MEMES AS POTENTIAL RESOURCES FOR SUPPORTING CRITICAL LITERACY TEACHING THROUGH LITERARY TEXTS IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

Abstract

Memes have become an intrinsic part of digital culture. They impact the lives of young people around the world every day. However, the potential of memes for critical literacy education remains unexplored. This article discusses the possibility of using memes in the English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom to support the teaching of critical literacy through literary texts. It reviews the existing research literature in order to identify and analyze the features of memes that might promote critical literacy. An analysis of the identified features shows that multimodality, intertextuality and the participatory nature of memes are the features that might support teaching critical literacy through literary texts. However, the success of using memes for critical literacy education will depend on teachers' perception of their own role in the classroom.