Music Videos in the Classroom - Young People Exploring the World

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Pedagogy Literature Studies grade: 17 University of Marburg (Anglistik) course: New Media in Foreign Language Teaching language: English abstract: 1. IntroductionMusic videos are an important part of the lifestyle of many youths they have been spreadover the whole world by the television channel MTV (Music Television)1 and they havebecome an essential aspect of the popular culture. Obviously the Hessian curriculum hasrealized the importance of music videos: The topic Young People Exploring the World(Jugendliche und ihre Welt) for 11th grade includes the sub-topic Culture and Media(Kultur und Medien)2. This sub-topic deals with all sorts of pop culture (music videosliterature advertisements fashion sports etc.).Music videos are excellent for matters of foreign language education they provideauthentic material3 which is a welcome variation for many pupils who are only used toartificial learning materials and they are very interesting for pupils because they are part oftheir everyday life. Therefore music videos provide a brilliant opportunity for the pupils todiscuss and analyse. Through thorough analysis of music videos the pupils will becomeaware of how music videos are made and which impact they can have on us and alsowhich ethical values they propagate (as well by the lyrics of the specific song as well bythe composition of the video itself) or in which ways they reflect our society.It is important that the pupils are allowed to choose their own music videos because thenthey will be more motivated as if the videos were selected by the teacher. However theteacher should become acquainted with the specific video before it is presented to theclass by the pupil because there are of course music videos which are not suitable (forexample because the content could be too violent or sexual to be presented in theclassroom or the video