Reasons for Meme Selection with regard to Educational Intentions

The Leonardo di Caprio Meme (cf. Figure 3.10) addresses modern society’s problems as an adult. Therefore, future life as an adult and everyday life struggles in the adult world can be

8 see chapter 7 for image sources

Figure 3.21: Trump Meme

discussed in a rather ironic way, in order to not scare the pupils but make them aware of and prepare them for what is awaiting them in the adult world. Moreover, small phrases, such as “to catch up with your bills” or vocabulary, such as “bills” can be learned. There again, if the word

“bills” is not understood, this might lead to difficulties understanding the meme, as, in this context, it is a quite fundamental word in order to get an overall understanding of the meme.

The Pineapple Pizza Meme (cf. Figure 3.11) perfectly depicts stereotypes and Italian, as well as American culture in a funny way. The intention behind this meme is to make the students aware of stereotypes, as well as to motivate them to compare cultures and find similarities and differences. In the case of this meme, the students’ could reflect upon and get new information about the culinary culture of America and Italy. Additionally, the students could improve their overall understanding, as some vocabulary are very easy to understand, even if the level of English is not great. Even though the vocabulary used is rather simple, expressions such as

“being held down” or “watch in horror as something is done” can be learned.

Regarding the Mask Meme (cf. Figure 3.12), short phrases and vocabulary such as “to trade to”

and “trade with” could be learned and the slight difference of meaning can be discussed.

Another aspect that can be improved with the help of this meme is the students’ overall understanding. One might understand what is being addressed or “said” by only understanding parts or one part of the meme. Connecting the words “mask”, “cooler” and “Taylor and Hunter”

one might already be able to imagine the conversation the mother and the son are “having”.

While discussing the overall understanding one could also go deeper into some vocabulary learning, as mentioned above. Signal words and the corresponding appropriate tense could also be discussed, for example in this case, the use of past tense in correlation with the signal word

“this morning”. Moreover, the meme sheds a light on society and the current issue of Covid-19. Thus, the meme could encourage the students to critically think about what is being said and addressed in this meme and compare it to what is going on in the real world, how people behave and whether people respect the restrictions and measurements.

What could be learned through the Lava Meme is, on (cf. Figure 3.13) the one hand, specific knowledge. In other words, anyone who doesn’t know that lava is called magma when underground, will know it after having seen his meme. On the other hand, the meme raises the matter of students’ struggles concerning their education. The meme can be interpreted as a generalization of concerns about and issues of the school system and subject matters, as well as future adult life. It could encourage students to come up with ideas for possible solutions regarding an improvement in education with an increased focus on essential and necessary

information for the awaiting adulthood. In addition, the differences between adolescence and adulthood can be explored and discussed amongst the pupils.

The Bananas Meme (cf. Figure 3.14) can be used as a tool for learning how languages can be connected to one another and how various languages can have linguistic features in common or how they can differ from one another. Taking the example of this meme, for example, the three languages Italian, French and German all use the term “ananas”, while in Spanish one would say “piña” and in English the term is “pineapple”. Moreover, the students could get acquainted with the irony of wordplays.

Through the Cat Cake Meme (cf. Figure 3.15), phrases, such as “say something out loud” and vocabulary, such as the word “literally” and its meaning and in which various contexts this word is used in the English language can be learned. Moreover, students can also become aware of the use of “in my mind” instead of saying “in my head”. Another issue addressed in this meme is the possible lack of exercise of oral production, meaning that students do not get the chance to practice their speaking skills often enough. The students can start solving this problem by discussing the meme and the truth behind it with their peers. Additionally, they can, again, discuss flaws in the educational system. With the help of this meme, similarities amongst language learners can be brought up and the struggles that every language learner has to face when learning a new language can be pointed out. While realizing that many language learners face the same struggles in acquiring productive skills can make the language learning process seem impossible, the same realization might give students and language learners a feeling of community, knowing that others are confronted with the same problem. As a teacher, it is important to ironically shed light on the addressed issue while emphasizing that the language learning process and acquisition of productive skills requires quite a lot of time and practice.

Everyone feels a little lost at first, but everyone will improve and make progress too.

The Heaven and Hell Meme (cf. Figure 3.16) can give the students an understanding of stereotypes and different cultures. It can encourage them to reflect critically on whether what is being claimed is true and if the mentioned stereotypes are really just stereotypes or if some of them represent reality. People often tend to have certain prejudices towards certain communities, countries or even individuals in mind. These prejudices are often rather reinforced than mitigated in memes and other digital content that circulates on the Internet. This can lead to the spreading of wrong ideas and inculcate wrong attitudes towards a specific community, country etc. Hence, it is important to address the issue of stereotypes and prejudices by revealing and illustrating them and critically shedding light on their depiction. In other words,

it is important to discuss and critically think about the truthfulness of the shown content.

Moreover, it can motivate students to think about other stereotypes in other countries. Ideally, this leads to an arousal of curiosity and a discussion, which hopefully results in the pupils gaining knowledge about several countries’ cultures and traditions, while also raising awareness on the issue of stereotypes and differentiating between reality and clichés. Regarding vocabulary, the level of language used in this meme is rather elementary. Therefore, from a linguistic point of view, it can be used for lower grades, where students can learn words like

“heaven”, “hell”, “police”, “mechanics” etc.

The Italian Cat Meme (cf. Figure 3.17) contains phrases like “being about to do something”

and vocabulary, such as “window sill”, which can be a quite important word for everyday life but which might not be taught in school as it is not considered important enough in the school environment. Again, students can learn about Italian culture and Italian stereotypes and the discussion can be extended, bringing up other stereotypical features of Italian or any other culture. Moreover, the meme can animate pupils to share their opinion on this specific stereotype as well as stereotypes in general, on their verisimilitude and whether they consider them a good or a bad thing.

The Simpson Coronavirus Meme (cf. Figure 3.18) can be useful for students for learning short expressions, such as “to face something” and for improving their overall understanding thanks to the aid of the many pictures, the simple text in the second part and the little required understanding of a few keywords. Furthermore, it informs the students about current events and society. Students can first of all, figure out the message behind this meme. Then they can think about how they personally cope with the situation, how the meme depicts everyone coping with the situation and investigate the truth content of this meme. Moreover, the meme can inspire students to ponder on what could be done and what should be done in such situations.

With the Aqua Meme (cf. Figure 3.19), pupils can learn how to say water in different romance languages. It should inform students about romance languages, show them how they resemble each other, but also what evident differences there are. This Meme can be especially helpful for French learners and people who learn more than one romance language. The awareness of the resemblance of these languages, which is being made clear through this meme, might lead to romance language learners being able to use their knowledge of one language for learning and improving the other language. This can be done by, in fact, figuring out similarities and building cribs between the languages or by simply trying to adapt a word of one romance language to

the other one, keeping in mind certain linguistic features as for example the phonology or morphology of a language.

Concerning the Swedish Kid Meme (cf. Figure 3.20), pupils can be made aware of the difference between “start + to” and “start + gerund”, emphasizing the different use and different meaning. Moreover, unusual expressions, such as “assemble by oneself” and words like

“furniture” can be learned. Moreover, it might make students aware of the necessity of background knowledge in order to understand certain memes. Other than that, this meme is not an idea tool for the acquisition of cultural knowledge. It might teach students to read between the lines. Additionally, students might realize the importance of thinking beyond what they see, read or hear.

The Trump Meme (cf. Figure 3.21) can serve as an aid for the learning of the Present Perfect Tense. Pupils could discuss why this specific tense is being used and why any other tenses, such as the Past Tense, the Present Perfect Progressive or the Past Perfect, would not fit equally well.

New modern vocabulary, such as “to tweet”, can be discussed and pupils could come up with and share other new modern words they know, which are mostly related to digital culture.

Furthermore, political issues can be taken up and discussed in class. Students can share their opinions regarding the American voting system, Republicans and Democrats, Trump and his relation with Twitter, as well as Trump’s reaction to the election outcome. Moreover, the people’s and particularly the Trump supporters’ reaction to can also be taken up as an issue.

Political discussions can be lead and further political vocabulary, besides “being elected” can be introduced.