Pre-service EFL teachers’ engagement with movie segments in an advanced reading class

The main purpose of this study was to investigate how short segments from movies can help learners raise their cultural and social awareness in an advanced reading class. The study also aimed at finding pre-service teachers’ perceptions toward integrating movie-based lessons into their future teaching. This study was implemented with 30 pre-service teachers enrolled at an ELT Program of state university in Turkey. All pre-service teachers were instructed to respond to an initial and a final questionnaire, and the results revealed that using movie segments in the reading classes positively affected pre-service teachers’ cultural and social awareness and their views on integrating movie-based lessons in their future teaching. After teaching sessions, pre-service teachers argued that using movie segments in their reading classes was enjoyable and provided a very different experience than the ones in other classes. Participants believed that cultural and social awareness about other cultures changed their views about other countries and enabled them to accept the differences between two cultures. Therefore, it is important for future teachers to have such movie-centered learning and teaching experiences before they graduate.