Television Commercials in the Foreign Language Classroom

Abstract

Television is a medium that for the last decade has risen in popularity and can be found in 95 percent of the households in the United States.' According to A. C. Nielsen, these TVs are being viewed on an average of six hours a day per house. There are some estimates which report that pre-schoolers watch an average of fifty hours of television a week. Many of these pre-schoolers, products of Sesame Street, Electric Company, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, and Villa Alegre, have been able to learn basic arithmetic and language skills before entering school. As teachers of foreign languages we are more than ever pressed to look for content that combines the audio, visual, and cultural aspects of communication. For this material we find that we only have to look as far as our television set. The television commercial, a small but significant part of commercial programming, can serve as a point of departure for a cultural or grammatical structural unit. Television commercials in the United States or abroad were made to sell products. An endorsement of the product keeps a television program on the air. The message is persuasive and leaves the viewer with certain fantasies regarding his life and present state of affairs. In the United States a great deal of the advertising addresses the youth culture of the Pepsi Generation. Are the values expressed in those messages universally shared values? Would a person from an Hispanic background believe in the magic of the Pepsi Generation? In a Puerto Rican Eastern Airlines commercial, El Reencuentro2 Jos6 Antonio L6pez, a native of Puerto Rico living in New York, decides to go back to Puerto Rico to visit his family. Jos6, who is in his early twenties, and his father have the following conversation as they are walking through a park in San Juan, Puerto Rico. PADRE: Bueno, ?qu' te parece tu pueblo?