What does
George Orwell’s Animal Farm have in
common with products such as perfumes, energy drinks and chocolate? As Linda
Manney explained at the beginning of her presentation at the 22nd
International Convention, Orwell’s well-known book was the inspiration for this
project aimed at 12-18 year old teenagers. The subject, of course: Propaganda.
How is
propaganda used in today’s adverts which bombard our children? Are children
aware of the techniques used in advertisements and which persuade them to buy
the product? As Linda explained, she began the project by showing World War II
posters to her students where the principles of advertising are more obvious,
the images have both an emotional and personal appeal and the use of language
is overdramatic. The task for the students: to find posters from the 40s. The
ones the students chose definitely had the exaggeration of the time.
Moving on
to today’s adverts, Linda explained how the same principles are used- they
appeal to our most basic drives: glamour, wealth, excitement, adventure. Our
task? to find the clusters i.e. the
group of textual parts which work together to convey a stronger message.; to
watch adverts and find how the music adds to this; to find how the ads shown “speak to our fantasy”.
All in all,
Linda Manney’s presentation had exactly what one would want when leaving a
convention: a project ready to use in
the classroom for the teachers while at the same time doing more than just
teaching English. It is this awareness raising which has become so important in today’s world and goes beyond language learning itself that this project offers and will remain with learners forever.
By Natasha Loukeri
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