Using a Critical Media Literacy Approach to Analyze Media Texts in an English Class for Children

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper aims at presenting the results of a study about how a Critical Media Literacy unit about food could foster young English learners’ critical analyses of media texts related to food. Considering that the teaching and learning of a foreign language involves the processes of reading (consuming) and writing (producing) texts in multiple forms; I decided to use food ads as class material to teach the content of an English level four course to problematize the topic of ‘food’. In order to promote the critical analysis of this material, I used the Empowerment Spiral and the questions proposed by Jolls (2008) to design and organize activities for the unit. These activities were intended to examine cultural artifacts in a way that exposes how these texts reproduce relations of power and serve the interests of ruling groups (corporations) (Funk, Kellner & Share, 2016, p. 29). Results suggest that using the texts students normally consume and implementing activities following the stages in the Empowerment Spiral facilitated students’ critical analyses of food advertising. In fact, as a result of the CML unit about food, students were able to identify different purposes in those texts and understand the constructed nature of media texts. This research is intended to contribute to the conversation about language learning strategies in the context of media literacy that invites students to “question authority, express their own views and provide them with the skills and time for self- reflection” (Hammer, 2009, p. 167).