Using English Movies in English Classrooms at Tertiary Level in Bangladesh

Abstract

Keeping the tech-savvy learners of the 21st century in mind, classroom teaching is no longer confined to only printed texts. To reach the entertainment lover learners, it has become a trend of the time to ensure edutainment where education is disseminated to the learners through entertainment. This paper attempts to investigate how far it is effective to use English movies in enhancing students' linguistic competency along with textual comprehension at tertiary level 'English classrooms through a questionnaire survey and a semi-structured interview. Participants, both teachers and learners, of this study are from the department of English of four private universities in Bangladesh. Though, in general, 'English classrooms' refer to only English language classrooms, in this paper the term 'English classrooms' includes both English language and English literature classrooms. The paper critically seeks to explore the perceptions of both teachers and students on issues like: (I) To what extent teachers and students are aware of the effectiveness of using English movies in 'English classrooms? (ii) Is there any gap between the synchronization of the objectives, process and outcomes of the approach?, and (iii) How to optimize the effectiveness of using English movies in 'English classrooms' facing the probable challenges?