Project Lead: Prof Ildiko Csajbok-Twerefou, Department of Modern Languages
This multi-disciplinary research project aimed to explore ways to efficiently use TV series as a teaching and learning material at the University of Ghana. TV series are very popular and widely appreciated globally. They are also becoming more transnational as they are watched everywhere and not only in the country of production. In Ghana for example, people are not only watching Ghanaian TV series, but also works from South Africa, USA, Brazil, Japan, India, just to name a few. To guarantee their reception, some foreign TV series are even translated into Ghanaian languages. In Cameroon TV series are also very popular, particularly Latin American telenovelas, (Moukouti Onguédou, 2014).As is the case with movies, the use of TV series in the classroom is not new. However, their use has been sporadic at best, and both students and lecturers think that TV series, like movies, are only for entertainment (Csajbok-Twerefou, 2010, p. 52). This perception is due in part to the dearth of research on the subject (Pecora et al., 2008). With TV series becoming more popular and more widely used in Ghanaian classrooms, there is the need for more research that examines how they can be adapted for didactic purposes. This multi-disciplinary research project aimed to fill this gap in the Ghanaian context.
The objectives were to evaluate how efficiently TV series could be used as teaching and learning material and to determine the best methodologies for doing so in Ghanaian classrooms. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used. The quantitative approaches were aimed at sampling views and assessing the impact of the use of TV series in the classroom. The qualitative approaches were aimed at providing in-depth analysis of the didactic methods in the use of TV series as teaching and learning material. Disciplines as diverse as teaching of foreign languages, literature, and performing arts were engaged to cover a large spectrum of the didactic application of TV series.