During this second part of the term we went through the unit named: “Media, Culture and Society”. In regards to the unit itself, I must be honest and expose that at first I didn’t like the unit because it didn’t make sense at all as we were mainly dealing with Indian movies! I thought: “What’s going on here!” After that, when we covered wars it became interesting. Following this idea, I noticed that visual arts as well as movies they both have a tremendous influence on our society as they both – sometimes – cause strong reactions, shifting people’s point of views. Along with this, through visual arts we can learn a lot about different cultures. For instance, the Indean industry cinema: Bollywood.
What I undoubtedly enjoyed the most was the topic about second world war, specifically The Holocaust. We had to watch an astonishing film called “The Schinlder’s list”. This movie depicts perfectly that topic and it is very shocking as well. Certainly, it is a movie that people have to see in order to be aware of that event. Moreover, one of the text that I read for the reading seminar is about “The Holocaust”which is called “Man’s search for meaning” by Viktor Frankl. This text is excellent and I really loved it.
Regarding teachers’ methodology, I strongly believe that they made a great contribution to our learning process in terms of methodology. On one hand, they followed a very structured but flexible method which is pre, while and post. On the other hand, they complemented their classes with films, videos and readings which enriched our previous knowledge.
Furthermore, they provided a proper space to discuss in classes about different aspects related to the different topics in a respectful manner. However, I would like to point out that though readings were marvelous in terms of content, in occasions the amount of pages assigned for each class were too long. Therefore, sometimes many of us could not read considering other subjects’ demands. In conclusion, discussions could be even greater and profound if we had the chance to go deeper into the readings more slowly.
In terms of language, I feel satisfied with some of the teachers who were really concerned with modeling and checking student’s language production. In addition, we had a broad space for discussion as I already mentioned which forced us to use the language. All the visual aids were excellent resources to lead us to a higher level of language. Teachers were completely prepared to work with ITC’s and were efficient when applying them in the classes.
To conclude, I learnt that you may combine different resources respecting the methodology to improve learning environment. We could clearly recognize the different stages of the class, and further, we could realize the transition of the whole unit until its closure.
Memories of a Dancer 