Critical Media Literacy in an Eleventh Grade EFL Classroom : Analyzing Representations of Class and Race in Media Texts

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In today's media-saturated society, people are bombarded with vast amounts of information from mass media. However, mass media is not neutral and has embedded ideologies regarding religion, gender, ethnicity, and social class that can inadvertently influence people's thoughts and beliefs. Although schools have made efforts to include media literacy in the curriculum, there have been isolated attempts to approach mass media critically in EFL classes. With this in mind, I designed a CML instructional unit to help eleventh graders at a public school become aware of how ads influence people's perceptions of class and race, and to teach them to analyze ads critically and produce counter-texts. Likewise, the research study conducted here sought to explore how the implementation of a CML instructional unit, designed following the Empowerment Spiral Model, can help 11th graders, at a public school in Medellin, develop abilities to unveil representations of class and race hidden in media texts, and produce their own counter-texts. To do that, this study gathered data from video recordings of classes, interviews with students, and samples of students' works. Data were analyzed through deductive analysis with pre-established categories. Findings revealed that the CML instructional unit was useful in helping students (a) raise awareness of not only racist and classist hidden messages in media texts, but also, unexpectedly, of sexist messages (b) analyze the CML five key concepts to deconstruct racist and classist messages in media texts, (c) critically reflect on hidden stereotypes, and (d) produce their own media texts to contest those representations. This indicates that English as a Foreign Language EFL teachers have a significant chance to integrate Critical Media Literacy into their teaching methodologies. By incorporating CML, teachers can facilitate their students' critical awareness of stereotypes through the English language learning process. Hence, it is imperative to continue implementing CML interventions in EFL classes and examine the experiences of both students and teachers to make the approach more effective.