What usually gets centered in a language classroom are tasks such as text comprehension (reading and listening), as well as expressive & communicative tasks (writing and speaking). This semester, I incorporated the use of social media posts & ephemera in Filipino so we could learn examine how words & phrases are used (and manipulated) in different contexts, and to examine how them through the lens of class, gender & power in Philippine societies.

In 2018, Reuters published a story titled "Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar," showing how hate speech on social media is posing a threat to the Rohingyas, a Mulsim minority in western Burma. With the recent military coup in Burma, Facebook and other social media platforms play a different role, allowing the protesters to spread their pro-democracy messages with viral memes.

In Burmese 100B (Spring 2021), students study the puns and deliberate misspellings in the anti-coup memes, and interview native Burmese speakers in their social circles for the definition of hate speech. Here are the two podcasts about hate speech, in Burmese and English, compiled with excerpts from the recorded interviews and the students' own reflections.