ANALYZING HBO’S THE WIRE IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

Author: Todd Hull, Hankuk

ABSTRACT

Second language learning profits not only from explicit study of the language, but also from studying texts in the language that were not designed for the express purpose of language learning, such as reading novels, listening to radio programs, and watching movies and TV. One television series that EFL students can benefit from is HBO’s The Wire, which received praise not only for the realism of its portrayal of Baltimore’s Black population, specifically those engaged in the drug trade but also for its show-don’t-tell style of depicting events with a minimum of commentary on them so as to allow viewers to draw their own conclusions without feeling that they were being told what to think. In good art, showing instead of telling can have a greater impact. But in a television series the express purpose of which was to make social commentary, avoiding direct messages completely holds the danger that the message will never get through. The express purpose of the show was to critique the war on drugs, the decline of institutions, and the loss of economic opportunity for the working class in Baltimore. It is not clear that it achieved those goals. The purpose of this article is to assess the attainment of the show’s stated goals and to show how EFL students can engage with it and evaluate whether it achieved its goals or if more direct social commentary would have had a greater effect.

Keywords: EFL pedagogy, Communicative approach, racial stereotypes, HBO’s The Wire

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