Understanding the Other ?

Using film to promote intercultural competence in Higher Education in

the UK

Isabelle Vanderschelden, MMU and FILTA

Examples of units currently taught in the UK universities

• MMU : Images and Identities in France • Bangor: Race and immigration in France • Manchester : Ethnicity in French and francophone

culture• Exeter : Diasporic cinemas, Introduction to

postcolonial Francophone cinema • Southampton: Fragmented France: Cultures and

identities in transition• Leeds : Francophone culture module (including film)

Examples of relevant films• La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz 1995)• Ressources humaines/Human Resources (L. Cantet 1999)• Samia (Philippe Faucon 2001)• L’Auberge espagnole (Cedric Klapisch 2002)• La Fille de Keltoum/Keltoum’s daughter (Medhi Charef 2002)• Le Grand voyage (Ismail Ferroukhi, 2004)• Exils/Exiles (Tony Gatlif, 2004) • Entre les murs/The Class (Laurent Cantet, 2008) • Française (Souad El Bouhati, 2008) • Welcome (Philippe Lioret, 2009) • Mr Lazhar (Philippe Falardeau 2011 ) • Le Fils de l’autre (Lorraine Levy, 2012) • Né quelque part/Homeland (Mohammed Hamidi 2013)

Three possible approaches

1 How best to explore the assets of a multimodal approach to engage students in understanding the Other, as represented in “accented” films.

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Redesigned

2 Organise teaching tasks around intercultural competence, as opposed to teaching cultural differences and knowledge of the culture of the language studied.

3 Generate real debate in seminars and (student-led) intercultural dialogue around themes which can be viewed as sensitive, especially within heterogeneous classes.

Three learning contexts

• Undergraduate language classes • Professional / more specialised

language modules• Culture content modules

Common European framework

• When people are talking to each other their social identities are unavoidably part of the social interaction between them. In language teaching, the concept of 'communicative competence' takes this into account by emphasising that language learners need to acquire not just grammatical competence but also the knowledge of what is 'appropriate' language. (Byram, Gribkova and Starkey in the European Framework 2002: 5)

Naficy

• Naficy, H. ed. (1999) Home, Exile, Homeland: Film, nmedia, and the politics of place London: Routledge.

• Naficy, H. (2001) An Accented Cinema: Exilic and diasporic filmmaking Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Interculturel

• Collès, L. (2007) Interculturel : Des questions vives pour le temps présent Fernelmont, Bel. EME

• Fontenay, H., D. Groult et G. Leidelinger (2011) Classe de langues et culture(s) : vers l’interculturalité Paris : L’Harmattan.

• Verbunt, G. (2011) Penser et vivre l’interculturel Lyon : Chronique sociale.

Examples of scholarly work

• Tarr, C. (2005) Reframing Difference: Beur and banlieue Filmmaking in France Manchester University press.

• Loshitzsky, Yosefa (2010) Screening Strangers: Immigration and diaspora in contemporary European cinema Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

• Higbee, Will (2013) Post-Beur cinema: North African Emigré and Maghrebi-French filmmaking in France since 2000 Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.