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USING silent film to teach a foreign language may seem counterintuitive. Not only is sound film used more often in the foreign language classroom, but it is also the talkie's dialogue that is emphasized and exploited. 1 Certainly, authentic cinematic dialogue is a valuable linguistic tool for improving oral comprehension as well as speech, but fin de siècle films such as those of the French magician and film pioneer Georges Méliès and of his compatriots, the Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis, are excellent resources that might supplement the use of sound films in the French classroom. They are not only valuable materials for language teaching but also interesting aesthetic artifacts that give language students at all levels insight into cultural history by familiarizing them with a phenomenon that accounts in part for the important role of cinema in contemporary French society. The significance of early French cinema lies in its innovation of film techniques, such as the cut and the dissolve, that laid the foundation for modern cinema. The pedagogical value of cinéma muet also stems from its depiction of cultural history through the portrayal of turn-of-the-century people (ranging from a magician to factory workers), places (such as Paris), and attitudes (for instance, ambivalence toward technology). The films vary in subject and style, but they have been categorized through an opposition between Méliès's theatrical “magic films,” which represent magic tricks or other fantastic events, and the Lumières' “actuality films” ( actualités ), which depict slices of life. Although I originally conceived this idea for single class sessions of semester-long language courses at all levels (as reflected by the sample lesson plans that constitute appendix A), silent films ranging from fin de siècle French shorts to longer films and representing a variety of historical periods and national traditions may be used in many courses and languages.
The use of silent film to teach French is less innovative than it is underexploited. Indeed, Albert Lamorisse's thirty-six-minute color silent film Le ballon rouge (The Red Balloon , 1956) has often been used in the French language classroom. And, as early as 1960, when “the foreign language film was thought of largely as background material,” Theodore Huebener suggested that the “enterprising teacher” could have students create and record dialogue for silent film (52). Alternatively, sound films can be showed to students with the sound off; in a 1991 article Maria Xesus Lopez Escudeiro proposes doing so with an excerpt from Francçois Truffaut's comic thriller Vivement dimanche! ( Finally Sunday , 1983). The muting of the film, Lopez Escudeiro explains, turns students' attention to cinematic language; instead of concentrating on dialogue, the students focus on visual clues to the genre of the film. My proposal to incorporate the study of silent films into the foreign language curriculum is in part also motivated by a desire to foster attention to the medium of film and in particular to important yet little-studied films. In may classes I have silenced films such as René Clément's Jeux interdits ( Forbidden Games , 1952) and Eric Rochant's Un monde sans pitié ( Love without Pity , 1990) and had students read a transcription of the dialogue in sync with the muted images. 2 My experience with this strategy reflects the reasons that I propose to use silent cinema in the language classroom: primarily, the linguistic opportunity afforded by silent film and, secondarily, its cultural value.
Before explaining my approach to the study of fin de seècle silent films, I would like to point out their practical convenience. They are readily available and affordable (see app. B). Since they range from about fifteen seconds to fifteen minutes, they can easily be viewed in class—thus eliciting spontaneous responses and eliminating the time to forget—without exhausting or even dominating class time. Méliès's Le parapluie fantastique, ou dix femmes sous une ombrelle ( Ten Ladies in One Umbrella , 1903), which lasts two minutes and thirty seconds, exemplifies this point, and this film is not one of his shorter ones. 3 As my lesson plans in appendix A indicate, I originally intended to center my classes on this particular film, Méliès's humorous self-portrayal as a magician who uses the titular umbrella to create ten dancing women. While I continue to find this film fruitful, I realized when I implemented this project in beginning and intermediate classes that the brevity of early silent films allows and even begs for the viewing of multiple films in a class session. By allowing the teacher to invite students to draw informational conclusions (such as which film is longer or has more characters) and judgments about aesthetic merit (for instance, which film is better or more interesting), such screenings provide an optimal context for the teaching or review of the comparative and superlative, among other lessons. Because collections of early silent films generally consist of approximately ten to thirty shorts on one sixteen-millimeter reel or one videotape (see app. B), the viewing of multiple films is practical as well as instructive.
The absence of spoken language in these films makes them particularly conducive to use at all levels. Huebener contends that beginners require films in which the speech is “simple, clear, and slow”; he even warns that “the extent of the vocabulary will have to be watched” (50). Although Huebener goes overboard, almost implying that vocabulary is dangerous, I do agree that different materials are more or less linguistically appropriate for students at different levels. Alice Omaggio-Hadley may be right when she points out in Teaching Language in Context that “using only unedited, nonpedagogical materials in the classroom would seem to create more problems than it would solve, since materials are often difficult to select, obtain, or sequence for learners at lower proficiency levels” (174). If “simulated authentic discourse” is, as Omaggio-Hadley points out (175), one answer to this problem, silent film is a type of “unmodified authentic discourse” that poses none of the problems that she mentions. It has the virtue that the only linguistic constraints involved in its use are those of the students responding to it. Of course, the activities planned can control the linguistic capacity necessary for student responses. The same basic activity can be adapted to different levels, and the product even more than the input can vary by student level. For instance, I originally intended one writing assignment for advanced students—an imaginative account of an early film spector's reaction to cinema today—but used it successfully at the beginning level (see app. A). The length of the composition differs for the different levels. Other variations are more substantive, including the requirement that advanced students model their writing—through imitation or parody—on Méliès own account of the first showing of films, the premiere of the Lumières' films at the Grande Café in 1895 (“Témoignage”).
I found the communicative language teaching (CLT) approach useful in conceptualizing my silent film project. Sandra Savignon, one of CLT's American pioneers, recently critiqued the binary opposition between active skills (speaking and writing) and passive ones (reading and listening), as well as the productive-receptive dichotomy created to replace that opposition. The aptly suggests, “Lost in this productive/receptive, message sending/message receiving representation is the collaborative nature of meaning making. ” Savignon proposes the use of the nonbinary terms interpretation, expression and negotiation of meaning to more accurately convey the collaborative nature of language learning (“Communicative Language Teaching” 261–62). 4
I have constructed my lesson plans around a communicative conception of language learning that resonates with CLT. At all levels, I have conceived of the study of silent film in the form of student-student as well as student-teacher interaction. In French 1, I taught key vocabulary for Le parapluie fantastique using objects such as an umbrella and a ball, identifying them in French, asking students to do the same, and then having students ask one another to do so. By saying “C'est un ballon” and “C'est un parapluie” and introducing possessive pronouns into these sentences, students learned the meanings and the correct pronunciation and gender of the nouns in question. To create a collaborative classroom environment, I invite students to ask me and one another questions, about both content and grammar, in the target language if at all possible. To promote active rather than merely reactive student participation, I generally encourage students to correct one another's grammar and pronunciation with my guidance.
In the more specific context of silent film, I facilitated student-student interaction by having both beginning and intermediate students pair up to propose titles for Le parapluie fantastique as well as to role-play a dialogue between two workers leaving the Lumières' photographic equipment factory, as represented in Louis Lumière's famous 1895 actuality film Sortie d'usine ( Workers Leaving the Factory ). Instead of constraining students by telling them at the outset what type of factory the film depicts, I let them imaginatively identify two of the workers and then invent a conversation about their day at work (in the past tense) and their plans for the evening (future tense).
This role-playing gives students the opportunity to engage in meaningful expression, interaction, and creative language practice (Omaggio-Hadley 79–81). In the classroom, I strive to achieve a balance between such meaningful communication and the sort of rote memorization and formulaic language that some may frown on but that, I would argue, expands students' linguistic repertoires and thus ultimately allows them to communicate more freely. I believe that a certain amount of structure fosters creativity instead of stultifying it. In my in-class and homework assignments, I encourage creative responses shaped by a structuring element, ranging from a grammar point to a topic or title to a sentence to be incorporated into a skit or essay. To write the diary entry of a film spectator from 1895, students must use the past tense, 5 and recounting this fin de siècle spectator's responses to contemporary cinema encourages the use of adjectives such as court and long (“short” and “long”) and sets of more technical terms such as muet and parlant (“silent” and “sound”) and en noir et blanc and en couleurs (“in black and white” and “in color”), which I taught in class.
My approach to teaching silent film is consistent with Savignon's idea that “creative language practice” does not diminish the importance of grammar, much less exclude the teaching of it entirely. 6 Those who believe grammar is unimportant in CLT, Savignon argues, base their charges on the misconception that the focus on meaning compromises morphosyntactic accuracy (“Communicative Language Teaching” 268). I integrate grammar points and vocabulary into activities involving Le parapluie fantastique in ways suggested by the content of the film. In the elementary class, the grammar points (the verb aimer and adjectives) facilitate discussion of this film, but they are not specific to it, so students can apply this knowledge to other texts or experiences. The intermediate lesson in the causative form arises more directly from the Méliès film. In answering the question “De quoi s'agit-il dans ce film?” (“What is this film about?”), students might use circumlocution to avoid saying, “Un magicien fait apparaître, danser, et disparaître dix femmes” (“A magician makes ten wom“en appear, dance, and disappear”). But a description of the magician's actions, which constitute the crux of the film, almost requires use of this construction— faire and the infinitive—and students thus have a particular motivation to learn it (or review it). Whether the grammar points raised by the film are to be learned or reviewed, I present them more inductively than deductively (I employ the term inductively in the sense used by Carol Herron and Michael Tomasello). Thus my students can use the grammar to convey their ideas instead of focusing on understanding the rules that explain the grammar.
To maximize the linguistic and cultural benefit of early silent films, I bring in related, authentic contemporaneous materials and organize activities focused on the role of cinema today both in France and in the United States. Elementary and intermediate students consult and thus familiarize themselves with the Officiel des spectacles , a weekly listing of films and other spectacles that is available at kiosks and stores throughout Paris. Advanced students are able to read Méliès's narrative describing his first reaction to moving pictures. Students can practice oral comprehension by listening to a recorded reading of the unmodified text of this authentic document, which captures a significant moment in French cultural history.
A comparative approach to viewing Le parapluie fantastique and other Méliès films would be to have advanced and perhaps intermediate students discuss the films in relation to the Pygmalion myth. This approach invites feminist interpretations, which might be enriched by readings on Méliès such as the film scholar Lucy Fischer's article “The Lady Vanishes: Women, Magic, and the Movies.” Fruitful French-language sources that might supplement the viewing of the films include the film historian Georges Sadoul's Lumière et Méliès and the director Georges Franju's documentary film Le grand Méliès.
The viewing of a combination of films by Méliès and Lumière, as well as by lesser-known French pioneers, such as the French film company Pathé and its producer-director Ferdinand Zecca, is not only possible but recommended. 7 Huebener's suggestion of having students write and record dialogue for silent films is excellent. Le parapluie fantastique is not necessarily conducive to dialogue because it is a very short filmed spectacle. Even Lumière's Repas de bébé ( Feeding the Baby , 1895), which shows the filmmaker and his wife talking as they feed their baby and which I expected to provoke my beginning students to converse when I asked them to role-play in pairs as the Lumière couple, did not yield much inspired dialogue. But the success of the abovementioned assignment involving Sortie d'usine suggests such an activity can be fruitful if it is based on a film that provides the freedom to interpret its characters creatively and to imagine conversations in response to it.
My students also narrated films, an activity that I highly recommend. One activity that worked well was having students watch the comic Lumière film L'arroseur arrosé ( Testing the Gardener , or Hoser Hosed , 1895) and narrate this story about a boy who plays a trick on a gardener, stepping on a hose to block the water but removing his foot when the gardener is facing the hose while examining it. Intermediate students particularly enjoyed continuing this story imaginatively. One pair of students decided that the gardener got his revenge by strangling the boy with the hose! In the process of creating this unhappy ending, these students learned the verb étrangler (“to strangle”) and other vocabulary, such as un tuyau d'arrosage (“a hose”). While this particular version of this activity allowed the students to recount in the imperfect and perfect, one could also have students narrate using the present tense or “if” clauses with the appropriate simple or complex tenses. 8 The success of narrations of films such as Arroseur arrosé suggests that having students do “live narrations” of longer films would also work well. I recommend Méliès's fifteen- to twenty-five-minute fantasy films of the first decade of the twentieth century, including his most famous film, Le voyage dans la lune ( Trip to the Moon , 1902), and his prophetic Le tunnel sous la Manche ou le cauchemar franco-anglais ( Tunneling the English Channel , 1907), which is particularly timely. By simulating the historic role of the lecturer of silent films, students learn about it in the process. Students might also compose sub- or intertitles for a silent film as a writing activity. Like the lecturer, these titles were used historically in silent films, and therefore this activity has cultural-historical as well as linguistic value.
Silent film could be incorporated in many other contexts. Clearly, it could be used in more than one class session of a course and in language classes other than French. For example, early American silent films by Thomas Edison, Edwin Porter, and D. W. Griffith might be utilized in ESL curricula. Although France and the United States are the countries best known for their pioneering cinema, the film historian Jean Mitry's account suggests that there are fertile resources from Britain, Italy, Germany, Denmark, and Russia too. Of course, a language teacher could “borrow” films from a country in which the target language is not spoken without losing any verbal linguistic benefits, but students would lose out on the culture-specific value of the films.
Cinéma muet is already taught in film survey courses and in specialized film classes. I would go so far as to suggest that a survey of silent French film could constitute as course unto itself. Although silent film may not seem to be the ideal topic for a content-based language course, because the “primary texts” contain little or no verbal language, for advanced students it would provide the same potential for language acquisition as, for instance, an art history course taught in French. A content-based French course devoted exclusively to silent French film might begin with Méliès, the Lumières, and lesser-known pioneers such as Alice Guy-Blanché; proceed chronologically to René Clair's Entr' acte (1924) and Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí's Un chien andalou (1928); and even include post-silent-era silents such as Jacques Tati's Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (1953) and Lamorisse's Le ballon rouge (1956), in addition to animated silent films from all periods.
The lack of dialogue might make silent film appear an inappropriate medium for language teaching, since film is most often used for teaching oral comprehension and for the production of speech imitating the authentic dialogue or provoked by it. But because silence can lead students to compensate for it with prolific discourse, silent film's so-called lack creates what I call above a “linguistic opportunity.” Indeed, the term silent film has itself been called a misnomer, because cinema was, from its inception, accompanied by music. The long-standing desire to supplement silent film with nonvisual language is further evidenced by oral narration and subtitles, which predate soundtracks.
Silent film makes possible a wealth of student-produced oral and written language in innovative as well as established forms. The study of silent cinema in the language classroom also invites the introduction of authentic written and oral materials to complement the visual texts (the films) and thus affords an even richer linguistic experience. As a culturally important phenomenon reflecting the magic of fin de siècle French cinema, silent film can contribute significantly to the multimedia resources that make language acquisition a multifaceted cultural and linguistic process.
The author received her PhD from Brown University in May 1995 and is currently studying film in Paris. This article is based on her presentation at the 1994 MLA convention in San Diego.
The following three lesson plans describe one one-hour-and-twenty-minute class each at elementary, intermediate, and advanced levels. The core material used at all levels includes Georges Méliès's two-minute-and-twenty-second silent film, Le parapluie fantastique, ou dix femmes sous une ombrelle (1903) and Louis Lumière's thirty-second silent film Sortie d/usine (1895). Other short silent films may be added at the teacher's discretion. Students at all levels are to learn grammar points necessary to respond to the film both orally and in writing and will begin to consider the medium of film, setting a precedent for future attention to the extradialogic components of sound film in their study of French and in other contexts. They will also gain understanding of cinema as a historic and contemporary French cultural phenomenon.
Linguistic: In class discussion and in the written homework assignment students will be able to use the verb aimer to express whether they like or dislike a film (and, by extension, other texts) and will be able to use adjectives to explain their opinions.
Cultural: Students will demonstrate familiarity with two early silent films. Méliès's Le parapluie fantastique and Louis Lumière's Sortie d'usine, by expressing their opinions about the first and by role-playing a dialogue inspired by the second. Students will also be able to plan an outing to a movie in Paris by consulting the Officiel des spectacles and, by extension, will be able to plan to see a movie together with French speakers anywhere.
| 9:00–9:10 | Introduction of vocabulary necessary to explain who Méliès was ( magicien, cinéaste, acteur, fin de siècle ), to understand the title of the film Le parapluie fantastique, ou dix femmes sous une ombrelle , and to engage in activities based on the film. Objects such as an umbrella and a ball are introduced to teach vocabulary; the teacher might also point to images in the film and identify them during a second viewing. |
| 9:11–9:15 | Students view Le parapluie fantastique. |
| 9:16–9:21 | Students work in pairs to come up with titles for the film. They announce their titles; the teacher tells them the actual title. |
| 9:22–9:35 | Group question-and-answer session: Students learn to ask the question “Vous aimez ce film?” and to respond to it by saying “Oui, j'aime ce film” or “Non, je n'aime pas ce film.” Through explanation and demonstration, teacher introduces adjectives ( court, long en noir et blanc, en couleurs, ancien, récent, muet, parlant; gai, triste; bon, mauvais, intéressant, ennuyeux, excellent, horrible; and so on) so that students can express why (“pourquoi?”) they like or dislike the film: “J'aime / Je n'aime pas ce film parce qu'il est…” |
| 9:36–9:37 | Students view Lumière's Sortie d'usine. |
| 9:38–9:43 | In pairs, students briefly prepare to improvise dialogues between two of the workers leaving the factory. They are to use the expressions “être fatigué” and “avoir faim” and the food vocabulary they have previously learned. |
| 9:44–9:54 | Students role-play dialogues; teacher and students correct grammar and pronunciation. |
| 9:55–10:00 | The teacher hands out the Officiel des spectacles and explains hot it is organized. |
| 10:01–10:08 | In groups of three, students choose a movie to see (hypothetically) from the Officiel des spectacles. |
| 10:09–10:20 | Students tell the class what movie they have chosen and why, using adjectives to characterize the film. |
Write a reaction to a movie of your choice. Begin by stating whether or not you like the film, using the verb aimer , and then describe the film using adjectives.
Alternative assignment: Imagine that one of the first spectators of cinema (in 1895) is reincarnated a century later, in 1995. The first thing she or he does is go to the movies. Write this person's diary entry, describing her or his experience at the movie theater and her or his response to the film.
Write at least a half page, typed and double-spaced, for either assignment.
Linguistic: Students will be able to use the causative construction orally and in writing in the present tense as well as in the imperfect and perfect.
Cultural: Students will demonstrate familiarity with two types of authentic documents, pioneering silent cinema (Méliès's Le parapluie fantastique and Lumière's Sortie d'usine ) and the Officiel des spectacles , by (anachronistically) writing summaries of one of the films based on the format of recent entries in the Officiel.
| 9:00–9:05 | After the teacher tells students to pay close attention to the film from the start because it lasts less than three minutes, Le parapluie fantastique is shown. |
| 9:06–9:11 | Students propose titles for the film; the teacher tells them the actual title. |
| 9:12–9:15 | Students guess when the film was made, thereby reviewing how to say years and learning about French cultural history. |
| 9:16–9:35 | The class has a lesson and discussion centered on the question “De quoi s'agit-il dans ce film?” To answer this question the class covers vocabulary as needed ( un magicien, un illusionniste, un animateur, la magie, faire de la magie, un truc, une illusion, un parapluie, une baguette magique , etc.) and the causative. The teacher introduces the causative by bouncing a ball and saying “Je fais rebondir le ballon,” telling students, “Faites rebondir le ballon,” and, once they have done so, having them say what they have done. The teacher introduces “faire apparaître/danser/disparaître” as well as “faire voir” and other commonly used causative phrases. |
| 9:36–9:37 | Students view Sortie d'usine. |
| 9:38–9:44 | In pairs, students prepare to role-play a dialogue between two workers leaving the factory; they must incorporate a variation of the sentence “Notre patron nous fait travailler trop dur” into their skits. |
| 9:45–9:55 | Students perform skits; the teacher and the other students correct grammar and pronunciation. |
| 9:56–10:09 | In groups of three, students write descriptions of Le parapluie fantastique or Sortie d'usine based on the film summaries in the Officiel des spectacles. [This activity was proposed by Lopez Escudeiro in “Profitons du cinéma!”] |
| 10:10–10:20 | Students read the summaries aloud. |
Write a creative essay entitled “L'illusionniste qui fait apparaître dix hommes” or “Ne me faites pas disparaître!” or make up your own title using the causative.
Alternative assignment: Imagine that one of the first spectators of cinema at the turn of the century is reincarnated today. The first thing she or he does is go to the movies. Write this person's diary entry, describing her or his experience at the movie theater and her or his response to the film.
Write at least one page, typed and double-spaced, for either assignment.
Linguistic: Students will demonstrate comprehension of an authentic historical document, Georges Méliès account of his viewing of the Lumière brothers' pioneering motion pictures, by writing their own creative accounts modeled on this text.
Cultural: Students will demonstrate understanding of Méliès Le parapluie fantastique and Louis Lumière's Sortie d'using by comparing the works of these pioneers of film and expressing agreement or disagreement with the conventional distinction between films magiques and actualités.
Homework before class: Reading of the Méliès account for general comprehension.
| 9:00–9:06 | After the teacher tells students to pay close attention to the films from the start because they last less then three minutes, Le parapluie fantastique and then Sortie d'usine are shown. |
| 9:07–9:14 | The teacher briefly identifies the films and explains the traditional distinction between Méliès and the Lumières and between films magiques and actualités. |
| 9:15–9:30 | Preparation for a debate about the intentionally vague statement “Les films réalistes sont plus importants que les films fantastiques.” The class forms two teams, “pour” and “contre.” The teams are asked to support their arguments with references to the Méliès and Lumière films as well as to cinema today, speculating about the relative influence of the two pioneers on the cinema that their films anticipated. Students might also extend the topic to include realism versus the fantastic in literature or even, more generally, reality as opposed to the imagination. |
| 9:31–9:50 | Debate. |
| 9:51–10:20 | The class listens to a recording of the Méliès account, then works on pronunciation. The teacher verifies general comprehension, resolves problems, and answers questions regarding vocabulary (e.g., “bouche bée,” “pioche”), grammar (e.g., recognition of passé simple and plus-que-parfait ), and culture (e.g., identification of the musée Grévin and the Folies Bergéres ). |
Imagine that Méliès comes back to life today and that he is invited to a screening by a famous film director (e.g., Steven Spielberg, Louis Malle). Write a two- to three-page first-person account from Méliès's point of view based on (imitating or parodying) his own account of the showing of Lumière films at the Grand Café in 1895. Tape-record yourself reading your paper aloud. The class will listen to the tapes.
Since collections of early silents on sixteen-millimeter stock are of better quality and are more nearly comprehensive than those transferred onto video, but the video collections are easier to use and less expensive, I provide information on the availability of both materials.
The most comprehensive collections of early silent French films are those of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York. Some of the MOMA compilations, which are available for rental at thirty to sixty dollars for each sixteen-millimeter reel, are (1) Magic Films , which includes a half dozen of Méliès's works, such as Le parapluie fantastique; (2) Lumière Program I (1895–96) , which contains some of the same films as (3) program 3, Early Lumière Films (1895–98) , on which there are about twenty Lumière films, such as Arroseur arrosé, Repas de bébé , and Sortie d'usine; and (4) the Georges Méliès Program. The works of French pioneers even less familiar to Americans, such as Max Linder, Alice Guy-Blaché, Emile Cohl, and Louis Feuillade, are also available in MOMA collections.
The American Federation of the Arts' series Before Hollywood features sixty-two works by the Biograph Company, Cecil B. de Mille, Thomas Edison, Edwin S. Porter, and many lesser-known figures in six feature-length programs, which would provide a wealth of resources for ESL teachers. But, as reflected by the “participation fee” of $1,200, and AFA films are more appropriate for exhibition than for classroom use.
The foreign language instructor may find videotapes not only more affordable but also of sufficiently high quality, easier to use, and more conducive to moving back and forth between films during class.
Dealers in foreign videos that sell collections of early silents include Tamerelle's (800 356-3577; 800 621-1333; twenty-four-hour fax: 515 226-3592), which offers two collections of works by the pioneers of the French cinema. The videos each last sixty minutes and cost $29.95. The first program features masterpieces by the Lumière brothers ( Workers Leaving the Factory, Arrival of Express at Lyons, A Game of Cards, Feeding the Baby , etc.) and Méliès (including his successful longer films Trip to the Moon and The Conquest of the Pole ). The second program includes films by Méliès' rival Ferdinand Zecca and by the company for which Zecca directed, Pathé.
Floor Sweepings Tape , featuring twelve Méliès films as well as several other silents, is available for $9.95 from LS Video (PO Box 415, Carmel, IN 46032).
I would like to acknowledge Frank Ryan for his feedback on an early version of this paper and to express my appreciation to Natalie Grand for reading the course plans.
1 See Wiart for suggested activities focused on the dialogue of sound films, particularly Eric Rochant's Un monde sans pitié and Etienne Chatilliez's La vie est un long fleuve tranquille.
2 I am indebted to Sylvie Toux for suggesting that I use this approach in teaching my French 1 class at Brown University.
3 Instead of translating the title Le parapluie fantastique, ou dix femmes sous une ombrelle literally as The Fantastic Umbrella; or, Ten Women under an Umbrella , I have given the more commonly used English title; I use this practice for French film titles throughout this paper. For plot summaries and other information about Méliès's films, see Frazer.
4 Communicative language teaching, an approach rather than a method, was centered on the concept of the notional-functional syllabus when the movement was initiated in the 1970s by British applied linguists and American educators such as Savignon. Since the 1970s, CLT has enlarged its scope, moving away from this focus and becoming a more broadly communicative approach (Omaggio-Hadley 4, 104). Savignon's Communicative Competence is a well-known early work on communicative approaches. Her more recent work on state-of-the-art communicative language teaching, however, has been especially helpful to me.
5 I would like to thank Annie Wiart of Brown University for suggesting the diary entry format and for inspiring other activities, such as narrating the films and imagining their continuation.
6 The term “creative language practice” contrasts with “exclusively manipulative or convergent practice,” as the terms are used in the third corollary of the first hypothesis of the ACTFL proficiency guidelines (Omaggio-Hadley 81).
7 Zecca, a rival of Méliès, entered the film business as an actor and began directing for Pathé in 1899. Alice Guy-Blaché is a female film pioneer whose work is available from the Museum of Modern Art (see app. B).
8 Students who have seen Le parapluie fantastique might be asked to complete one of the following sentences imaginatively: “Si le magicien créait (ou: avait créé) des hommes, ils …” (“If the magician had created men, the …”) and “Si l'illusionniste était (ou: avait été) une femme, elle …” (“If the illusionist had been a woman, she …”).
Fischer, Lucy. “The Lady Vanishes: Women, Magic, and the Movies.” Film before Griffith. Ed. John L. Fell. Berkeley: U of California P, 1983. 339–54.
Frazer, John. Artificially Arranged Scenes: The Films of Georges Méliès. Boston: Hall, 1979.
Le grand Méliès. Dir. Georges Franju. Armor, 1953.
Herron, Carol, and Michael Tomasello. “Acquiring Grammatical Structures by Guided Induction.” French Review 65 (1992): 708–17.
Huebener, Theodore. Audio-visual Techniques in Teaching Foreign Languages: A Practical Handbook. Rev. ed. New York: New York UP, 1967.
Lopez Escudeiro, Maria Xesus. “Profitons du cinéma!” Le français dans le monde 241 (Mai-Juin 1991): n. pag.
Lumière, Louis, dir. L'arroseur arrosé. Lumière, 1895.
———. Repas de bébé. Lumière, 1895.
———. Sortie d'usine. Lumière, 1895.
Méliès, Georges, dir. Le parapluie fantastique, ou dix femmes sous une ombrelle. Méliès, 1903.
———.“Témoignage.” Propos sur les vues animées. Les dossiers de la cinémathèque 10. Montreal: Cinémathèque Québécoise and Musée du Cinéma, 1982. 17–19.
Mitry, Jean. Histoire du cinéma. 1895–1914. Vol. 1. Paris: Universitaires, 1967.
Omaggio-Hadley, Alice. Teaching Language in Context. Boston: Heinle, 1993.
Sadoul, Georges. Lumière et Méliès . Paris: Lherminier, 1985.
Savignon, Sandra J. Communicative Competence: An Experiment in Foreign Language Teaching. Philadelphia: Center for Curriculum Development, 1972.
———.“Communicative Language Teaching: State of the Art.” TESOL Quarterly 25 (1991): 261–77.
Wiart, Annie. “Using Film in the Foreign Language Classroom.” Consortium News (Spring 1994): 14–18.
© 1995 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
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