relax and feel free to ask questions as they encounter the otherness—not just other interests, but also people from a different part of the world. The cultural exchange is especially visible in the enquiries about the Christmas season and what it involves. The meeting also shows the drawback of the computer program used for communication (Microsoft Teams): like during this meeting, some of the students would have problems operating it and sharing the pictures they had prepared. During later presentations grave problems with sharing video would occur. The program consistently crashed and caused the presenting person to be removed from the discussion; at times, they would not even realize this initially, and only later return to the meeting after being messaged by others. This problem had been solved by the idea, decided on early, to have separate folders with participants’ names for each meeting; if the person was absent or is having problems with sharing, their files could be accessed in the folders by others. Due to the limited amount of time when every minute mattered, it was imperative to deal with any such disruptions as fast as possible. In such a case, another person could be asked to present their pictures before the person facing technical difficulties.
2) Meeting on January 13, 2024
(1) Context
Like other meetings, it begins with short anecdotes and small-talk after a two-week break. Then students are selected to speak by their respective teachers, alternating between someone from Korea and someone from Poland. One could observe how the presentations of Polish students in December influenced the choice of pictures of several Korean students, who focused on the traditional ways of spending end of the year celebrations.
(2) Presentations
Student 1 (Korean, female) shares the first photo which is actually composed of 4 images (screenshots from several movies on one page), and she asks if others recognize them (it turns out that they know only one, featuring a famous Hollywood actor). By not being able to decide on which film to show, she also tacitly expresses her attitude toward these movies—she liked them all equally, and at the same time, none of them was outstanding enough to deserve a larger size than the others or to have their own space. She says what these movies helped her with. The next picture concerns her observations of the outside world: a sculpture of a hand on a beach, as well as people watching the sunrise next to the seaside landmark. A cultural difference between Korean and Polish way of celebrating the new year is highlighted: the latter state that they do not have the habit of watching the dawn of the first day of the new year. Next is a picture of a TV screen displaying SBS NEWS report. As she admits, she was a bit lazy that morning and decided to see the sunrise virtually by watching people gazing at it on an actual beach. The fact that she is freely admitting that she was a bit too lazy to go the extra mile and take the picture in person, rather than via television screen, also shows that it was a frank conversation. This admittance causes others to smile, because they can see themselves making the same decision in this situation.
Student 2 (Polish, male) shares a TikTok video of the Golden Globe Awards, which became popular enough to give rise to a new meme. He wants to check if others saw this picture too and then asks if they watched the movie (Oppenheimer) which received the award. The next picture depicts a female assassin from the film Kill Bill. He asks if there are any fans of the film’s director, then admits that he first saw the film without appreciation because in the past he was not mature enough to see its value. I follow up with a question about the picture itself, because he did not say anything about the contents of the screenshot. He proceeds to describe who the character in the picture is, what she is doing and why he wanted to share her picture—because he considered her to be an impressive character. He is also asked a question about very particular aspect of one of the movies from Kill Bill duology—while the picture itself is interesting, it does not relate to the scene depicted by the photograph, so after an answer is given, I redirect the discussion to the topic at hand and provide a possible interpretation of the meaning behind such a characterization of the heroine in this scene.
Student 3 (Korean, female) has technical difficulties for several minutes, in that what is displayed on her screen does not match what others see.
Student 4 (Korean, female): the next student presents a picture of a perfume bottle shaped like an egg, held in her hand, and then talks about her perfume preferences. The second picture depicts seasonal snacks, bread shaped like fish, Bungeoppang, typical for Korea but unknown in Poland. She asks a question about Polish seasonal snacks.
Student 5 (Polish, male) presents two pictures from the mountains taken on vacation, and a photograph of a football stadium. The fourth picture (which he discusses in a hurry because he failed to abide by the limit of two pictures only) presents a slide from the presentation he did as part of a homework assignment about teaching seniors.
Student 3 (Korean, female) fixes her problems with the computer and is able to present. She shows a picture of a girl in front of towering blocks of flats, and asks what kinds of houses are the most prevalent in Poland. Next is a picture of a sunset on the road taken from a car (which was influenced by the picture of new year’s sunrise shared by her colleague during the last meeting), explaining that she also was not keen on watching it herself. The last picture presents a cup of Starbucks coffee with a special taste, held in hand. She casually mentions that the color of the foam is blue because of the blue dragon year, and this sparks a conversation on the meaning behind the color of the dragon. The first suggestion is half-jokingly linguistic, alluding that the dragon must be blue because he is sad (as in the English expression “to feel blue”) followed by the question whether there are different colors of dragons in Korean culture, which she explains.
Student 6 (Polish, female) presents Polish book cover of the book Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. The cover is rather shocking, depicting a rat with its brain visible from within the skull. She discusses what the book is about. Next she shares a picture of a sweatshirt with an alpaca and complains about the coldness of the weather in Poland at the time. She is asked questions about the alpaca—whether it is her favorite animal and if alpacas’ behavior is aggressive.
Student 7 (Korean, female) shows a picture of a line with wishes for the new year attached to it; next, she presents a picture of snowmen (one of whom is headless) and of snow-ducks, which sparks questions on how they were made.
Student 8 (Polish, male) shares music pieces with lyrics of a favorite song by a Japanese indie group, Mili; next, he presents a picture of the cover of the game The Witcher. He describes how his parents bought him the game, causing others to comment jokingly that the game was meant for adults and that he had been far too young for it at the time. Next, he shares another game, a screenshot of the artwork for the game Suzerain: a man standing behind a desk, with flags on his sides, and a window behind him. He does not really describe what the picture shows but what it represents to him: what it was about and his intentions while playing. The problem with his presentation is that he did not give others much to work with, as they would not be able to describe the picture on their own if they were shown it without knowing the contents of the game itself.
(3) Comments
The students tended to ask about other people’s interpretations before they disclosed what the pictures were supposed to represent. This was the result of previous instruction: they were asked to engage others more by first asking questions. As a result, the entire group became more active, observant and, lastly, more willing to speak up and share their thoughts. When students committed grammatical errors they were not immediately corrected; they were only interrupted if there are questions relating to the discussion at hand. If the teacher corrected the student, they would tend to do it later by using the correct form, without putting too much stress on it. The major problem during this particular meeting was the time restraint. The 60 minutes proved to insufficient for the teacher to provide his own presentation or even to ask additional questions to investigate the previously presented pictures. After Professor A’s suggestion, it was agreed that the students should only share two pictures each, so that more time is preserved. It was also concluded that more attention should be given to what the students’ pictures represent, their deeper meaning and associations by providing further commentary.
3) Meeting on January 27, 2024
This particular meeting was interesting because not all of the group members were present. Also, it highlighted an important cultural difference – the time of trips abroad were shown to be different in Poland and Korea. After this meeting, future presentations would focus much more on the form of the pictures as a result of the additional reading assigned to the participants, as well as additional instructions supplied by the teachers.
(1) Presentations
Student 1 (Polish, male) shows a picture from the game Bioshock Infinite, and describes what he sees in the screenshot; then, he proceeds to show posters from the movie Poor Things (three different configurations, all showing the same title character). He explains that he shows the posters rather than screenshots from the film because he saw it in the cinema so he could not really grab pictures of the film itself. He finishes with a recommendation; I ask him to talk more about the posters, so that we can appreciate more the visual side of his presentation.
Student 2 (Korean, female) shows vertically composed pictures of beverages and discusses their contents.
Student 3 (Polish, female) shares a picture of a row of five books from a series authored by Percy Jackson and introduces the plot of the books. Next, she shows the cover of another book, but rather than discussing it, she talks about its adaptation to a series.
Student 4 (Korean, female) is on vacation, so her teacher presents in her stead. She is in Bangkok city, and has sent her pictures from the city.
Student 5 (Polish, male) shares a screenshot of the game Football League which is completely based on tables listing different statistics of the players; next, he shows a meme from a Facebook post: the humor and context of the illustration is discussed. To bridge the various presentations, I make a connection between them, trying to make students realize how differently they approach specific problems, and how they could take notes from others’ presentations and try to improve in the future. Accordingly, I remark that the presentation of the games by Student 1 and Student 5 differ tremendously: the first one presented a game which was visually impressive and tried to awe its players with the way it looked and can be universally appreciated even apart from the game’s context; the other student’s example is almost completely devoid of pictures other than tables which prompts me to ask him about their lack.
Student 6 (Korean, female) shows two pictures of a game of football, depicting an exciting moment of a spectacular goal scored by the Korean team.
Student 7 (Korean, female) discusses her vacations in Taiwan by showing a picture of a beautiful street; she discusses what can be seen. The second picture concerns a scene from animated movies—Spirited Away, she discusses the plot of the film and what can be seen in the screenshot. The examples prompt Professor A to comment on the symbolism attached to colors in Chinese culture.
Teacher (my own presentation): I display two pictures. The first one is taken from the film Around the World in 80 Days (1956 adaptation of Jules Verne’s novel). I discuss how the screenshot expresses wish fulfillment in the film format. I go into detail about the frame selection process. I talk about the characters who are traveling in a balloon and are gathering some snow from the mountaintop they are currently passing to cool their champagne. I remark that this action may represent dreams and desires of young people reading the book or watching the movie, and why this choice of shot from the whole scene is the most suitable to start a discussion on this subject in a language classroom. The second picture concerns a video essay on the topic of a video game; my commentary is focused on three different aspects of the screenshot from the video: first, why it was actually included and why it is significant: from my emotions as a consumer of the media to my interpretative intentions as a medium critic and language instructor; second, I invite them to watch the video themselves to see if they are interested in the subject or the author of the video; third, I briefly discuss the form of the picture itself. Finally, we turn to the discussion of the text fragment which was assigned reading from the book Visual Methodologies (Rose, 2007).
(2) Comments
The teacher uses his presentation as a chance to discuss the picture selection process from a professional standpoint. Even though the speech is essentially a short lecture, it still retains the same structure as the students’ presentations. The benefit is that the students are provided with an implicit example of how a presentation can be done. However, this is not stated as the only model of a presentation they should follow. Hence, they can retain their freedom in the approach to the task they have been given. It was also important for them to realize that the picture itself has to be discussed: the way it is presented, why it was chosen as the best example, and finally, what it contains.
IV. RESULT
Since the experimental meetings had an innovative, exploratory character, the way they were conducted was greatly influenced by the difficulties which were encountered. From the beginning, time restrictions were an especially important consideration. The meetings were limited to 60 minutes. Even though the participants were only allowed to show several photos or short videos, the discussions and questions prolonged the time of individual presentations and sometimes no or very little time was left for theoretical, supplementary information. Paradoxically, the more successful the interaction was, so the more talkative and engaged participants became, the less time was left to introduce additional information or instructions expanding the students’ knowledge. That problem would have been amended if the meeting had been extended to 1.5 hours, however, it would have been too much of a burden on the Korean group, for whom the meetings were already starting very late. It was decided against it because it would be difficult to maintain enthusiasm about one’s interests while being tired after a whole day of activity.
The time pressure left little room for error, hence the rather frequent problems with Microsoft Teams led to some frustration. The program was in use at Adam Mickiewicz University for several years, but the Korean students were only starting to get acquainted with it. Regardless of the users’ level of expertise, sometimes the program blocked them from sharing videos and expelled them from the meeting. Fortunately, aside for wasted time, which was always precious, the help of other members of either group solved these issues.
The distinction between Korean and Polish students was also very interesting, and caused a rather unexpected difficulty in initially finding common ground. The Korean students seemed to be much less interested in popular culture. This could be observed by the infrequency with which they referred to such items of culture, preferring examples taken from real life. Later, after several principles of artistic framing pictures were introduced, one could notice a greater interest in pictures taken at art galleries or museums. On the other hand, the Polish group was specifically interested in pop culture, because that was the nature of the group they formed - they were members of a university scientific group called Popul-ars, whose purpose was to study popular culture.
An important consideration was leading the students to realize the existence of formal errors in their presentations. For example, frequently, when they took a photo of an object, these photos were incorrectly framed. Hence, the teacher’s instructions frequently focused on that aspect of the presentations during the initial meetings; the students were asked to pay greater attention not only to what they display to others, but whether they do it in the manner most conducive to realizing the context of the picture. As the author wrote in a message on January 14, 2024 (fragments in bold are retained from the original):
The purpose of our meetings is to develop your ability of working with images in your work as teachers. But it will also help you in developing a sense of what is a good picture. Let’s focus on the latter now. As you read the fragment you have as homework, consider what makes a picture interesting to talk about – not just for you, but for anyone, even without knowing its context. Is it because of the subject of the picture? Is it because of its framing or composition? Does it have some deeper meaning, which we can realize as we look at it and comment on it aloud to others? Can someone comment on the picture without knowing its title or details about its subject matter? Does the picture tell a story and is the best illustration of what you are going to say? Of course, you don’t have to answer all of these questions, but they can help you in making a meaningful choice.
As a consequence of such comments, students were to start paying attention to which shots were useful and would provoke a discussion. Later, they were asked to also comment on other people’s photos, or to try to say what a given author meant. In this way, students were supposed to be more engaged, not waiting passively for their turn, but also becoming close observers. They increasingly paid attention to whether their own photos were easily read by others and whether they aroused similar feelings or observations in others. This already directed them to the conclusion that they could create their own teaching materials.
To gage the students’ engagement and expectations, an anonymous survey was conducted in February. Among very positive comments, one student indicated that he or she was losing interest because the format was too predictable and that he or she was running of out of ideas about what to share next time. While this reaction was negative, the repetition the student described was purposeful. The reason was to introduce a very stable routine, resembling a sequence of public, visual, very concentrated public diary entries. It was designed to show what interested us in the last two weeks, what would certainly interest others, or what we would like to communicate to the members of both groups. With new observations to be shared every two weeks, this repetition and stable routine had its value. As demonstrated by Guo-Brennan (2022), new communication technologies have recently allowed virtual learning environments to reach a global level and can foster intercultural learning. This was demonstrably the case in the discussed experiment. However, Guo-Brennan (2022) also makes a point to differentiate between intercultural learning, which lies at the heart of language learning, and global learning, which focusses on the problems affecting people across the world, such as poverty or hunger. In case of our study, recognition of intercultural similarities and differences was certainly occurring. Yet, the matters of global importance were hardly ever mentioned during our meetings. The discussed matters were small in scope and intent, since the participants found very little time to look for examples of matters of such great import in their daily lives. Although perhaps not everyone was interested in what a particular person had to present, a given person was entrusted with a task (and opportunity) to regularly find something original, despite the fact that their hobbies remained the same. They certainly had a lot of academic tasks, so they did not have time to get so involved in other activities, watch different programs or films. Yet, in whatever they saw or experienced during those two weeks they had to try to find something that was particularly interesting. It was assumed that this would make them want to try to experiment by doing something new during those two weeks, to be able to present it later.
To engage the students even further and to foster intercultural recognition, the final two meetings were focused on cultural differences between Korea and Poland. Students were asked to provide a list of questions concerning the other country, and they came up with original queries, which their counterparts in the other group had to find answers to and examples of for the next meeting. Among them were questions about who and what can be seen in Polish commercials, what Polish holidays are, what a traditional Korean village looks like, or what are some well-known Korean stories for children. Having witnessed each other’s presentations for so long, students in each group were keen to learn more about each other’s culture, but also very willing to share information about their own country.
The final problem which influenced the overall shape of the meetings was the issue of excessive complexity of resources used in the media literacy instruction. Initially, it was planned that several fragments of chapters from Gillian Rose’s classic Visual Methodologies (2007) textbook would be used. Unfortunately, after the first discussion of an assigned reading it became apparent that the text was written in a way which proved too difficult to be readily understood in English by some students. Consequently, it was deemed better to refrain from using it in the future, so that the students do not feel discouraged. Instead, theoretical basics concerning the visual language and media theory was taken from more accessible works, such as an excerpt about the meaning of shapes in games and other visual arts in the book by Chris Solarski titled Drawing Basics and Video Game Art (2012). Subsequently, it was visible in some of the future presentations how some students referred to the shapes in the displayed images and could engage in a deeper discussion of their visual language. Also, following a presentation and reading on the basics of framing in photography and films, students displayed a greater focus on the proper framing of the visual information they were conveying to their listeners. Thus, they improved their communicative potential beyond just discussing the displayed pictures or videos in English, more expertly using their visual appeal and possibilities.
V. CONCLUSION
There were overall 15 online meetings, occurring twice a month from December 2, 2023 to June 29, 2024. This was both a lot of time, and very little to achieve significant progress. Instructions on the use and theory of visual media could only be provided after the students’ own presentations, which apart from the final two meetings were always selected by the students themselves. Sometimes, there would be no time for such instruction to occur. On the other hand, these instructions were considered to be only supplemental to the much more pressing and important issue—that of helping the participants realize how much potential lies in their own interests. Whether they were fascinated by something that happened locally or by fictional worlds and events present in works of popular culture, they were asked to share their impressions and try to make others interested in them as well. In that, they entirely succeeded. As a result, it can be hoped that they will be able to imbue their teaching and perhaps also learning practice with the same enthusiasm they show toward the interests they hold the most dear or engaging. If they can do it, the enthusiasm may transfer to other areas of life, such as teaching or learning a foreign language, especially that any foreign language instruction requires a degree of fascination with the other: another culture, another person, a different kind of world then that to which we are accustomed. If the format used in the experimental meetings between people of diverse interests and cultures proved successful in making them more keen on learning about each other, how much more successful it may be in conveying the same kind of excitement toward learning the unknown in the foreign language classroom? Perhaps one day the participants of the study will share their experiences and whether or not it helped them in their later teaching practice.
Notes
The author drew attention to this in his comments during one of the meetings, which took place shortly after the death of Akira Toriyama, and during which he discussed a comics (manga) page of the artist. Similarly, the great successes of Korean works (series too numerous to list, pop music groups, games, and many others) employ certain strategies that allow them to cross language and cultural barriers and to be easily understood by people all over the world.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my thanks to Jason (Yun Joon) Lee and Jihye Park for their cooperation and valuable assistance without whose support this project would not have been possible.