Desperate Housewives: More than just a Drama

This article proposes a sample of course books using American TV dramas. One advantage of TV dramas as classroom material is their story lines and expressions. However, it is important to first establish the relationship between them, something which many instructors are inattentive to. Students need to focus on the storyline primarily of which expressions are a by-product. This paper analyzes the drama Desperate Housewives for its potential use as classroom material in this regard. Its validity was assessed by the seven basic principles of second language acquisition relevant to the development of materials for the teaching of languages by Tomlinson (2010). It is hoped that the materials presented in this paper are a timely suggestion. According to the news media, recruiting native speakers of English has been a serious issue in Korea. This paper encourages the active use of non-native English teachers who, despite their lack of fluency, can be effective language teachers with the help of well-designed textbooks using dramas.