Television in the Language Classroom: A Call to Embrace One of Our Most Powerful Resources
Allen Walzem1*
1 International Liberal Arts (Department of International Communication), Hokkaido Bunkyo University, Eniwa, Japan
*Corresponding Author: [email protected] Accepted: 15 November 2022 | Published: 1 December 2022
DOI:https://doi.org/10.55057/ajress.2022.4.4.4
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Abstract: Thanks to recent advances, in the 21st century, numerous apps for phones and PCs, zoom and skype calls, electric dictionaries and other advanced technology can be employed to help language learners develop their skills more efficiently. However, one of the most popular and powerful technologies has been around for decades, and has been woefully under-utilized by educators: television programs. Huge teams of writers, technicians, and artists work to make regular television programming as entertaining and absorbing as possible. When viewed in the target language, with appropriate subtitles, such programming is a powerful tool for developing two of the four language areas, listening and reading, as well as giving a huge boost to grammar and vocabulary, often without the student making any special effort whatsoever. Most surprisingly, the benefits may even approach those of reading, especially in vocabulary size, even for passive viewers. In this paper we will look at research which has been done in this area, and ways to tap into “TV power” in the ESL classroom.
Keywords: ESL, Television, sitcom, vocabulary
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1. Introduction
In the 1973 Woody Allen movie, Sleeper a protagonist who had been frozen in the 1970s is thawed 200 years in the future. One of the many shocks the people of the future receive when questioning him is that in the past people had considered hot fudge to be unhealthy, whereas it is, in fact enormously healthy. What everyone had “known” was bad for us turned out to be very healthy indeed. We may have come to a similar realization in the language teaching world:
a growing body of research shows that watching television is a great way to learn language.
Intuitively it seems reasonable to believe that viewing videos might help listening comprehension and cultural knowledge, but it turns out that it can also be a powerful way to learn grammar and, most surprisingly, as a vocabulary learning tool it may rival reading! As one research team puts it “Research reveals that language learners who frequently watch foreign-language TV programs outside of school tend to be better at reading, listening, and vocabulary. This holds for language learners in primary schools, secondary schools, at university and even for young kids who have not had any English lessons yet” (Webb and Peters, 16).
Perhaps even more surprisingly, for this approach to have the highest likelihood of being useful, it is best if learners simply watch television in “enjoyment mode,” viewing programs for pleasure and entertainment rather than concentrating on the shows as a learning tool. Most students, no matter what their native country and cultural background, devote a lot of their
leisure to “screen time” of one kind or another. It appears that if they can be nudged towards utilizing this recreational “me time” in a way conducive to language learning, they can make great strides in their development without much extra effort. “The aim of television viewing in a second language should be the same as in the first language: to inform and enjoy. It is not necessary that every word, sentence or phrase is understood. The goal should be to have an understanding sufficient to motivate further viewing”(22). In other words, if learners can get hooked on a serialized program and watch it for its entertainment value, they will simultaneously be boosting their language skills, without even knowing it.
Is it really that easy? Can passive viewing really teach language? To a certain extent, yes. Of course, it is most effective when reinforced with more traditional teaching, and “at home”
media consumption is most pedagogically effective when certain practices are followed, but these practices are neither onerous nor complex. Teachers can easily explain them, and occasional employment of television in the classroom can help instil the right practices in students, as well as pointing them towards the types of programs that are likely to be most effective for L2 (Language 2, i.e. the target language) learning. In what follows we will look at some of the previous research into the benefits of television on foreign language learning—
especially ESL—and talk about the types of programs that are most beneficial to watch, and see how it can be utilized in the classroom.
2. Background
Information regarding the benefits of systematic television viewing and language learning come from two widely divergent sources. The first can best be described as anecdotal, or even word-of-mouth; there are numerous online stories and articles, and reports from news sources like CNN of people who have “learned” a language by eagerly watching television. Specialists, looking at these cases, have sometimes inductively and sometimes deductively reached
“formulas” which they feel explain the success of these cases, and how other learners can apply them. The second source is from serious academic research by linguists and language acquisition specialists, using rigorous approaches with careful testing. We will now look at both of these, starting with the more informal.
These non, or semi-academic stories are surprising and inspiring, although the conclusions reached concerning “method” must be taken with a grain of salt, as have not been rigorously tested or empirically corroborated. Such stories are very common, however, and the following examples are taken from a CNN article written in 2018, by Elizabeth Coen. She begins with an interview of Melissa Baese-Berk, who directs the “Second Language Acquisition and Teaching” program at a major American state university. Baese-Berk refers to people like Philadelphia Phillies shortstop, Freddy Galvis, and other Latin American baseball players who developed language skills through activities like “watching ‘Friends’ with Spanish subtitles…over and over again.” Similarly, Stephen Snyder, the dean of Middlebury College in Vermont, talks about Chinese and American fans of Japanese anime, who “grew up watching Japanese anime, and without having any formal training in Japanese” developed listening comprehension which is “quite reasonable.”
From her work with this type of “tv learner,” Baese-Berk arrived at three key elements such programs should have. First, they should be highly engaging so that learners want to watch and rewatch the programs over a long period of time (series, tele-novelas, etc.). Second, the programs should have subtitles. Baese-Berk recommends that they be in L1, although as we will see later, not all research supports this assertion, and finally, that the programs stories be
fairly repetitive and similar, so a core set of vocabulary and grammar patterns are regularly reinforced.
In a similar vein, Thomas Cox (EmergingEdTech, 2021) argues that “tv learning” is better in some ways than actual classroom instruction because classroom teachers must dumb-down content by slowing their pace and over-enunciating so students can easily understand. This helps comprehension in class, but leaves learners woefully prepared for real-world encounters, as they are completely unequipped with the listening chops necessarily to understand native- speakers natural speaking style. Like Baese-Berk, Cox has three recommendations for learners.
1) Watch each episode three times, first with L1 subs, then with L2 subs, and finally with no subs.
2) Copy what speakers are saying “out loud.”
3) Write what you hear—even if it is only snippets or single words.
Unfortunately, also like Baese-Berk, he does not refer to any testing or other empirical research to support these recommendations.
Now, let us move to the more academic and rigorously researched studies of how television can help in language learning. In one of the first meta-analyses of previous research, back in 2004 over 100 previously published separate experiments were examined by Chu and Wilbur, who found conclusively that “children and adults learn a great deal from instructional television.” However, their research was in regards to general learning, and was not language specific.
Much of the most widely cited linguistic centered work regarding television and language learning, especially for ESL, comes from Stuart Webb, both working independently and in partnership with a variety of other linguistic scholars, using a broad range of approaches. One of the most comprehensive and advanced techniques in contemporary linguistics is corpora studies, recently made feasible by huge advances in computing power. To create a corpus, huge swathes of data must be covered, categorized, tabulated, and formulated, and then other bodies of data can be compared to various corpora.
Working with Michael Rodgers, Webb created a corpus of more than 250,000 words used in 88 separate English language television programs and found that they are almost exclusively comprised of the most commonly used 3000 word families as well as other significant but less common words and usages, which together “provided 95.45% coverage” of what is spoken in these television shows. They went on to determine that if viewers watch “at least an hour of television a day, there is potential for significant incidental vocabulary learning” (335). What is more, there were few encounters with truly low frequency words, meaning what learners pick up from watching television is almost all useful for daily-life interactions, newspaper reading, etc. The fact that the acquisition of vocabulary is “incidental” is of extreme interest here, as it indicates the spontaneous learning of vocabulary is through natural repetition, without undue conscious effort on the part of the viewer. In other words, students are learning vocabulary merely by consuming television content in “enjoyment” mode, not focusing as a student, with pen, paper, and dictionary in hand. This learning style is much like the way we naturally absorbed our native language.
This is of extreme importance, but the critical factors to keep in mind are volume and quantity.
Naturally a student will acquire more from, say, twenty minutes of vocabulary study than from twenty minutes of casual television watching. However, if the student likes television, and
regularly watches one or more hours a day for relaxation and pleasure, the cumulative effect on learning can be enormous. One of the key variables that determine whether a language learner is ultimately successful or not is simply how much of their time is spent interacting with L2. As Webb and Nation put it, “finding ways to encounter the target language outside of the classroom is arguably the most important language learning strategy” (2017, p. 157). The sad fact is that outside of class, most students simply do their homework, perhaps one or two hours a week (or less) during the regular academic semester, and have little or no other contact with L2.
Compare that to a student who loves CSI, House, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, etc., and, unprompted and with great enthusiasm, watches one, two, or three hours a day of these programs, perhaps more during summer and winter vacations! While other students have returned to their L1, these learners are virtually being bathed in a steady stream of L2, reinforcing key vocabulary, collocations, and grammar patterns for hours a day. It should not be surprising that they learn a lot more than their “more serious,” TV shunning peers.
Looked at this way, television is no longer the enemy of learning and a baleful source of wasteful distraction but a ubiquitous, endlessly patient, ever available, and tirelessly enthusiastic educator. Surrendering to their love of TV may actually be of great benefit to students. As Webb and Peters bluntly put it “For second language learning, binge watching programs is a good thing! (13).
Of course, there are quite a few caveats to this recommendation. For real and consistent progress, traditional education is also of great importance. For one thing, students must first reach a level of language competence to be able to understand enough of the television programs to enjoy them. They also must be guided towards the types of programs that will be most beneficial, and the manner in which the program is consumed is also very important. In the next section of this paper, we will look at how language instructors can help facilitate maximum learning from television, but we must first look at a critical tool of L2 television watching, the one that makes most of this possible: subtitles. Subtitles are of enormous help in understanding content. If L1 (the viewers’ native language) subtitles are used, they don’t have to understand a word of what the speakers are saying, yet will be able to follow the story. For language learners, which subtitle are best, L1 or L2?
A lot of research has gone into this topic, but so far, the results are mixed. To facilitate pleasure and enjoyment, L1 subtitles work best, but some key research in vocabulary acquisition suggests that L2 subtitles are more effective, enabling the viewer to read the same words on the screen as they are hearing. Baronowska reports that “(L2) subtitles assist learners in vocabulary acquisition more than…(L1) subtitles,” (105), and Birules-Muntane and Sota- Faraco, concur, finding that more new words are learned when the subtitles are in the target language, although the difference was not exceptionally large. Fang, Zhang, and Fang recommend showing subtitles simultaneously in both languages, but outside of Hong Kong and parts of China, that option is not available to most of us. Happily, the problem may not be a big one. Other research suggests that if students are actively studying the spoken language, they will tend to pick up meaning as they watch, whether the subtitles are L1 or L2. In late 2022, Reynolds, Cui, Kao and Thomas published a heavily researched “meta-analysis,” an exhaustive survey of all the research performed in this area up until now, and found that the most important thing is simply that there are subtitles. In other words, either kind will work for learning vocabulary, assuming the spoken language is the target language—i.e. there is no dubbing.
3. Television in the Classroom Part One: Choosing a Program
When one does something for pleasure and relaxation, one wants it to be effortless, with nothing detracting from enjoyment. Watching television in a foreign language is far from effortless, and that is why most people, given the choice, will watch television in their native tongue. To encourage learners to leave their comfort zone and strike out into L2 television is a challenge for teachers. There are several things they can do to make the experience positive for the students, as well as making it educationally fruitful. The end goal is the hope that students will be converted into L2 programming fans, so that they will, unbidden, begin routinely watching L2 television in their free-time, thus vastly expanding the time they are learning a foreign language.
The first thing teachers can do is choose programming which is fun and entertaining, therefore appealing to the students; is easily repeatable, plentiful, and extendable (i.e. is part of a longer series with a lot of content); and is dialog rich, thereby providing the most L2 exposure as a proportion of the time watched. It is also a good idea that the viewing “units” not be too large, so that the program can be consumed and completed in a relatively short time, creating a sense of accomplishment and closure. Let us look at these in more detail.
The English language visual media which is most appealing to non-native speakers is unquestionably Hollywood movies. They make billions of dollars a year, and are so popular that they have wiped out many of the worlds other movie industries. However, movies fail to meet our other criteria for language-learning. Although some movies do form a series, they are generally only one or two sequels at most, and the vast majority are solitary units, so are not going to be watched day after day for weeks or months on end. Movies also tend to have long periods without dialog, and the vocabulary used tends to be associated with dramatic action or improbably events, and not the daily home-and-work-life collocations that students most need.
They are also ninety-minutes to three hours long, which is problematic for learners’ busy schedules, much less class times.
Chun Lai (2017) has explained that short, serialized programs work best for students, especially half-hour programs, because they can be completed relatively quickly so students can fit them into their schedules. Viewers can enjoy and complete these units before the programs become onerous and students get tired. If they finish one and want more, they can simply watch another, but they always have the choice of stopping before they get bored. Brief programs also fit readily into class-times. Once commercials are removed, the 30-minute sitcom is only 22 minutes long, which is an easy unit to handle.
In addition to time, 30-minute genres are also pedagogically appropriate for a number of other reasons. First, due to filming budgets and production restraints, these shows have little action or even much out-door filming. The characters are usually in their home or work-place, and the vast majority of screen time is saturated with conversation: sitcoms (serialized situation- comedy programs) love talk and hate silence, so students are constantly inundated with the target language. Second, the rhythm of sitcoms is rapid and engaging, with and up-beat feel punctuated with a steady barrage of jokes, so students tend to find the programs are engaging and fun. Third, the actors intend to be attractive, likeable, and interesting, so students want to watch them and follow their stories, and fourth, the stories themselves continue for as long as the show is viable, with many series lasting ten or more years, with hundreds of individual episodes. The popular animated family sitcom, The Simpsons, is currently in its 34th year of production. Finally, because sitcoms are usually bases around family or friends in a real-world
context, the vocabulary tends to be concrete and useful, punctuated with common idioms, sayings, and slang. Many programs make a point of having the characters speak in a relatively
“natural” manner, as though they are not carefully written and scripted.
For example, Paul Quiaglo has written and published a successful book focused solely on the ways in which the dialog in the popular 1990s American sitcom Friends mimics the natural informal speech-patterns of young urban Americans, including broken syntax, interjections and exclamations, slang, and common grammatical “mistakes.” Interestingly, for ESL purposes, Friends is one of the most popular of all programs, and the series is still shown regular in syndication around the world, as well as selling relatively briskly in box-sets. And it is not alone. Roseanne, Modern Family, Mad about You, Family Ties, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Futurama, Parks and Recreation, Family Matters, The Office, and literally dozens of others are readily available, and span a huge range of topics, from “typical” family life, to the lives of police officers in an urban precinct, to being part of an intergalactic delivery team in the year 3000.
4. Television in the Classroom Part II: Practice
Once a program or programs have been chosen, the next task is to try to make sure the resulting experience is positive and educational for your students. The first stage in doing this is to find ways to boost comprehension during the initial viewing. This can partially be done by explaining the context of the program’s creation, giving background information regarding specifics of the cultural milieu or time period in which the action is occurring, and perhaps introducing some biographical information about the actors. This is the easiest part.
More difficult is trying to enhance students’ comprehension by pre-emptively introducing them to key vocabulary, idioms, and concepts which will occur in the program. There is a fine line here between helping the students and overwhelming them. Of course, student level and motivation are the key factors, but whatever their ability, teachers should probably not expect students to learn more than 20-40 items (e.g. vocabulary words) in preparation for the show.
Combining traditional teaching and program viewing, the vocabulary can be used in a lesson preceding “showtime,” and students can be encouraged to learn the vocabulary by either having a quiz before watching the program, and/or by playing a game using the vocabulary. Games which force students to grapple with, express, and recall vocabulary are the best. One example is to divide the class into several teams, and have individual teams come to the front of the class, and line up. The teacher then shows a vocabulary word to the first student in the line, and he/she must give hints to the rest of the team, prompting someone to call out the correct vocabulary word. Once a word is said, that student goes to the back of the line, and the next student is shown a new, random, word. Each team has two minutes to get as many words as possible. To help review and reinforce the vocabulary, the teams can be given some time to practice together before the game.
As the television show will certainly be quite challenging for the students to follow, it is generally wise to also prepare a script of the program. Ideally, full shooting scripts can be downloaded from the web and printed out. If a script cannot be found, a subtitle file (.srt) can be downloaded for most programs, and these can be modified into a script by the teacher. This takes some time, although it is much, much easier than trying to write out a whole script from scratch.
Rather than show the whole episode at once, the video can be stopped periodically (every five minutes or so), and the students can read through the script in pairs or small groups, marking places that they do not understand. Then the teacher can read through the script aloud with various groups, the rest of the class listening, stopping when necessary to explain problematic points. As students tend to find this activity more fun than traditional classwork, teachers may opt to break an episode up into two or more parts, covering them after regular classwork during the second or final section of successive classes. Students can later be required to retell aspects of the story orally (in speaking classes) or write about them (in writing classes).
Ideally, students will become a fan of a show introduced in class and continue watching it during their free-time. For oral tests or presentations, students, singly or in groups, can be asked to introduce their own favorite shows to the class, thus increasing the likelihood that students will learn about a series which will pique their interest and inspire their own extra-curricular learning.
5. Conclusion
Long considered one of the main dangers (along with video games) which distract students from their studies, impede their learning, and waste their time, it turns out that for language learning, television watching—especially in large quantities—can actually be one of the best ways learners can spend their free time, as long as the program is in L2, with appropriate subtitles. As they watch programs, students are constantly exposed to native pronunciation, natural, rapid delivery, contextualized vocabulary, useful collocations, practical grammar, and the “lived culture” of the target language group. Far from being a waste of time, if combined with more traditional instruction, television viewing may be the best way language learners can spend their free time, especially during long breaks and vacations, when other students’
achievements and skills are likely to break-down and fade from active memory due to disuse.
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