Films and audiovisual resources as didactic material

Abstract

The film is understood as a multifaceted advent capable of creating worlds, enlivening lives and raising questions. It is a first class didactic material that may get in classrooms and be used from several perspectives. The objective was to reveal why films are used by professors. Fifteen professors who use films as didactic material participated in the research, nine women (60%) and six were men (40%). All volunteers work in Portugal and teach at Higher level, which 60% working in Porto, 20% in Braga and another 20% in Lisbon. It was resulted that the participants use films for four reasons: to attract/motivate students more, to complement or illustrate the content taught in class through audiovisual peculiarities, to diversify teaching methods and to promote critical reflection. Lev Vygotsky’s interactionist theory was used as a theoretical framework to analyse the results. Films are a well-accepted resource by professors and students, who are able to better explain and understand, respectively, certain concepts. In the Vygotskian view, the beneficial effect of films is due to the ZPD being accessed by filmic signs, in order to promote the transition from the real to the potential development.