The Impact of Watching English Cartoons on Iranian Young Learners' Incidental Vocabulary Learning and Attitudes

Using English subtitled movies may play an important role in learning new vocabulary items based on the results of other similar studies. However, there are not many studies on the impact of watching English movies without captions. Also, the impact of watching cartoons on young learners and their attitudes towards this type of learning is a neglected field of study. To fill in this gap, this study investigated the effects of watching English cartoons on incidental vocabulary learning and Iranian young learners’ attitudes towards watching English cartoons for EFL learning. The current study examined the effects of watching a series of cartoons (Caillou) on incidental vocabulary learning using a quasi-experimental design. A total of ۲۱ young students from two intact classes of a private school located in Tehran, who were learning English as a foreign language (EFL), participated in the study. Immediately after ۱۰ sessions of conducting the treatment for both experimental and control groups, they were given a ۲۵-item multiple-choice test. Two weeks after the treatment, they were given another ۲۵-item multiple-choice test with ۵ items in common with the immediate posttest. The participants were assigned to one of the two groups: Group A (۱۰ sessions of watching Caillou series cartoons) and Group B (۱۰ sessions of reading comprehension task). T-test analyses were conducted to examine development between and within each group. Results revealed that the experimental group demonstrated significant gains based on the multiple-choice test. In addition, Group A gained better results in the delayed posttest. After conducting the task, an attitude questionnaire was given to the participants of the experimental group.

کلیدواژه ها:

Attitude ، CALL ، EFL ، Incidental Vocabulary Learning ، Young Learners