English with the
Maltese Falcon
- Teachers' Page -

I first used The Maltese Falcon with a class of 1e S (upper intermediate) students. My goal was simple: how to use extracts from both the novel and the film in order to help students understand and deal with character portraits. But the more I got into the project, the more I realized that I could do so much more.

The Maltese Falcon lent itself naturally to this project. In the opening scene, Mary Astor playing the fickle Brigid O'Shaugnessy enters Spade's office and describes the man she claims kidnapped her sister, in classical fashion: appearance, profession and behaviour. With this as my starting point, I knew I had the groundwork for a good lesson.

In the following pages I will show you my final lesson plan and the materials I used, and present some of the ideas I had for further work in this area. You will also find some comments on the notion of teaching English through detective stories and films, and a few of my comments on the much-discussed but often ill-advised art of using video materials in the classroom.

Note that the rest of the Maltese Falcon pages on this site were really an afterthought to the project itself. At the time our lycée had just seen its first internet connection installed, in a very limited and poorly-accessible fashion. There was no possibility of bringing the entire class to the internet, and in the end I only had a handful of students who actually tested these pages. My project was not a "TICE" project, to use the acronym currently in vogue here in France, but I think I can claim full title to the term "multimedia" teaching. My staunchest supporter was a very old friend, the overhead projecter; but I also used an ordinary audio cassette player and a TV-VCR console for the film clips.

One disclaimer I feel important to include regards copyrights. As many teachers here in France are all too painfully aware, current French interpretations of copyright laws do not allow classroom teachers to use ordinary videos in class. International copyright law, as it is applied in the US and many other countries, includes an exception for educational uses which allows teachers to show films or TV programs within the framework of their ordinary classes. Here in France no such exception has yet been admited, despite France's theoretical adherence to international mandate. The only exceptions here involve works specially contracted for educational use, and for which rights have already been paid to the producers. These videos (films, documentaries or other) generally cost four or five times more than other videos -- which wouldn't present a major obstacle in my opinion -- but the choice of materials is very limited. The loophole I exploit is the allowance for short quotes or citations for the purpose of criticism, commentary or satire. My project involves the use of three short clips from the film, each of which is some 3-5 minutes in length. Whether or not this use falls within the provisions of the law I can't say for certain; I can only say that I respect the original film and the creativity that went into making it, and hope through my efforts to encourage my students' understanding of these original materials.

Cheers,   --- Phil