"The focus of this talk is on the role of Popular Culture in the context of teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in higher education. In many EFL countries, most encounters with the English language are outside of the classroom and mostly involve the so-called 'passive' use of English, for example when watching TV or films, listening to music or podcasts, surfing the internet, etc., but may also include some more 'active' situations, such as text messaging, gaming, Twitter, etc.
Some teachers hesitate to bring materials that spring from popular culture (such as scripted dialog, music lyrics, and computer-mediated communication, among others) into the English classroom, perhaps because of the frequent use of non-standard language and the "disruptive" structure of these materials. Instead, EFL teaching often focuses on idealized forms of some standard dialect while typically selecting its core literature based on received notions of what can be considered canonical texts. Though this traditional approach to English has some advantages, it ignores the potential ways in which popular culture can serve as a natural platform for discussions about the English language, including often ignored aspects of linguistic diversity, as well as the global, ethnic and cultural differences of the English-speaking world.
In this talk, I discuss how and why EFL teachers should incorporate non-traditional, popular-culture-related materials in the classroom. Such materials can facilitate self-directed learning by engaging students with topics that surround them in their everyday lives, thus enhancing learning by relating their studies to their personal experience. Additionally, since students often do not reflect critically upon the popular culture material they consume on a daily basis, using such material can create additional opportunities to teach and promote valuable and transferable critical thinking skills.
