Teaching Aspects of British Culture Using Memes

Abstract

The current study investigates the use of memes as a visual aid in learning aspects of the foreign culture in EFL classes. This work aims at highlighting the effectiveness of using memes in teaching, and it hypothesizes that memes being one aspect of humor can be an effective technique in teaching elements linked to British Culture. The research follows a quantitative method in which a questionnaire is delivered to third year LMD students; to explore the appropriateness of using memes in formal settings. Moreover, a qualitative method is added where a test is used to observe to what extent students are able to interpret and relate some exposed memes that are constructed around different features of British Culture. To this end, both of the data collection tools were administered to 3rd year LMD students at the Department of English, 08 Mai 1945-Guelma University. After applying the needed research tools, this work concludes that the application of memes in EFL classes has a positive impact on improving third year students’ quality of Foreign Culture teaching and learning. So, we confirm that a relationship between the two variables may exist for the purpose of facilitating teaching components of foreign culture since there is a gap in teaching culture using an appropriate effective technique and because the participants were ready to experience memes. That is, we anticipate a clearly obvious improvement in cultural instruction with the introduction of memes. Furthermore, both research questions and aims were satisfied using the research tools chosen. On the one hand, we were able to determine from the gathered data and the shown findings that memes can be a creative and amusing tool that can be utilized in formal settings to increase student interest in learning the cultural components of British culture. On the other hand, using the research tools' findings, we were able to shed light on memes as a strategy that may be employed in educational contexts, as well as collect different perspectives on the feasibility of using this new experience when teaching culture