Enhancing english language learning through hip-hop culture

Abstract

The current study examines the impact of hip-hop art and music in the English class to arouse intrinsic interest by improving spoken English vocabulary in learners. The researchers conducted the study with A1 students of two public schools from (Bogotá, Colombia) who showed apathy and lack of motivation towards English class. As a result, their attitude was aggressive and their performance very low. For this, the researchers resorted to hip-hop as pedagogical tool to attract the learners' interests as has happened in countries such as the USA, China and Brazil. However, in Colombia it has been scarcely implemented to motivate teenagers from marginalized communities to study and to keep them safe from drug traffic and gangs. The researchers used hip-hop resources such as graffiti and song lyrics along 12 sessions to expose learners to the language through pedagogical materials, which produced significant changes in students' attitudes going from skeptic to receptive. The researchers analyzed the collected data such as focus groups, surveys, video recordings and artifacts that included presentations and commentaries through the grounded theory method. Results revealed that learners experimented significant transformations in their attitudes, which produced better disposition towards the class to connect contents and young literacies. In conclusion, this study advances in the research about the impact of including cultural features in language learning by framing a new motivational approach based on urban artistic resources that arouse curiosity as well as critical thinking in teenagers.​