Literature has been traditionally understood having dual purpose of entertaining and educating its audience. Literary texts are constructed in effect as objects of beauty, sources of pleasure and as conveyors of messages and information. The entertaining and beautiful aspect of literary works acts in reality as part of the appeal and attractiveness which the work tries to attach to the ideas which it seeks to convey. The beauty of literature is therefore a part of its rhetoric, a device intended to strengthen the overall persuasiveness and influence of the work on its audience.
While the entertaining aspect of literature may be rather obvious, understanding the ideas or values which a text advances is not always a simple task. Literature, much like modern advertisement, is often an attempt at persuasion which operates on subliminal levels and artfully instills its message by concealing it under a cover of fictional situations and devices affecting the audience on emotional, intuitive, experiential, and instinctive levels. In a world which is increasingly mediated by communication and information technologies, teachers are faced with far-reaching demands to integrate new technologies into teaching and learning.The role of the school teacher is evolving from that of a giver of information to that of a facilitator of student learning.
New technologies already exist to help teachers complete the evolution. Understanding that students learn in different ways. Most adults believe that the role of students is to get an education; they emphasize school, homework, and learning. Yet, for most learners, school is the place where they hang out with friends, homework is a chore that they're required to do, and they are far more interested in learning about the social world around them.
Teens try to spend as much time with their friends as possible. In school, this means passing notes, finding friends between classes, gathering with friends for lunch, and hanging out after school for as long as possible. Even structured activities like sports are often more about friends than the activity itself. Media plays a heavy role in teens' lives. Their primary gathering space is friends' houses where movies and video games are popular things to do with friends.Marshall McLuhan (1964 as cited by David H.
Jonassen 2004) believes that the way the media technology balances the senses creates its own form of thinking and communicating and eventually alters the balance of human senses. He believes that oral communication makes hearing dominant and thought simultaneous and circular. As students come of age within media saturated culture, parents and teachers need to recognize the new skills these students possess to survive as independent and critical thinkers in a democratic society. Because society now gets most of its information from television, movies, radio and the web, proficiency on print is no longer enough.In the US and even in the country, the mall and movie theater still dominate as desirable places to go on weekends, casual discussion about movies often reveals a recognition of, and a cultural investment in, the understanding the film’s meaning.
An unparalleled window on the world, movies introduces people to faraway scenes, new concepts and ideas. Property used, it is the most powerful educational device ever invented, with lessons to teach about human interactions, science and literature, history and current events.It can even provide viewers with instruction on human behavior and how to act (Osborn as cited by Noleta Bancud and Rowena Nazareno 2006). Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them. It is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment and a powerful method for educating citizens. The visual elements of cinema give motion pictures a universal power of communication.
They provide us a giant mirror that reflects ideas, values, truths, and half- truths of society.The magic of production can make history, novels and plays come to life. One can travel to great countries of the ancient and medieval world, meet celebrated personalities of the time, even witness and participate in events that make history in distant parts of the globe. There is no end to the wonders that movies bring as communication experience. Indeed the power of film maker to shape our attitudes and unrivaled in all of mass communication.Philippine Cinema has reached its full circle.
t is at a stage of refining and formulating its own conventions and, in the process, getting in close contact with the ferment in the other arts and at the same time, the serious critical attention and concern of people with a broader interest in culture. Movies are themes on Philippine literature. Starting with Dalagang Bukid, early films dug into traditional theater forms for character types , twists and turns in the plot, familiar themes and conventions in acting. This set the trend of Philippine films based entirely on immensely popular dramas or sarswelas .Besides providing ready materials, this device of using theater pieces ensured an already existing market. From the komedya of the sarswela, the typical Filipino aksyon movie was to develop.
The line dividing the good and the bad in the komedya was religion with the Christians being the good and the Moors representing the bad. In present movies, the line that divides the two is now law or class division. The sinakulo or the passion play was the root of the conventional Filipino melodrama.The Virgin Mary became the “all-suffering, all-forgiving Filipino Mother” and Jesus was the “savior of societies under threat and the redeemer of all those who have gone wrong”. Francisco Baltazar and Jose Rizal, through the classics for which they were famous, have given the industry situations and character types that continue to this day to give meat to films both great and mediocre Students have the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies to communicate and critique what the media is doing to embrace and expound culture to society.To have and share common ideals and aspirations and to share a common history, culture and language, beyond many differences as Filipinos, to make us one nation.
This is for the purpose of making them develop critical thinking and significant human experience on applying movies in learning literature. Significance of the Study The study on the use of Independent Film as a tool in enhancing the teaching of Philippine Literature can be a learning paradigm in schools to enhance the students’ knowledge and understanding skills as well.This is a small contribution not only to basic education but by developing significant human experience that can be learned by today’s students in acquisition of learning skills and knowledge for full participation in the country’s society since literature is a criticism of life it is also a pleasant pastime, an enjoyable companion in all ages and conditions of health.The roject’s goal is designed to help students improve academic competence, develop and basic literature as it is our common stock knowledge and understanding about people, places, events, ideas, expressions and other matters regarding our own country and the world beyond that allow us to communicate and interact as members of one society and community. This goal can be achieved through the mentors that can teach the students knowledge in media technology for use of the process. The output of this study is a source material that the teachers can assimilate and disseminate by diffusion and application technique.
