Affordances and Constraints of Gen Z Slang in ELT Classrooms: Students' and Teachers' Perspectives

Abstract

This study explored the affordances and constraints of Gen Z slang in English Language Teaching (ELT) classrooms from the perspectives of students and teachers. A transcendental phenomenological research design was employed. The participants were ten English teachers and ten Generation Z students from selected secondary schools in Infanta, Quezon, chosen through purposive sampling. Data were gathered through validated semi-structured interview guides and questionnaires and were analyzed using Colaizzi's phenomenological data analysis method. The findings revealed that Gen Z slang functioned as a linguistic bridge that supported communication, engagement, classroom rapport, confidence, psychological empowerment, identity formation, authentic expression, and learner-centered interaction. At the same time, it created constraints related to register confusion, semantic ambiguity, vocabulary misunderstanding, academic-writing difficulty, assessment issues, communication barriers, classroom exclusion, and tension between fluency and accuracy. Teachers used strategies such as translanguaging, contextualization, explicit register instruction, controlled integration, scaffolding, corrective feedback, classroom language boundaries, and mediation between informal and formal English. The study concludes that Gen Z slang should not be completely eliminated from ELT classrooms; rather, it should be managed as a contextual pedagogical resource that helps learners communicate naturally while developing formal academic English.