Memes are funny, have limited text, and often involve cats or dogs.  First, it must be pointed out that there is virtually no way to prove that a meme is an authentic text.  Anyone can take a picture and overlay words.   With that said, students find memes humorous and attention-grabbing.

In the language classroom, memes can be used as lesson hooks or serve as the basis for an interpersonal exchange or a free write.  They can also be great examples of grammar in context.

For the example at the top of this blog post, several memes were collected that demonstrate adjectives in French.  They could be presented in a Powerpoint format or as a collage like above.

Below, is a grouping of memes all showing the present progressive tense in Spanish:

And here’s a collection of memes that all have definite articles in German:

In my blog post on April 13, 2018, “Teaching Grammar in Context Using Authentic Resources,” multiple routines or protocols were discussed that can be used to have students discover language structure and grammar rules from context, which includes the PACE model.

And in a more recent post, “Teaching Grammar in Context Using Authentic Resources: Part 3,” I shared a protocol I recently developed to assist students in unlocking language patterns.  Here’s the link to the poster (click on the image below):

And the link to the student worksheet.

To find the memes in the examples in this post and many more, click on the icons below for the appropriate language:

To find more memes in the target language, you may want to follow a pinner on Pinterest who has created boards organized by grammar themes.  Here is an example from one of my teachers for Spanish: