The Film in Language Teaching Association (FILTA): a multilingual community of practice

Abstract

This article presents the Film in Language Teaching Association (FILTA) project, a community of practice (CoP) whose main goals are first to engage language teachers in practical uses of film and audio-visual media in the second language classroom; second, to value the artistic features of cinema; and third, to encourage a dialogue between language teachers in order to share activities and creative approaches to the use of film and audio-visual texts in language teaching. This article examines the origin, development, experiences, and practices of the international and multilingual community of language teachers that forms FILTA (a community which includes teachers of Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Mandarin, Spanish, and Urdu). It also looks at some recent European audio-visual and education policies that permeate current trends of film literacy in language teaching, and considers future challenges, including how to maintain growth and further promote engagement within this diverse CoP.