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Media literacy education
Development of critical thinking and media literacy of adult learners in the Russian
as a foreign language classroom
Anna Zankova
Russian language instructor at online language school "Red Kalinka", USA annazankova@yahoo. com
Abstract. The article is devoted to developing critical thinking and media literacy based on the analysis of media messages (analysis of stereotypes, analysis of characters, autobiographical analysis) and with the consideration of peculiarities of teaching adults. The author analyzes a complex concept of "critical thinking" and its importance in methodology of teaching foreign languages and specifically in teaching Russian as a foreign language. In current conditions, when western media shows a one-sided and biased opinion on Russia, forming and developing critical thinking gain great importance and become an integral part of learning Russian as a foreign language outside of language immersion. Nowadays, teachers-practitioners and scientists come to a conclusion that critical thinking is one of the main skills for learners to develop. Working with the media messages and compounding the assignments, the author considers the principles of teaching adults (the limit of free time, life experience, high expectations from learning process and results), the principles of communicative approach to teaching languages (communicative exercises, developing all types of language behavior and forming communicative competence) and also the principles of critical thinking in media education (reception, analysis, evaluation of media messages).
The experiment included watching, discussing modern Russian TV shows (How I became a Russian and Silver spoon) as well as creating the conditions that allow learners to form unbiased attitude to Russia, which gain current importance within the informational influence of western media on perceiving the image of the country by foreigners. The research provides the results of the survey conducted among the learners from different countries, studying Russian as a foreign language online, and it also gives the examples of questions and tasks for working with the media messages.
Keywords: media, media education, media literacy, critical thinking, andragogy, Russian as a foreign language, TV shows.
Introduction
Nowadays, it is hard to imagine a person's life without traditional media (newspapers, magazines, radio, TV) and social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vkontakte, Youtube). Social media has become popular not only among children and the youth, but also among adults who create short videos, post them, comment and earn money and popularity in the social networks. Teaching foreign languages, instructors and tutors should follow modern technologies and tendencies, and implement them into a learning process. However, not all information, which is presented in traditional or social media, is trustworthy, reliable, objective and showing all points of view. Thus, one of the main instructors' objectives, particularly Russian language instructors, is to develop critical thinking skills and media literacy.
In modern methodology of teaching languages, a great attention is devoted to forming and developing learners' abilities to perceive and evaluate information and media messages critically, to argue soundly, to raise questions and make decisions based on personal experience.
It is necessary to note that adult learners impose high requirements on teaching, so it is important to organize the learning process in the way that it meets modern tendencies in the methodology of teaching languages and considering the peculiarities of andragogy. Many specialists in this area of science, for example, Malcolm Knowles, Mark Tennant, B.M. Bim-Bad, A.I. Kukuev, I.A. Kolesnikova, N.B. Kruglova and others remark that teaching adults differs from teaching school or college students [Knowles, 1980; Kolesnikova, 2007]. Adult learners are defined by having not only strong motivation , but also a deliberate approach to learning [Knowles, 1980] as well as understanding of what is important and what is secondary. In 1970, Malcolm Knowles published his book The Modern Practice of Adult Education. From Pedagogy to Andragogy where he formed the basic principles of teaching adults [Knowles, 1980]: 1) a leading role belongs to a learner; 2) pursuit of autonomy and self-fulfillment; 3) possession of professional knowledge and life experience which need to be exploited in the learning process; 4) readiness to learn; 5) pursuit of applying knowledge in practice.
In addition, adult language learners, due to their busyness, can hardly have time to carry out all tasks fully, but at the same time they aim to see positive results from lessons within the shortest possible period of time. Time factor brings some difficulties to instructor's work: how to obtain maximum outcome, to form communicative skills, to vary lessons, to help learners develop necessary competencies. So language instructors have to find effective methods, instruments and approaches to achieve these goals.
Materials and methods
In order to prepare the article, the author conducted the surveys among Russian language learners, studying individually and in online form. Moreover, the author included the analysis of audiovisual media texts (TV shows How I became a Russian and Silver Spoon) in order to form adult learners' critical thinking skills and media literacy. In the research, we also used theoretical methods such as studying, analyzing and generalizing scientific and methodological literature in media education, andragogy and scientists' opinions on "critical thinking".
Discussion
Recently, the term "critical thinking" has become a frequently used one in scientific and methodological literature, and it is interpreted and defined differently. Foreign and Russian scientists in psychology, philosophy, history, pedagogy, linguistics etc. are trying to research this concept and give it a precise definition and description (D. Klooster, M. Lipman, D.T. Moore, S.I. Zair-Bek, I.I. Ivunina and others). Considering a broad definition, we accept the opinion that critical thinking is "reasonable reflective thinking that focuses on deciding what to believe or do" [Norris, Ennis, 1989, p.3].
"Reasonableness' and "reflectiveness" are typical characteristics in the definitions of "critical thinking". Other frequently and common used phrases are "making decisions" and "solving problems". For instance, D. Halpern defines it as "the use of those cognitive skills or strategies that increase the probability of a desirable outcome. It is purposeful, reasoned, and goal directed. It is the kind of thinking involved in solving problems, formulating inferences, calculating likelihoods, and making decisions" [Halpern, 2000, p.10]. Other definitions point out that critical thinking is characterized by evaluating situations or actions and their further analysis. Richard Paul and Linda Elder denominate critical thinking as "the art of analyzing and evaluating. It entails effective communication and problem solving abilities and a commitment to overcome our native egocentrism and sociocentrism" [Paul, 2006, p. 4]. All these definitions indicate the ambiguity, complexity of the term and impossibility to form a unified approach. It was fairly noted by an American researcher, D.T. Moore, that this concept is complex and can bring the confusion, so it should have specific characteristics in each discipline [Moore, 2011].
In pedagogics, D. Klooster builds his definition on the following characteristics [Klooster, 2002, p.3]:
1) critical thinking has individual character and it is defined by independency;
2) the main point is information;
3) critical thinking entails raising issues and understanding problems;
4) it is characterized by argumentation;
5) it is social thinking, so pair and group tasks are used in the classroom.
On this basis, it becomes obvious that critical thinking fits well into the learning process. Matthew Lipman, for example, also advocates that critical thinking should be added to all disciplines [Lipman, 2003, p. 229]. Nowadays, language instructors follow the tendency to encourage learners to think independently, to process the information effectively, to argue convincingly, to set right questions and find decisions not only individually , but also communicating with others. Klooster thinks that teachers should actively implement tasks which encourage the development of critical thinking skills. "Due to critical thinking, a traditional learning process becomes individual and meaningful, continuous and productive" [Klooster, 2002,p.3]. John Hughes is another supporter of the implementation of critical thinking into the learning process, particularly in teaching languages. We completely agree with him that critical thinking is "one of the key skills for any 21st century learner" [Hughes, 2014, p.1]. However, not all scientists and practitioners agree with implementing and developing critical thinking in foreign language classroom. For instance, Atkinson believes that critical thinking is "cultural thinking" [Atkinson, 1997, p. 89]. In his opinion, critical thinking is more inherent in western culture and mentality. "Many cultures endorse modes of thought and education that almost diametrically oppose it" [Atkinson, 1997, p. 72]. It is obvious that it is inexpedient to ignore and exclude this concept from practice of teaching languages; yet, it is necessary to take into account learner's culture and mentality.
Today, teaching foreign languages is impossible to imagine without media messages that need to be perceived, based on reasonable and critical understanding. Critical thinking being "a constant component" [Fedorov, 2007, p. 86] of media education, is gradually coming into the process of teaching languages, so it enables to tighty intertwine media educational and pedagogical methods and technologies. L.A. Ivanova comes into a conclusion that media education and foreign languages "are connected and interdependent,that the only right way is their integration" [Ivanova, 2013, p. 108]. It is necessary to note that in the sphere of media education we support the definition of critical thinking offered by A. Fedorov. "Critical thinking in relation to media and media texts is a complex reflective process of thinking which entails associative perception, synthesis, analysis and evaluation of mechanism of functioning media in the social environment and coming to a person through the media of information" [Fedorov,
2007, p. 86]. Thus, in relation to media texts, it leads to interpretation and evaluation of the meaning that is seen or heard, and it is also a constant and integral process. Also, we totally agree with a L.A. Ivanova's conclusion that "media education is naturally built in the disciplines of curriculum, especially in "Foreign language" discipline" [Ivanova, 1999, p.107].
Practical recommendations on using media or developing media competence and media literacy in English language classroom have already been presented and are widely used and applied by instructors and media teachers [Novikova, 2004; Khlyzova, 2016 and othes]. The studying literature on media education shows that media teachers consider the development of critical thinking and media literacy in schools or colleges [Fedorov, 2005, 2012; Chelysheva,
2008, 2009; Khlyzova, 2016] and offer the following forms of creative tasks: creating collages, photomontage, slide-films, videotapes, wall newspapers, as well as discussions, debates, presentations of video projects, training, etc [Chelysheva, 2008, p. 6]. However, the experience of working with adult learners shows that the effective forms are discussions, debates and creation of short videos (1-2min.). Methodology of teaching Russian as a foreign language has
the lack of practical materials and training complexes, including media and developing media literacy. Moreover, the situation is considerably worse in teaching Russian as a foreign language to adults.
Results
In our opinion, one of the effective instruments which assists instructors in developing adult learners' communicative competence, critical thinking skills and media literacy in Russian language classroom, is the implementation of media in the learning process. A. Fedorov fairly noticed that "theoretically, the level of media literacy could be increasing during all life, perceiving, interpreting and analyzing emotional, aesthetic and ethic media information" [Fedorov, 2007, p. 9]. As an example of such media information in Russian language classroom, we offer to use movie trailers, TV shows, news, TV programs. Due to the lack of time , as a significant distinction of teaching adults, learners cannot do all assignments or watch movies, so we suggest using short videos or watching TV shows to solve this problem. We think that watching the TV show How I became a Russian is appropriate for learners of B2 and C1 language levels. This Russian TV show depicts how an American comes to Russia to work as a journalist and discovers the country and people for himself. The main character (Alex) tries to understand Russian mentality and reveal some distinct peculiarities of the Russians, being in funny and dramatic situations. As a result, he falls in love with the country and people, finds true friends, alters his attitude to Russians and changes himself. On the one hand, this TV show depicts and ridicules disadvantages of Russian life; on the other hand, it forces to admire virtues of Russians and Russia. The authors filled the episodes with typical cliches that are artificially exaggerated to create a comic effect. However, this effect becomes a stumbling stone for foreigners who watch it. So the instructor's' objectives are to help learners understand the stories and correctly organize work for discussing the situations, which Alex and his friends get into. The positive outcome from watching and discussing this TV show is achieved by making questions, based on the principles of critical thinking and developing learners' communicative competence and media literacy. Composed questions and tasks are based on the following types of the analyses of audiovisual media texts:
• analysis of media stereotypes;
• analysis of characters;
• autobiographical (personal) analysis.
In recognizing the significance and importance of other types of media text analyses, we believe that the chosen ones satisfy the conditions and the peculiarities of teaching adults (time availability, lesson duration; overall language level), as well as they meet the principles of communicative language teaching.
The analysis of media stereotypes implies "detection and analysis of a stereotyped image of people, ideas, events, stories, topics etc. in media texts. Media stereotype reflects a set attitude to one or another object in a society" [Fedorov, 2007, p. 228]. The TV show How I became a Russian is rich with the following stereotyped characters: a Russian oligarch (Analoliy Platonov), a spoilt oligarch's daughter (Ira Platonova), a quick-witted guy (Roma, a driver), a mean CEO (Ekaterina, chief-editor), a pretty, but stupid personal assistant (Marina), an intelligent, smart girl (Anna, a doctor), a stupid security guy (Ignat, Nikolai). Discussing these characters' stereotyped behavior, we asked learners to tell about media stereotypes in their cultures and countries, to compare with a russian view, showed in the TV show, to assess it (agree/disagree; believe/not believe etc.), to express an opinion (How Russian stereotypes are correlated with the reality?).
The analysis of characters includes "personality analysis, behavioral motivation, ideological views, deeds/actions of the media text characters" [Fedorov, 2007, p. 289]. It is necessary to note that this type of analysis fits well in consideration of the How I became a
Russian show because it is a situational comedy with a variety of live and domestic situations which could be easily applied to the learners' life experience. Also, application of own life experience in a variety of different text discussions is widely utilized in a communicative method of language teaching, that is why we observe a positive impact of such tasks not only on developing critical thinking and media literacy, but also on acquiring new vocabulary and forming communicative competence. The examples of questions prepared for each episode:
1) What is the main idea and purpose of this episode?
2) What values were revealed in the episode? Does the main character share them? Do you?
3) What deed of the main character surprised you the most / shocked and why?
4) Do you agree with the main character's conclusion at the end of each episode?
Besides the assignments with the questions, we offer some statements to discuss or continue.
1) This episode's story made me think of...
2) In my country (culture) this issue is resolved ....
3) If I were in such a situation, I..
4) When I was in such a situation, I ..
To complete this questionnaire assignment we encourage learners to use smartphones, and offer to make a short (1-2min) video in which they will express their opinions or attitude towards the issues reflected in the episode, or main character's deed as well as his conclusions. If the instructor runs a blog in Instagram or some other social media, then the learners can post the video and comment on each other's. This type of assignments is not only helpful in the development of all kinds of language behavior, but also teaches learners how to create media texts, perceive, rate and analyze them, which aids to develop learners' media literacy.
After watching all of the episodes, we offer to discuss each character:
• What are your thoughts about the character?
• Did the character evolve during the season? How?
• Did your attitude towards the character change? In what way?
• What, in your opinion, is necessary to add to the character's personality description?
• What can be changed?
It is necessary to note that the final episode of the first season leaves many unanswered questions: will the main female character agree to come to America with her loved one, will Katerina be happy with the oligarch, what happens with Roma and oligarch's daughter relationship. This kind of final gives learners the opportunity to try themselves as a scriptwriter. The learners are offered two ways to complete the task: to write a story or utilize technology (such as a smartphone camera) to make a short video, describing their version of the sequel, and then discuss other learners' stories in the instructor's blog.
Despite developing media competence, one of the main instructor's objectives is to form and develop language and communicative competences, and one the main learner's goals is to speak the language they study; yet, setting additional objectives or forming other competences and skills, accompanied the learning process, only enriches learners' store of knowledge. Thereby, we observe a positive effect from exploiting media texts at Russian language classroom. This conclusion is based on the results of the questionnaires conducted among the learners, aged 23-75, living in different countries (Argentina, Canada, Denmark, England, Norway, USA) and studying Russian as a foreign language individually online. This survey showed that 74% of learners find such tasks interesting and useful, 12% evaluate them "normal/neutral", 14% consider them difficult to discuss.
We believe that forming a modern and unbiased opinion about Russia and Russians is another reason why developing media literacy and critical thinking is crucial for adult learners at Russian language classroom. The image of Russia is being formed not only through movies which show Russian characters, but also through news media. As our experience of working
with the learners from North America and Europe shows, many of them do not know about the country at its current stage of development, or their opinion about Russia is affected by media. Our study revealed that, for instance, some American news channels and newspapers offer substantially political news or news, reflecting negative evaluation of the country, which leads to a corresponding perception of Russia and Russian life. As A. Novikova noticed "standards and values, models of social behavior, stereotypes, which we see in the screen, in one way or another influence on forming our picture of the world in general and about society" [Novikova, 2004, p. 14]. Thus, we noticed that western newspapers and TV channels in 2017 successively formed a negative image of Russia. We did not set a goal to find out the reasons of conscious or unconscious actions in creating such image; however, it is impossible to neglect negative connotations (scandal, influence, disqualification, violation etc.) in news headlines. Here are some examples taken from American news media sources:
Table 1. News headlines in American mass media in 2017
Source Headline Date
1. Washington Post www. washingtonpost. com Wondering if the Russians reached you over Facebook? You can soon find out November 25, 2017
2. NPR How the Trump-Russia scandal is playing in Russia May 20, 2017
3. NPR Russia continues to use social media to influence public opinion in the US September 28, 2017
4. CNN US says Russia intentionally violating Syria military agreement December 21, 2017
So news media offers political news about Russia with implicit or explicit negative content. In connection with this, it is important for Russian language instructors to show Russia in a different way: unpolitical, cultural and modern, and offer learners media texts revealing the country in another view. It is necessary to remark that, nowadays, movies or TV shows are available not only on websites on the Internet, but also through the online service Netflix that is popular in the US and in some other countries. This American company shows famous or relatively unknown movies and TV shows on demand and produces their own. Recently, the company acquired the rights to show Russian popular series such as Silver Spoon, Method, Fartsa. So it is the first time some Russian modern TV shows have become available on such a well-known online streaming service.
The remarkable fact about Russian movies on Netflix was placed on the website www.ranker.com (http://m.ranker.com/list/best-russian-language-movies-on-netflix/reference?): "Forget the American cliché of Russians being the bad guy; these films are funny, emotional, horrifying and just downright entertainment". This opinion supports existed cliches in media and society, so it is important to evaluate media messages/information critically and develop media literacy at Russian language classroom. Fedorov remarked that "Cinema (due to TV shows, videos, DVDs and Internet) is considered an effective means of media influence (including political and ideological influence) on the audience" [Fedorov, 2017, p.4].
Another successful usage of media at Russian language classroom is the discussion of Silver Spoon TV show. This criminal drama arose a keen interest among the learners. The survey of the same group of learners showed that 92% evaluated the choice of this TV show "positively", 8% "negatively" pointing out the following reasons: "too much slang" and "the plot is not interesting to me". Among the learners, who gave a positive review, 100% wished to watch the second season. The analysis of this TV show was based on the same principle - the development of critical thinking and media literacy as the work with How I became a Russian; yet, we eliminated the questions and statements connected with personal life experience due to the plot specifics, leaving only the analysis of characters and media stereotypes. Also, a survey
has been offered after watching all episodes of the 1st season. The following questions have been asked: "Did it surprise you the way Russia was portrayed?", "What exactly surprised you?", "Would you recommend watching the show to your friends?". 100% of the learners answered "yes" to the first question, which supports the hypothesis about single-sided portraying of Russia in foreign mass-media. Likewise, absolutely all respondents would recommend the Silver spoon to their friends. All the learners expressed a desire to watch the second season which in terms proves that certain contemporary Russian TV shows, particularly Silver spoon are qualitative and attractive to foreign viewers, therefore can be effectively utilized in teaching Russian language and develop media competence as well as raise interest towards the subject and the culture.
Conclusions
Thus, in today's reality the development of the critical thinking skills as well as media literacy in learners gains more and more significance and importance; therefore, it is necessary for instructors to find ways and instruments to incorporate this concept in the learning process.
Our experiment with using media (situational comedy How I became a Russian and criminal drama Silver spoon) indicates that this type of work contributes to the development of communicative competence, critical thinking and media literacy. Despite the lack of free time for performing grammatical and lexical assignments, adult learners are willing to watch TV shows and find them entertaining and beneficial. In addition, media texts help to bring diversity to the class, offering cultural and media educational aspects, opening up learners' creative abilities and develop an idea and opinion about the country, culture, values, new traditions as well as the old ones and people, living there.
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