The advancement of the internet and digital tools have revolutionized the teaching strategies of history courses through the utilization of movies and television programs. Given their captivating features, I agree that these teaching and learning resources should be used as supplementary learning media in history lessons despite their weaknesses in terms of information accuracy.
First, films and documentaries offer an engaging learning approach through a multimodal input. Such media could attract students’ interest in learning past histories in an exciting way rather than reading long texts from a printed schoolbook. For instance, students not only watch the visual information throughout the scenes, but also listen to narratives and plots of the films. These multiple inputs are a strategic approach to keep students’ focus to a lesson. Moreover, they are likely to remember both the moments happening in the past and the valuable lessons they can apply in real life.
Additionally, these facilities could help teachers hone students’ critical thinking by evaluating the accuracy of the films and TV shows by comparing them with the contents of textbooks designed by educators. Through this way, learners become aware that films are basically a mixture of artwork and historical values, and viewers should be able to differentiate between the past reality and entertainment aspects of the shows. This active learning method will equip students with essential skills in this era of digitalization.
In conclusion, audio-visual input from films and documentaries are appropriate to be used as an additional learning resource in history courses due to their interesting features. Additionally, through the teacher guidance, this learning approach can enhance learners’ ability to think critically and become digitally-literate society members in the future.