This essay explores ways television commercials can teach both media literacy skills and social studies content knowledge. Because of their brevity and concise messages, commercials offer teachers a wide assortment of engaging, content focused lesson topics that can be used to introduce new ideas, as writing or discussion prompts to further…

Nonprofit commercials are an inspiring but often overlooked resource in language teaching. Teachers can use these short and thought-provoking films in different scenarios with communicative language activities and strategies and to help students practice skills that form part of Bloom's so-called higher-thinking skills, such as creating (using…

Video clips are an excellent way to enhance lecture material. Television commercials are a source of video examples that should not be overlooked and they are readily available on the internet. They are familiar, short, self-contained, constantly being created, and often funny. This paper describes several examples of television commercials that…

This book offers ideas that secondary teachers, university content faculty, and teacher educators can use to challenge traditional literacy practices and demonstrate creative, innovative ways of incorporating new literacies into the classroom, all within a strong theoretical framework. Teachers are trying to catch up to the new challenges of the…

The benefits and advantages of classroom practices incorporating unity-in-diversity and diversity-in-unity are what "Multilevel and Diverse Classrooms" is all about. Multilevel classrooms--also known as mixed-ability or heterogeneous classrooms--are a fact of life in ESOL programs around the world. These classrooms are often not only…

Describes how the author has his German students prepare "television commercials" for presentation before a videotape camera and recorder. (PP)

How the TV commercial may be used to teach organization in writing. (SP)

Examines various ways the mass media, especially television, deceives the public through the manipulation of language. (RB)

Describes a journalism methods course in advertising in which college students observed and analyzed videotaped commercials produced by sixth graders. (RB)

Argues that television advertisements display various characteristics--such as limited duration, verbal repetition, and completeness of story--that make them successful vehicles for comprehension and discussion by foreign language learners and that the unreality of these advertisements can produce a positive, amused response from students.…

The major advantage of television in an advertising course is the continuity with which the commercials are integrated into the lecture material. (HOD)

English teachers have a responsibility to teach students to become intelligent consumers of television messages. (JH)

Describes a student project for a class on cognitive psychology in which students learn about the application of psychology principles by designing and producing television commercials. Discusses evaluation by both students and teachers. Explains that the principles used include primacy, rehearsal, repetition, and cue dependence. (DK)

In a Development and Criticism of Broadcasting course, humorous cartoons and television commercials were used to stimulate critical thinking about course content. Students were taught to use the higher order thinking skills of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation to turn passive viewing or listening skills into active thinking activities. Humor…

Television and television commercials are an important part of the environment that shapes today's students, and unless teachers recognize this, they will be attempting to teach space-age children using horse and buggy methods. (Author/JG)