'Friends', a practice material for speaking English that never fade away (2)

In the last blog, I talked about my own experiences using 'Friends' as a supplementary material to improve listening and speaking, together with some of the suggestions to ESL teachers. Here I would like to argue about why I still think that 'Friends' is a good practice material for student. 


Some people may argue that this material is no more helpful or even a bit weird considering the whole show ended more than 10 years ago. However, if we look back in the lines in the show and think carefully: has English evolved that much during the past ten years? I agree there are new words generated everyday. I would not assume that some one knows about tweeter ten years ago, however, this has nothing whatsoever to do with helping ESL students learning English. It is the most basic and fundamental idioms and phrases that are used by ordinary Americans everyday that ESL students have problems with, not the fancy new words. On the contrary, they might know these new words better considering they have more access to what is generate in their ages. 


If judging by this rule, it is very simple for us to rule out many famous shows that some people might consider for the same purposes. 'House' is indeed a good show, and I like it a lot. However, with too many medical terms and jargon, it is very difficult for students to follow and pick out the ordinary-life conversations that are truly useful for them, let alone about the fact that I am not sure if everyone will like this arrogant, cranky, weird-looking doctor House. (no offense, I am still a huge fan of his, and it is killing me hearing that the show is coming to an end). For the same reason, we can rule out 'Grey's Anatomy'. Detective shows are also very popular, such as 'Castle' and 'White collar'. There is nothing wrong using them, but considering each show is about 40-50 minutes long, and most of the time the actors are following leads trying to crack some case, they might be better materials for students to have fun and relax themselves instead of trying to learn English with. 


In general, I would say that sit-com, like 'Friends', are usually better choices for fulfilling this purpose. 'Hot in Cleveland', 'Modern Family', or even 'Desperate Housewives' are all fine choices. With proper use and careful designs, I am sure that ESL teachers will be able to make the best use of all these materials and help their students improving their listening and speaking. Hopefully they will do better in English than Joey did in speaking French, Ross in playing electric piano, Monica in controlling her temper, Chandler in restraining himself from bad jokes, Phoebe in playing guitar, and Rachael in playing football...