Abstract
This chapter discussed incorporating the wedding scenes in Yi-Mou Zhang's Raise the Red Lantern (1991) and Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet (1993) into a flipped classroom in higher education to teach students traditional Chinese wedding and marriage. The chapter adopted a multimodal perspective, relying on the visual and aural modes to exhibit the traditional Chinese marriage concepts, wedding procedures, activities, participants, decorations, music, colours, and the newlyweds' wedding dresses (attires, makeup, hairstyles) to students. The study demonstrated that films helped the instructor illustrate cultural theories and concepts and promoted students' cultural learning. Students' performance revealed that the flipped model enhances preparatory work and active learning, and embedding films into teaching has benefits and drawbacks.
TopBackground
Culture is defined as ‘a complex system of concepts, attitudes, values, beliefs, conventions, behaviours, practices, rituals, and lifestyles of the people who make up a cultural group, as well as the artifacts they produce and the institution they create’ (Liddicoat, Papademetre, Scarino, & Kohler, 2003, p. 45). Students can gain cultural experience by immersing themselves in a target culture. Yet, not all of them have the opportunity to live in or travel to a foreign culture. In this sense, integrating films into the teaching and learning activities is necessary as ‘film is uniquely equipped to record and reveal physical reality’ (Kracauer, 1997, p. 28). Films tell stories about people, demonstrate socially acceptable behaviours, and show changes and developments in cultural conventions. They are an effective platform for teaching and learning culture (Champoux, 1999; Mallinger & Rossy, 2003, p. 608). Robert Watson points out that
[T]he culture provided by all the mass media, but particularly by film and television, represents the most significant environmental factor that teachers have to take into account.
(Watson cited in Istanto, 2009, p. 280)
Key Terms in this Chapter
High-Context Culture: Refers to cultural messages that ‘relies heavily on subtle, often nonverbal cues to convey meaning’ ( Adler et al., 2012 , p. 47).
Traditional Chinese Wedding: Consists of pre-wedding, wedding, and post-wedding customs.
Eight Letters: Represent the girl’s birth date.
Six Etiquettes: Includes marriage proposal, finding the bride’s name and birthday, visiting the astrological expert, presenting betrothal gifts, selecting a wedding date, and the wedding day. It is about pre-wedding and wedding traditions.
Culture: Is defined as ‘a complex system of concepts, attitudes, values, beliefs, conventions, behaviours, practices, rituals, and lifestyles of the people who make up a cultural group, as well as the artifacts they produce and the institution they create’ ( Liddicoat et al., 2003 , p. 45).
Traditional Chinese Marriage: Is the union of the newlyweds and the alliance of the interests of their families.
Low-Context Culture: Refers to clearly and logically expressed customs, values, beliefs, and conventions.
Flipped Class: Is defined as the use of ‘asynchronous video lectures and practice problems as homework, and active, group-based problem-solving activities in the classroom’ ( Bishop & Verleger, 2013 , p. 1).