Memes as means: Improving learners' English grammatical competence

Abstract

In the present generation, one of the challenges that language teachers face is to find innovative ways to hook students' interests to improve grammar competence in the teaching and learning process of the English language. One of the many ways is to use social media in the classroom especially memes. This quasi-experimental study utilized memes in teaching English grammar. It sought to find out the grammar competency level of the participants before and after intervention and the effectiveness of using memes in teaching English grammar. Sixty participants in a national high school in the Schools Division of Passi City were randomly chosen and assigned to meme and non - meme groups. Pretest and posttest grammar competency tests were constructed and validated along with the lesson plans by three instructional material and language experts. The lesson plans used the 5 Es format in lesson delivery: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluation. The intervention lasted for six weeks at twenty minutes each day for one grammar rule a total of thirty grammar rules. After the intervention, posttests were given to both groups and the scores were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software with the level of significance set at 0.05. Mean, t-test for dependent and independent samples were used to answer the research questions. The results revealed that both meme and non-meme groups had a "below average" grammar competency levels in English during the pretest. Inferentially, there was no significant difference in the pretest English grammar competency levels of the participants in both groups. There was a significant difference in English grammar competency levels of the participants in both groups during the posttests. The non-meme group had increased from "below average" into "above average" English grammar competency level while the meme group had increased significantly from "below average" to "excellent" competency level; thus, using memes as a strategy in teaching English grammar was effective. Therefore, results of the study recommended that teachers shall use grammar memes in teaching English grammar.