STEM (The Society for Teaching English through Media) aims to develop learning materials and teaching methodology based on the use of movies and multimedia in English language learning.
English competence is important for Korean students in a number of ways. It acts as a criterion to judge a student's academic achievement, and becomes the means for students to achieve their educational goals. Korean students of all ages are known to have tried every possible English learning method available through private language institutes and technological means. They have an unquenchable zeal to improve their English competency and to gain high scores in every kind of English test. However, many of them have become tired of existing ways of learning English and doubtful about their efficiency. As a result, there is a lot of interest in new ways of learning English.
A new area of interest for Korean English learners is through using movies as learning materials. Regardless of their age, for many people movies are one of the most popular cultural items. Their use is recognized as being efficacious for English learning and teaching despite the fact that they are not specifically made as educational materials. As part of their inherent interest, movies offer a wide variety of stories and genres such as action, romance and comedy that allow learners to choose content and style according to their preference.
