Learning English through popular culture
Once I was having a conversation with my friend who is going to have the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education examination and talked about the difficulties of learning English. He said is getting boring about English, he cannot find a proper for himself to learn English; therefore he is losing enthusiasm of it. Then I try to think about how I can help him out of this situation, and I found out if you want to learn better English, you have to feel passion about it. And I think one of the way to light someone heart up is using popular culture.
According to Storey, J (2006), there are six definitions about popular culture. First, the culture that is liked by many people. Second, an ‘Inferior’ culture but not a ‘high’ culture. Third, mass produced and commercial culture. Forth, culture of the people such as dragon boat racing. Fifth, Culture of the people that resists mass produced culture such as, V for Vendetta mask. And finally, is postmodern culture.
Therefore, we can see that there are lots of different thing is related to the popular culture, such as, art, music, dressing etc. So, how this thing help us to learn more about English?
Popular culture is a motivation to learn English
First of all, we have to find out the reason of why a people cannot learn English in an efficient way. According to Gardner and Symthe (1981), because of getting interest in something, therefore they hope to be success in learning English. This Intrinsic motivation or emotion is called English Learning Motivation. And according to Cheung Chun Hing (1996), Motivation makes a student start and maintain the learning activities. And for Learning a second language, motivation is also a really important streng...
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...glish, but no matter what I still had to carry on my study and have to practice my English. By the end of secondary school, I was very confident with my English skills. All of my hard work paid off even more in university, because the classes at Hong Kong Institute of Education are discussion-based, so there’s a lot of talking.
As I recall, the pronunciation I was taught in secondary school are mostly incorrect. This is a common case because English pronunciation is not at all straightforward. There is nothing like the difficulty in trying to pronounce some of English’s most difficult words.
Storey, J. (2006). Cultural theory and popular culture: An introduction. London: Pearson.
張春興 (1996)，教育心裡學—三化取向的理論與實踐，台北：東華書局。 Gardner, R.C., & Smythe, P.C. (1981). On the development of the attitude/motivation test battery. Canadian Modern Language Review, 37(3), 510-25.
Popular culture refers to information or an event that briefly hold the interest of the public. These events and information are mostly heard or broadcasted on mass media such as radio, television, newspapers and the internet. It is one of the cultures that is easily accessible and considered much more entertaining by the greater part of the population in the world. It has helped in the enhancement of human relationships and socialization in our modern world. As a Haitian, below I try to outline some of the popular cultures I can think of.
Surname 1Student’s nameInstructor’s nameCourse numberDateProject about Pop-CultureIn order to study and understand pop culture we must first and foremost confront the difficulty posed by the term itself. This is because it is used in quite different ways and are of inquiry and theoretical definition and analytical focus. Popular culture is generally defined as signifying practices that produce meaning, has mass accessibility and appeal. Origin of popular culture can be traced to the creation of middle class generated by the industrial revolution. Popular culture was mostly associated with the poorly educated or the lower class while the official culture which was mostly associated with the well-educated and the upper class citizens. However,
Popular culture can be defined as the act of the mobocracy dictating what ideas, attitudes, perspectives and personal preferences are chosen in society. This philosophy impacts society because it influences every minute detail from your favorite entertainment, to your political standpoint and even the way you communicate with others. Due to this, popular culture has lead to a drastic change in people's opinions of what is considered ethical or unethical. The force that ultimately defines society as a whole.
The term ‘pop culture’ refers to the ideas, style, and images that are popular and familiar in today’s society. Different things such as clothing, cars, music, technology and decorative accessories are considered pop culture. All of these things have changed throughout the decades. Guys now like to drive big trucks and sports cars and wear pants that look as if they are about to fall of. Girls are obsessed with being thin and need to have to latest style of clothing whether it be UGG boots or baggy sweaters. Besides for all of these, music is one of the biggest things in pop culture. Music is what influences the youth in a drastic way whether it be rock music or rap music.
American pop culture is defined as cultural activities or commercial products reflecting, suited to, or aimed at the tastes of the general masses of people (Dictionary.com, LLC 2016). It serves to bring a large diverse population of individuals together with a unified cultural identity. For most of us, pop culture is what we fill our leisure time with. It can include a variety of sources such as entertainment like music, literature, theatre, art and food. Pop culture can also include the products consumers buy in order to participate in current tastes and fashions. Pop culture grows when a substantial population,
Culture is a way of life that allows a diverse group of people to interrelate with one another. It is usually passed down from one generation to the next by communication and imitation. The term itself has a set definition, but it normally relates to the behavior, beliefs, values, and symbols that are accepted by a group of people. Culture can also be used to describe the time period and events in history. In the sense of what was deemed as popular during a specific stage in time and its impact on the culture surrounding it. Micro-historian have been dissecting and interpreting the meaning of popular culture and the courses of action that lead up to the events.
“Culture” is a term that over the years, has taken many forms, served many purposes and has been defined in a variety of contexts. At the rise of the industrial era, inhabitants of rural areas began to migrate to cities, thus starting urbanization. As this new era began to unfold, urbanization, mass production, and modernization became key ingredients in the transformation of culture. As more people became literate and the production of mass media such as magazines, pamphlets, newspapers etc. increased, many had the option and desire to identify collectively – popular culture began to rise. Popular or “mass” culture can be described as a “dynamic, revolutionary force, breaking down the old barriers of class, tradition, taste, and dissolving
As a challenge I decided to defeat English. Not to take back my old life but to create myself a new one. I achieve conversational English in less than a year and joined my first English class with my peers in
There are many ways to define popular culture. Many individuals have grappled with the question what is popular culture? And how to critically analyze and deconstruct the meanings. Looking at the root words of popular culture is where to begin. Raymond Williams states ‘popular’ means: “well liked by many people" or “culture actually made for the people themselves (Storey, p.5). This is part with the word ‘culture’ combine to look at how the two words have been connect by theoretical work within social and historical context. John Storey approaches popular culture in six categories, they are as followed: “Popular culture is simply culture that is widely favoured or well liked by many people”, Popular culture is “the culture that is left over after we have decided what is high culture”, Popular culture is “mass culture”, “Popular culture is the culture that originates from ‘the people.” and “Popular culture as a site of struggle
In the beginning, the relationship between everyday culture and mass media culture are closed but there are some difference between popular culture and traditional culture. The traditional culture is known as ‘high culture’ which refer to literature, art, music etc. However, popular culture is the produced by mass media, may know it as low culture. People used to entertainment or relaxation. It shared and spread rapidly in groups, communities, societies and so on. Some people may say popular culture help us to understand more about the world because of the globalization factor.
Talking about students’ interest toward English, from the study it can be concluded that almost all of the students like English. They like to watch English movies, listen and sing English songs, and read English books for improving their vocabularies. Their liking toward English made them always waiting for English class and feeling happy and never feel bored in English subject teaching-learning
In the field of second language acquisition research which focuses on how languages are learned, Bot, Lowie, and Vespoor (2005) explain that motivation and attitude are parts of individual factors which influence the growth and loss in language learning processes and the learning outcomes. The effects of motivation and attitude as individual factors, which are studied along with type and amount of contact with the language being learnt, may explain how the individual learn the target language, including predicting the learning outcomes.
“We tend to look through language and not realize how much power language has.” This famous saying by Deborah Tannen, an American sociologists shows how strong the impact language actually has on our life. Most people, especially Malaysians tend to overlook this matter because they believe that graduates who learned language could not benefit in a way a medicine or an engineering graduate does. This is where they are wrong. What they actually failed to realize is that language is an essential tool in helping oneself to advance for the greater good. You can’t just simply claim a debater as an expert in their field if they have a poor grasp of language? What is the point of having a loud and clear voice but you incorrectly form sentences? You
Motivation is really important tool in a learning environment. Also motivation effects student learning and their behavior as well. It directs behavior towards particular targets. Also it effect the decision which students takes. In motivation mainly we have two types which is intrinsically and extrinsically being motivated. For example: when a student is intrinsically motivated they just do it for themselves not because of the reward that they will get back. It’s just because they have their own interest and they enjoy doing that. On the other side, when a student is extrinsically motivated they just do it for the reward that they will get. That’s why in learning process it’s important that each student should
Second Language learning is necessitated by the different situations of different people. For instance, it can be for social or academic purposes. Learners are affected by many factors in the second language acquisition process such as level of cognitive development, socio-economic and cultural background, age, motivation or ability and intelligence (Gomleksiz, 2001; Wisniewski, 2007). This paper will however concentrate on how intelligence or aptitude and motivation affect the learning of a second language.