In this teaching tip, I describe how students in my second grade classroom and I developed a curricular structure called Monday Music that involved reading, singing, the study of grammar conventions in the English language, and critical conversations about popular music. Drawing on Dyson's conceptualization of the permeable curriculum, I offer…

An essentially qualitative structural and semantic analysis is performed on the text of an "American Idol" coverage posted on yahoo.com January 24, 2013, constituting a micro-corpus of 2,739 words. Since such stories feature entertainment laced with a shot of drama and scandal, most of us share similar expectations as to what packaging…

Popular culture materials are generally believed to have positive effects on L2 learning. This study examined the effectiveness of popular culture materials in enhancing Hong Kong EFL students' grammar learning. In a quasi-experimental design, 20 secondary school students were taught grammar in two ways: with the use of popular culture materials,…

This paper draws upon data from a research project, undertaken in 2 Year 6 classrooms during the 2006 World Cup, to analyse how children used complex sentence structures in their writing on a football web-log. We explore how the confluence of a temporary, popular, global event and an online forum for communication created a moment of linguistic…

Reviews eight literary anthologies, discusses the use of "son" and "en" in French possessive structures, reviews a new novel by a modern writer, discusses the appearance of the word "alcootest" in French, and presents an essay on Jacques Brel and an essay on the playwright Arrabel. (AM)

This section consists of six essays dealing with: (1) current trends in French linguistics; (2) French possessive pronouns; (3) contemporary French novelists; (4) "happiness" in France; (5) the Belgian playwright Michel Ghelderode; and (6) the pedagogical use of popular songs. (AM)

Four classroom language activities aimed at different audiences and developed for honing different skills are described. These activities include an exercise in art appreciation, reconstruction of a fragmented text, a verb use exercise, and study of street art and slogans. (MSE)

A technique for teaching French grammar that involves reading, rereading, and analyzing the language in authentic materials is discussed. The student is led to recognition and generalization of structures in the text. Text examples used here include a comic strip and a publicity blurb for a French city. (MSE)

Ideas for French instruction are offered, including a grammar exercise on pronouns; exploration of a comic strip's language and culture; use of a taped program on fashion; and an activity to help French language teachers cope with unfamiliar discipline-specific texts, whose topics (but not language) are familiar to their students. (MSE)

Describes activities in Spanish language classes inspired by popular movies and television programs such as "Evita,""The Sound of Music,""The Wizard of Oz,""Carousel,""I Dream of Jeannie,""I Love Lucy," and "Charlie's Angels." Notes that these programs' familiarity establishes a familiar context in which to practice grammar, vocabulary, and other…