Fecha de recepción: 14/09/2021 / Fecha de revisión: 10/03/2022 / Fecha de aceptación: 31/03/2022

Abstract: The present article aims to identify useful tips derived from an action research experience in teaching culture with films in an online high school class. To achieve this objective, an action research methodology was developed, in this sense, lesson plans were designed and implemented over four weeks through an academic intervention in first year high school students belonging to the "Luis Fernando Ruiz" Educational Institution. The data were obtained through some instruments applied, which included a teacher's reflection form, a peer observer´s table and a survey to students to obtain their comments. As a result, analysis of the data suggested some useful tips to teach culture with films in an online high school class, such as: a) Give clear instructions; b) Consider the length of the films; c) Use didactic material to attract students’ attention; d) Motivate students; e) Select online tools carefully; f) Give enough time to complete activities, g) Analyze student’s connectivity; h) Take into account the time; i) Promote students’ participation; and j) Provide some feedback. These results are subjected to certain limitations: the number of classes taught to students, number of students who attended classes, and the number of students who completed the survey. From these results, it is concluded that the use of films in teaching English contributes to students´ cultural knowledge and reinforces language learning. By integrating these tips in the language teaching process, it is possible to teach culture to EFL students in a motivating way, achieving the lesson objectives and so improving cultural knowledge.

keywords: Films, culture, language teaching.

Introduction

Today, we live in a completely diverse and, above all, multicultural world. Therefore, it is necessary to teach students that the world is not only what surrounds them, but that there is something more out there. This is often achieved through the teaching and learning of a foreign language because language is considered a fundamental component of any existing culture. To improve the teaching of culture to foreign language learners, several techniques have been devised, among which the use of films stands out, as it functions as a window through which it is possible to show more clearly what kind of behaviors, traditions and beliefs people from other cultures have (Yalcin, 2013).

Several studies have shown that the use of films in the classroom is an excellent teaching and cultural learning strategy for learners of English as a foreign language (e.g., Bottomley & Haill, 2008; Yalcin, 2013). However, there are no research studies reporting teaching tips derived from teachers and students’ experiences and opinions about teaching culture by films in an online class. By analyzing this action research experience, EFL teachers can feel interested in teaching culture explicitly. The research question that guided the study was: What are some useful tips derived from an action research experience in teaching culture with films in an online high school class?

Language is considered a fundamental part of culture since it plays a very important role in it; through the use of language, essential characteristics such as history, customs and traditions that identify a people or community can be made known (Jiang, 2000). According to Lebrón (2013), "culture is defined as a set of values and beliefs, or a set of learned behaviors that we share with others in a given society, giving us a sense of belonging and identity" (p. 126). Therefore, culture is directly related to the ideological principles and behaviors that a community may possess, considering the above characteristics of great importance in determining the identity of each community (Krasniqi, 2019).

Evidently, culture is established as a system in which a large body of knowledge can be evidenced. It is made up of fundamental elements that are shared by the same community. These cultural elements are directly related to beliefs, values, customs, products that can be generated, and ways of communicating, which are characteristic within each society (Dema & Moeller, 2012). To understand the cultural elements, it is necessary to analyze the 3Ps model: Products, Practices and Perspectives. Frank (2013) defines each of the components as follows:

Products: The products created within a culture areall those things that are tangible and intangible. Some of the tangible products are paintings, clothing, literary works and even buildings. On the other hand, intangible products are oral stories, a dance, a sacred ritual, among others.

Practices: Cultural practices are all those forms people possess to interact socially. It includes behaviors and moral values, which help to define a culture. In addition, traditions and beliefs are also considered the way in which people react to each social situation.

Perspectives: Perspectives within a culture relates to the meanings, attitudes, values and beliefs that can be identified within the different communities and societies.

Culture is a set of elements that represent a city, ethnic group or social group; among these are immersed beliefs, customs, values, behaviors, language and so on. Therefore, language, being one of the elements that make up culture, is considered to be a relevant characteristic of one individual from another. Language and culture are closely related, it can be established that language helps to share each of the thoughts, traditions, beliefs and ideas belonging to a community (Heidari et al., 2014). Therefore, culture has a great impact on the life, development and identity of each individual. The implementation of culture in the teaching of a second language is necessary due to the relationship that exists between the two. Purba (2011) expresses two reasons for the inevitability of incorporating cultural matters into an ESL/EFL program:

• The premise that since language and culture are inseparable, language teaching is culture teaching.
• The fact that the major goal of a foreign language program is the mastery of intercultural communicative competence.

Second language learning is not only about students learning grammar for application in oral and written practices. Rather, it is about applying culture in a didactic way so that they are able to recognize the important relationship that exists, guiding them to reinforce and build their cultural identity (Alvarez & Bonilla, 2009). There are several techniques and strategies that help to increase cultural understanding in language classrooms, these strategies are the use of textbooks, stories, role playing and the use of films (Karabinar & Guler, 2011).

Films are tools to generate greater cultural awareness within English classrooms. They are considered as excellent tools to foster cultural learning within classrooms. This is because students can observe various gestures, reactions to different social situations, how other cultures celebrate holidays and some traditions (Pandey, 2012). Similarly, Nur, (2016) explains that films are of great help to learners of English as a foreign language due to the fact that they can learn from cultural situations that they cannot perceive firsthand. Films not only help to improve cultural knowledge but also listening comprehension, vocabulary, and pronunciation (Sommer, 2001). On the other hand, it is established that there are many advantages to applying this type of cultural learning technique. This is because it is an undeniable fact that movies are considered as an eye-catching, and authentic way of teaching (Argynbayev et al., 2014). Teachers use films in EFL classrooms for various purposes, such as generating discussions, teaching historical events and, above all, teaching the culture of a foreign country (Goctu, 2017). The main purpose of using films in EFL classrooms is to grant students a first glimpse of intercultural life, demonstrate to them the main characteristics of a particular culture and, in turn, enhance English language learning (Taulean, 2017).

The use of films within classrooms can be adapted to the time that a class lasts, usually the whole film is not used, but fragments of films that have more cultural value are selected (Champoux, 1999). In this way, fragments of a movie or television series can be selected that are more related to the topics that will be developed during the class, demonstrating through it what are the situations that people from other cultures face, how they celebrate their holidays, what kind of gestures or ways of speaking are more common for them (Pezdek et al., 1984, as cited in Kabooha, 2016).

In order to teach culture through the use of films, a process must be followed which consists of, first, looking for adequate material, that is, films that are appropriate for the students according to their age. Another important point when selecting the material is to select videos that are not too long, that is, a short film, an excerpt from a movie, series or cartoon that contains only the cultural part to be taught. In addition, films that deal with taboo topics of the students' culture should be avoided. Finally, appropriate activities should be selected according to the film presented, i.e., although its purpose is to entertain, the vocabulary can sometimes be complicated for the student, so the activities to be performed before or after watching films, should provide sufficient knowledge for a better understanding of the vocabulary used in the film. (Sherman, 2003 as cited in Yalcin et al., 2013).

Another aspect to take into account when planning a lesson with films is the time class. The number of learning activities for a lesson is subject not only to the students’ comprehension but also for the time you actually have. It is true that the duration of a class is extended to meet all those needs that the student may have throughout the learning process (Joyner & Molina, 2019), but we have to respect the students’ schedule. Therefore, excerpts from the films lasting between 1 and 3 minutes should be used, clearly these excerpts should contain a high load of cultural concomitance, moreover the scenes should be fully comprehensible (Argynbayev et al., 2014).

Moreover, teachers have to set the learning objective, what do you want your students to learn? Then select meaningful activities to achieve that goal. Any activity for listening lessons may be used: making predictions, filling in a chart, ordering ideas, etc. The way in which the teacher organizes his or her class can have positive or negative impacts, especially if the time scheduled for each class activity is not distributed correctly (Escabias & Ortega, 2006). Good distribution of time helps the teachers to plan increasingly entertaining activities, thus minimizing future dissatisfaction or complaints that students may express due to lack of time when performing some activity. The planning process is the stage where teachers make the most important decisions; selecting technological tools is part of it. Online tools allow students to improve skills related to the acquisition of a foreign language (Maridueña, 2019). If used properly, the teaching-learning process is strengthened and a more interactive and motivating educational environment is generated (Başal & Aytan, 2014). In order to select the appropriate virtual tools, the various technological problems that hinder the use of these virtual tools by students should be considered. One of the great challenges of virtual education focuses on the problems that students have during an online class. The main problem is access to a good internet network, which triggers other problems such as difficulty in downloading material, problems accessing virtual meetings and various setbacks in online exams; all this hinders the learning process (Mahyoob, 2020). On the other hand, teachers also suffer from these technological problems, which mostly fall on the lack of training courses and little technical advice, hindering their work within the virtual educational environment (Mohammed, 2020).

As aforementioned, teaching culture with films may be very similar to teaching listening. In order to achieve the proposed objectives throughout the teaching-learning process in EFL classrooms, the teachers must be aware of the importance of giving clear instructions so that students can do the activities successfully. When instructing the students, the teacher must use clear and precise language so that each activity to be developed is carried out in the simplest possible way (Kemma, 2019). Therefore, a good explanation and instruction by the teacher will determine the result of the work that students will perform throughout the class, being a total success or failure (Margaretha, 2015).

Even though the use of films is a good source of motivation (Xiaoqiong & Xianxing, 2008), it is necessary to use technological tools that will help the student to be motivated to learn within the virtual educational environment (Harbi, 2016). Within the virtual environment, motivation serves as an impetus for students to perform well academically in addition to ensuring that the online teaching-learning process runs as smoothly as possible (Eastmond, 2003). The process of motivation is not entirely easy, due to there are internal and external factors in the learner that must be fostered (Alshenqeeti, 2018). These factors are established as intrinsic and extrinsic motivation; intrinsic motivation being based on the learner's own autonomy and feeling of achievement, and on the other hand extrinsic motivation being based on the rewards that the learner can get from an external being, in this case the teacher (Bernard, 2018), however the virtual learning environment is completely based on intrinsic motivation, this is because students are interested in the use of technological tools which in turn fuels their own interest in learning (Hartnett, 2016). On the other hand, if the teacher uses various didactic resources creatively within the classroom, it will capture the full attention of the students and increase their motivation for learning (Benítes, 2018).

An important aspect to take into account when teaching culture with films is student’s participation. Students’ participation is a fundamental factor in education because learning becomes more effective, ensures the student's personal development and helps to clarify doubts (Abdullah et al., 2012). According to Chi and Mai (2020), there are some strategies that teachers can use to promote student’s participation:

Employing cooperative work: Teachers can use paired and group work to provide learners with more opportunities to practice the target language. Cooperative work increases speaking time and creates a good learning atmosphere.

Creating a pleasant classroom climate: Teachers can create pleasant environment by using jokes, positive comments, and interesting activities. A pleasant classroom promotes s students’ participation. . This motivates students to take the risk of speaking in the classroom, leaving shyness aside.

Including interesting learning tasks: To improve students' willingness to participate in class, it is necessary to engage their interest with learning tasks that are fun, useful or challenging so that students have the confidence to speak up during class.

Promoting students’ self-confidence: Promoting learner self-confidence functions as one of the most important strategies that serve to promote and increase learner participation in the classroom. In addition, it is important to make learners aware that communication is more important than the correct use of grammar, which increases learners' confidence.

Providing positive error correction: A positive correction will help to increase the students’ confidence. and participation. Culture based lessons with films can include pronunciation activities followed by corrections. This promotes a better understanding of the video and pronunciation development. In this context, Gilakjani et al. (2011) state that the lack of second language pronunciation development is not addressed in a completely important way. Thus, Ahangari (2014) suggests implementing different modes of correction:

Teacher’s Correction: Within the English classroom, teacher correction or feedback plays a very important role in improving learners' pronunciation. There are different factors that teachers must take into account when correcting: the learner's level of English, the needs and expectations that are generated during the learning process, and the approach to feedback.

Peer Correction: It is considered a formative developmental process that offers students the opportunity to correct and learn from each other in a more comfortable environment where they can express themselves with more confidence.

Methodology

In order to answer the research question, a practical action research method was applied since this type of research "involves educators examining a school situation with a view to improving practice"(Creswell, 2012, p. 592). The study was developed in a public institution with 18 students (7 female and 11 male) between 14 and 15 years old. According the their English teacher, they have an A1 level according to the Common European Framework, which means that they are able to understand and use very frequently used everyday expressions to communicate about themselves. We used a convenience sampling (a non-probability sampling) technique. Students were selected because they were conveniently available to the researchers during their teaching practice.

This research study was based on six steps (Ferrance, 2000). First, identify the problem: where we observed previous classes to identify several shortcomings on the teaching practice, which helped us to identify the problem. Second, collect data: once the problem was identified, it means the students’ low motivation due to the traditional strategy used in classes, and also that almost nothing of culture was taught, we did a bibliographic research in order to identify which strategy would be the best to apply in our culture classes, that besides being effective and motivating for learning. Third, interpret the data: according to analysis of the data collected, we decided to apply videos as a way to incorporate cultural knowledge and understanding in students since they almost never received this content and as a motivating and innovative strategy besides the traditional one. Fourth, act on the evidence: we decided to design four lesson plans including the pedagogical strategy (use of videos), the objective, the skills to enhance, the framework, the activities per stage, the cultural topics, the tasks or online activities, the time per stage and the assessing mode. Fifth, evaluate the results: we did a reflection process by using some instruments such as: the teaching reflection form, the peer teacher’s observation form, and the students’ open ended surveys to obtain different points of view of the pros and cons of each class. Sixth, next steps: according to the analysis of the results, we decided action plans to improve in the next lesson plans.

Data analysis

We read the teacher and peer teacher reflection forms as well as the students’ comments in the open ended surveys highlighting positive and negative points. We triangulated the information from different instruments and organized the extracts into categories: classroom instructions, technological tools, didactic material, motivation. time management, participation, and feedback. A thematic analysis was applied in order to infer those categories. Finally, we turned these categories into tips. Because of ethical considerations, we used codes to identify participants. The English teacher was identified as ET, the peer teacher as PT. We did not assigned any code to the students because the survey was anonymous.

Results and Discussion

To answer the research question about useful tips derived from an action research experience in teaching culture with films in an online high school class, we analyzed the excerpts from the Teacher’s reflection, the Student’s reflection and the peer teacher´s reflection form. These tips are:

Give clear instructions

Excerpts from the Teacher’s reflection:

I explained how to do the activities in the best possible way. (ET)

Excerpts from the Student’s reflection:

Amm, me gusta cómo explica la teacher, las clases son muy buenas. [Amm, I like the way the teacher explains, the classes are very good.]

Excerpts from the peer teacher´s reflection:

My partner knows how to explain the instructions in a very understandable way, which makes all students understand the topic and the instructions. (PT)

Teachers are encouraged to be as clear as possible when giving instructions, explaining ideas, and explaining activities in the learning environment. According to the excerpts from the teacher's reflection, the teacher explained the class in the best possible way. The student's reflection excerpts indicate that they like the way the teacher delivers the lessons and finally the teacher's peers' reflection excerpts show that their peer teacher explains the lessons in the most understandable way which makes all the students understand the topic and the instructions as a whole. These results show that a good delivery of instructions ensures understanding and engagement. A good explanation and instruction by the teacher will determine the result of the work that students will perform throughout the class, being a total success or failure (Margaretha, 2015).

Consider the length of the films

Excerpts from the Teacher’s reflection:

I used only an excerpt from the TV series Friends to demonstrate cultural differences. (ET)

Excerpts from the Student’s reflection:

Me gusta la utilización de vídeos en la clase. [I like the use of videos in the class.]

Excerpts from the peer teacher´s reflection:

The Halloween short episode of Friends series helped them understand how October 31 is celebrated. (PT)

The use of films in online classes is recommended as this strategy has a great positive impact on the students. It is important to emphasize that the videos used should be short, maximum 3 minutes, or only excerpts of the video that emphasizes the cultural contribution. The purpose of this is not to lose the student's attention. According to the excerpts from the teacher's reflection, the teacher indicates that short videos were used to demonstrate cultural differences. The excerpts from the student's reflection indicate that they like the use of this strategy in the virtual environment and finally the excerpts from the teacher's peers' reflection show that the short films help to better understand the topic being taught. These results show that the use of the cultural teaching strategy proved to have great acceptance by the students, demonstrating that they even enjoy this form of teaching, besides improving the understanding of some traditions and celebrations in American culture. Due to the time duration of each class, excerpts from the films lasting between 1 and 3 minutes should be used, clearly these excerpts should contain a high load of cultural concomitance, moreover the scenes should be fully comprehensible (Argynbayev et al., 2014).

Use didactic material to attract students’ attention

Excerpts from the Teacher’s reflection:

I used eye-catching slides and included music to teach the class. (ET)

Excerpts from the Student’s reflection:

Usar música hizo la clase más entretenida. [Using music made the class more entertaining.]

Extractos de la reflexión de los profesores:

By using didactic material, the students showed great interest and paid more attention in class, since music was included in some activities. (PT)

The use of didactic material that attracts the attention of the students is recommended, i.e., presenting the cultural theme in colorful and animated slides and accompanying the videos with entertaining music. According to the excerpts from the teacher's reflection, the teacher includes slides and music to make the class unique and eye-catching. The excerpts from the student's reflection indicate that the use of music made the class more entertaining and finally the excerpts from the reflection of the teacher's peers' reflection show that the students show more interest when these aforementioned didactic resources are used in the class. These results show that the use of didactic resources such as music and slides helps students pay more attention and show more interest in the development of activities and the topic itself. If the teacher uses musical resources creatively within the classroom, it will capture the students' full attention and increase their motivation for learning (Benítes, 2018).

Motivate students

Excerpts from the Teacher’s reflection:

In class, I decided to give extra points to those who finish the activities first to motivate them. (ET)

Excerpts from the Student’s reflection:

Que se realicen más actividades con puntos extra. [We want more activities with extra points.]

Excerpts from the peer teacher´s reflection:

The students were motivated and solved the activities quickly. (PT)

Students should be motivated to participate in class by rewarding their performance, i.e., awarding extra points. The reason why this is recommended is because, if there is no adequate motivation for the students, it has been evidenced that they do not participate voluntarily. According to the excerpts from the teacher's reflection, the teacher decided to implement these extra points to the students who finish the activities first. The excerpts from the student's reflection indicate that they want to do more activities that give them extra points and finally the excerpts from the reflection of the teacher's peers' reflection show that this type of motivation has a high impact on the students since in this way they do solve the different activities and participate in class. These results show that motivation in the classroom helps stimulate student learning and promotes interest in what they are learning. Extrinsic motivation was carried out within the English classes, resulting in students who worked more efficiently in terms of solving activities. Also, extrinsic motivation being based on the rewards that the learner can get from an external being, in this case the teacher (Bernard, 2018)

Select online tools carefully

Excerpts from the Teacher’s reflection:

I used the "LearningApps" website to make the activities more interactive. (ET)

Excerpts from the Student’s reflection:

Amm la página de las actividades fue muy cheveres. [Amm the activities page was very cool.]

Excerpts from the peer teacher´s reflection:

The activities carried out on the web page attracted a lot of attention, as well as the improvement of the virtual classes. (PT)

Online tools are recommended, i.e., applications or websites that allow interacting with students in a more dynamic way, this in addition to helping online classes to be more attractive, also help us to monitor the progress of students' work. According to the excerpts from the teacher's reflection, the teacher used the LearningApps website to create activities full of creativity. The excerpts from the student's reflection indicate that they find these online tools great for their learning and finally the excerpts from the teacher's peers' reflection show that conducting activities using these websites captures the student's attention and improves online classroom performance. These results show that online tools help to improve virtual learning, mostly used to develop interactive and entertaining activities, which will be applied during the class. Since education has taken a virtual modality, most English teachers have found it necessary to work with virtual platforms and online tools that allow students to improve skills related to the acquisition of a foreign language (Maridueña, 2019) .

Give enough time to complete activities

Excerpts from the Teacher’s reflection:

I allocate the time for the listening activities according to my planning and the time given by the platform used. (ET)

Excerpts from the Student’s reflection:

Falta tiempo para hacer las actividades. [Lack of time to do the activities.]

Excerpts from the peer teacher´s reflection:

Due to the time provided on the platform, students did not have much time for the listening activities. (PT)

Students should be given adequate and sufficient time to perform the online listening activities proposed by the teacher, that is, to plan well the time that the student needs to work in class, otherwise the student will feel frustrated for not being able to do it on time. According to the excerpts from the teacher's reflection, in certain classes the students cannot do the activities on time and that is why the time should be distributed in an adequate way. The extracts from the student's reflection indicate that a drawback is the lack of time and finally the extracts from the reflection of the teacher's peers' reflection show that it is true that students have limited time to develop the activities proposed by their teacher, so the time for each activity should be extended. These results show that students are not used to doing listening activities, the time is not enough for them. However, the way in which the teacher organizes his or her class can have positive or negative repercussions, especially if the time allotted for each class activity is not correctly distributed (Escabias & Ortega, 2006).

Analyze student’s connectivity and technology problems

Excerpts from the Teacher’s reflection:

I made sure that my technological equipment was in the best condition for teaching, but students have technological problems. (ET)

Excerpts from the Student’s reflection:

No puedo escuchar bien. [I can't hear well.]

Excerpts from the peer teacher´s reflection:

Due to technological problems some students could not understand the class. (PT)

Technological equipment in use should be in good condition to ensure that there are no interruptions, audio or image problems, or interference due to technological problems. These technological interferences can be solved with anticipation by maintaining the equipment used to teach and receive online classes. According to the excerpts from the teacher's reflection, the teacher knows how to keep his equipment in good condition so that the class can develop normally, without any interference. The extracts from the student's reflection indicate that on certain occasions they have technological difficulties since they do not have the adequate equipment to receive online classes and finally the extracts from the reflection of the teacher's peers' reflection show that due to the technological problems presented by the students they cannot understand the class in its entirety. These results show that some students do not have a good internet connection and technological equipment, which is why they cannot listen, watch or have poor image quality online. These technological problems discourage students from attending and participating in classes. One of the great challenges is access to a good internet network (Mahyoob, 2020).

Take into account the time

Excerpts from the Teacher’s reflection:

I conduct the class for as long as the Zoom platform allows. (ET)

Excerpts from the Student’s reflection:

Un poco más de tiempo. [A little more time.]

Excerpts from the peer teacher´s reflection:

The zoom platform does not allow to schedule classes longer than 40 minutes. (PT)

Class duration is recommended not to exceed 40 minutes, the reason being that if the class is too long, the student will feel exhausted and spending too much time using technological devices leads to health problems. According to the excerpts from the teacher's reflection, the duration of the class is 40 minutes as this is the maximum time that the Zoom platform allows, therefore the entire time allowed is used. The extracts of the student's reflection indicate that a small part of them want the class to be longer, however as mentioned above, this is not recommended, and it is not allowed by the platform used; finally, the extracts of the reflection of the teacher's classmate show that the aforementioned platform by which classes are taught does not allow long meetings, which is why 40 minutes for a well distributed class is enough. These results show that a small part of the students mentioned that they would like more class time. In some cases it is suggested that the duration of a class is extended to meet all those needs that the student may have throughout the learning process (Joyner & Molina, 2019).

Promote students’ participation

Excerpts from the Teacher’s reflection:

I get all students to actively participate in class even if they do not want to. (ET)

Excerpts from the Student’s reflection:

No creo necesaria la participación. [I do not believe that participation is necessary.]

Excerpts from the peer teacher´s reflection:

Students who do not want to participate do not turn on their microphones or leave the meeting. (PT)

Given the pandemic that the world is going through, it is recommended to make the students participate actively in class, due to the fact that not all students are connected to receive their online classes, that is why it is necessary to make the students participate when they attend, in order to guarantee the learning of the students. According to the excerpts from the teacher's reflection, students are made to participate even if they do not want to do so, i.e. in a forced way. The excerpts from the student's reflection indicate that they do not believe that their participation is necessary, and finally the excerpts from the teacher's peers' reflection show that when students do not want to participate, they simply leave the class or do not respond to their teacher, which makes the class frustrating for the teacher. These results show us that students do not consider their participation in class to be important, however, the teacher should push the students to participate because if you do not do so, the class will not be productive and will not have beneficiaries. The participation of a student is a fundamental factor in education, this because learning becomes more effective, ensures the student's personal development and most importantly helps to clear the doubts acquired during the class (Abdullah et al., 2012).

Provide some feedback

Excerpts from the Teacher’s reflection:

I repeat the words with the students several times in both languages to make it easier for them to pronounce correctly and the videos make them improve their pronunciation. (ET)

Excerpts from the Student’s reflection:

Algunas palabras son difíciles para pronunciar. [Some words are difficult to pronounce.]

Excerpts from the peer teacher´s reflection:

Students who have difficulty in pronunciation do not wish to participate. (PT)

Emphasis should be placed on the oral part of the students' learning, i.e., continually practicing the pronunciation of the English language. According to the excerpts from the teacher's reflection, the teacher repeats the difficult words for the students several times in both languages, with the objective that the students improve their performance in pronunciation. The excerpts from the student's reflection indicate that some words are difficult to pronounce, and finally the excerpts from the teacher's peers' reflection show that the students have difficulty in pronunciation and that is why they sometimes do not want to participate. These results show that some students find it difficult to pronounce certain words, this is due to the fact that the emphasis was not placed on the pronunciation part before, which is why this activity is strange and they do not want to participate. This idea is supported by (Gilakjani et al., 2011) by stating that “Lack of emphasis on pronunciation development may be due to a general lack of fervor on the part of the second language acquisition researchers, second language teachers and students, that pronunciation of a second language is not very important.” (p.77).

Conclusions

Language and culture are closely related, so it is important to consider these two elements in the second language teaching, since the interconnection among them will permit to share aspects such as thoughts, ideas, beliefs and traditions between the first and second language culture.

This action research suggests that some useful tips to teach culture with films in an online high school class are: a) Give clear instructions; b) Consider the length of the films; c) Use didactic material to attract students’ attention; d) Motivate students; e) Select online tools carefully; f) Give enough time to complete activities, g) Analyze student’s connectivity; h) Take into account the time; i) Promote students’ participation; and, j) Provide some feedback. By integrating all these tips in the teaching process, it is possible to teach culture to students in a motivating way, permitting to achieve the lesson objectives about improving cultural knowledge.

These conclusions are subject to certain limitations such as: Number of classes taught to students, number of students who attended the classes, and number of students who completed the survey. A deep classroom action research needs to be conducted to investigate students’ improvement in oral and cultural competences through teaching culture with films.

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