Instituto Superior de Lengua Inglesa (ISLI)

Agüero, Ana Mariel

Cuello, Leila

María Belén Domínguez

The use of memes and its effectiveness in motivating EFL students

November 2021
 The use of memes and its effectiveness in motivating EFL students

Since the beginning of the digital era, it is difficult to imagine any aspect in life without using
technological devices and the internet. Having said that, education is not the exception since it is
currently being used in schools as a didactic tool. There are infinite resources on the internet but the
latest are memes. According to Wikipedia, an internet meme, more commonly known as meme, is
an idea, behaviour or style that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms and
especially for humorous purposes. In fact, the term meme was introduced in 1976 by British
evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. He conceived memes as the cultural parallel to biological
genes and considered them as being in control of their own reproduction. Therefore, memes carry
out information, replicate themselves and are transmitted from one person to another.
As internet memes are incorporated into people’s daily lives, it is not surprising to use them
for learning purposes in the classroom. Teachers can use them in their lessons to engage students in
the learning process. In accordance with Cambridge Dictionary, learning is the activity of obtaining
knowledge. It is the knowledge or a piece of information obtained by study or experience.
Traditionally, learning in the classroom has been developed through boards, chalks, posters, etc.
Nevertheless, learning has evolved by using videos, music, digital presentations, social media,
including memes. This is due to the fact that children’s brains have changed as well as technology; as
kids prefer visual forms instead of text-based ones, education has to adapt in order to catch
student’s attention and interest. “Today’s students represent the first generations to grow up with
this new technology. They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, video
games, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital
age. Today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their
predecessors.” (Prensky, 2001). The fact is that we live in a society that has been divided into two
main groups: digital natives, who are used to receiving information really fast, and digital
immigrants, who belong to the pre digital age. The latter is unwilling to adapt to this new digital
culture which leads us to state that teachers must update their teaching strategies to stimulate
students within the learning process and should include more attractive resources for the new
generations.
This study aims to demonstrate that the use of memes in the classroom can have positive
effects in learning English as a foreign language.

Method
 The research was done in an English class in 3rd year of Benito Juarez School, in Villa
Mercedes, San Luis. Ten students from 13 to 16 years old and a trainee teacher participated in the
experience.
The instrument for data collection was non-participant observation. The observant used a
chart which was divided into four columns and six files (See appendix 1). One column for motivation
and the other three corresponding to some stages of the class: warm up, presentation and follow
up. Each file corresponded to how motivation was evaluated: involvement, participation,
concentration, facial expressions, body movements and interest in the activities. The chart was used
as an aider to take notes on the students’ reactions.
The materials that the trainee teacher used to develop the class were images and two dices
containing the most popular memes on the internet. At the warm up stage, the teacher made a
revision of the personal pronouns using popular memes before presenting the topic of the class
which was “Present Continuous”. At the presentation stage, the teacher introduced the topic by
showing students other different memes from the warm up stage. First, the images were turned
down so students paid attention to the teacher. Then, she revealed the images one by one in order
to observe the students’ reactions. After that, she asked them what the characters were doing. At
the same time, she also asked the students whether they liked them or not and which one was their
favourite meme. Once they answered, the teacher stuck the memes on the board and wrote a
sentence in the present continuous next to each meme. The following stages dealt with activities
with the aim of evaluating their understanding of the topic. At the follow up stage, the teacher
presented a game which consisted of two dices. Students had to come to the front, choose a dice,
throw it and make a sentence in the present continuous looking at the action being performed in the
meme. Then each student had to write it on the board properly.

Results

The results obtained from this research allow us to provide evidence of the effectiveness in
learning English as a foreign language. Regarding the Warm up stage the results reveal that only a
few students got involved when the teacher showed them popular memes as the class was
interrupted by classmates who were late. On the contrary, all of them participated when the teacher
asked them to recognise the memes. Besides, students expressed their preferences regarding
memes. All of them were concentrated and paid attention to the teacher since they were watching
her during this stage. Their gestures and body language made evident that they were interested in
the activity while enjoying it. They looked at each other with mischief. Concerning the Presentation
stage, the total number of students got involved orally as the teacher revealed the memes one by
one. As regards participation, students both talked to each other and answered the teacher's
questions related to preferences. Regarding concentration, they were engaged when trying to guess
what the teacher was revealing. Talking about facial expressions and body movements, students
smiled and laughed aloud looking directly at the teacher’s hands. Students were very interested
since they expressed they already knew the memes and utilized them regularly. At the follow up
stage only few students got involved in the activity because it consisted in standing up and coming to
the front to play the proposed game. They refused to participate since they were shy and drowsy.
They also smiled at this stage but remained in their seats until the teacher encouraged them to make
pairs so that the activity could be accomplished. Only three students agreed after the teacher
proposed doing the activity in that way. All of them were interested and paid attention although
they did not want to move from their seats.

Discussion

The results indicate that memes help students to acquire topics in a didactic and
entertaining way. In addition, the use of memes engages students to participate, and therefore, the
lesson becomes dynamic. Moreover, memes are a versatile source for teachers. They can be used to
teach different lessons and are adaptable to different students' ages. As students of this new digital
era learn easily through visual forms rather than text-based ones, the use of memes in education
may be a motivational and beneficial tool for teaching English as a foreign language.

Bibliographic References

Dawkins, R. (1976). The Selfish Gene

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon (MCB University
Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001)

Appendix
1.

MOTIVATION Warm-up Presentation Follow-up

Did the
students get
involved?

Participation
Concentration

Facial
expressions

Body
movements

Were they
interested in
the activities?