How to Improve Movie Appreciation of University Students

The author\u27s main research field is ail analysis of the present-day English language in terms of generative syntax and he is also interested in English education with the help of computers (and network), but he has annually acted as an organizer of a half-year lecture course on movies in the general education program at Kyushu University since 1996. The purpose of this lecture course lies in the enhancement of movie appreciation of Kyushu University students. In Suzuki (1999), the author considered why Japanese university students, unlike students in foreign coufitries of a similar age, have only poor knowledge and experience of movies in comparison with other arts like music and novels and then he pointed it out as one of the reasons that movies are not seriously taught in compulsory education in Japan. The present study focuses on which directors\u27 works we should present to students in order to improve their appreciation of films in such a way that they will net miss what movies have to give to them. The author claiins that students should overcome, by watching those movies with appropriate instructions, their weaknesses as summarized in the observations below, which the author proves to be true based on the result of a questionnaire obtained from 201 students taking his rnovie course in 2001: 1) Students\u27 interest is centered en American films while they have cemparatively less famiiiarity with Japanese works. Furthermore, extremely rarely do they pay attention to non-Japanese Asian films. 2) Students tend to be concentrated on amusing movies rather than artistic works. 3) Students watch classical Japanese films very rarely when they watch quite a few western classical features