Eminem is an English Teacher?

Doing research has introduced me to many different ideas and topics that I would have never thought about before. While reading through the transcripts for my school a question was asked about how this student first learned English. To my surprise he responded with the American rapper Eminem. Never would I have thought of someone being able to learn English through rap. As I kept reading the transcripts it became clear that he would start talking in slang and abbreviate certain words to make himself have the cadence of a rapper. 

This was a big part of his personality; he would always refer back to himself as a rapper and that’s also what his friends would call him. He would express his passion for music in every interview. This has made me think of the ways in which the English language is being taught and understood throughout the world. What type of impact does this truly have on those who aren’t native English speakers? . It wouldn’t be fair of me to raise the point that he spoke in slang as a rapper instead of using proper English without acknowledging that English is a very hard language to learn and speak. 

This led me to look deeper into the way that certain schools are teaching the English language and what is the best way to teach it. The school that this student attends follows the AP curriculum for all of their courses which means they follow a fairly strict curriculum. This means that their way of teaching English is very strict and looks at the very complex structures of the language. I haven’t personally taken an AP English class but I have taken an IB English class and that was very fundamental and looked at the structures with great detail. It made me question my understanding of English. Which makes me wonder how these students feel about the language and how strict the rules are. 

Personally I feel as though I never talk in the proper way that these classes demand. So it makes me think that maybe music is a good way for learning the true style of language that is spoken. I wonder if there is a way to harvest what students learn through music and social media about a language and help build off that knowledge and information. I believe that it would make learning the language more engaging and enjoyable because you can see how it is actually used. 

I know from my Colby experience in foreign language we would look at music and how certain songs used different parts of speech to convey certain messages. How can we acknowledge that this language is often spoken but it does have some grammatical flaws and sometimes isn’t the best way to communicate? I think that introducing small increments of the music and that style of language is helpful because you get the real world application but it also allows you to have fun while learning the language. Personally, my friend who speaks fluent French told me that he hardly speaks the true proper language because that’s not what you would do when you are out and about.

Overall, doing this research has made me wonder how we teach certain languages and how they are actually used out in the real world. So to answer my title question, yes Eminem can be considered a teacher of the English language to some people. However, he might not teach the best English for writing your English paper.  

(https://giphy.com/explore/eminem-peace)