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Impact of TV Shows on English Language Acquisition

Article  in  International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering · January 2020

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 International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering (IJRTE)
ISSN: 2277-3878, Volume-8 Issue-5, January 2020

Impact of TV Shows on English Language

Acquisition
M. Vijayakumar, Anu Baisel, S. Subha, K. Abirami


Abstract: The present study deals with the impact of TV shows II. NEED FOR THE STUDY
and sitcoms in one’s English language proficiency. The objective
of this study is to find out the different types of English TV shows Language plays a vital role in everyone’s day-to-day life.
that people enjoy watching and how they have had an impact on Developing language skills enhances effective
their English language. The researcher has tried to look for the communication. Effective communication skills are
various ways in which people think that their communication has fundamental to be successful in many aspects of life. Many
improved. A survey was conducted among the undergraduate
jobs require effective communication skills and people with
students belonging to a technical institution in Vellore district,
Tamil Nadu. Based on the results of the survey, findings and good communication skills usually enjoy better interpersonal
conclusions have been arrived at. The survey results show that the relationships with friends and family. Communication is a key
television shows have a remarkable impact on one’s language interpersonal skill, and improving it assures many benefits.
acquisition. Today schools and colleges focus more on quantitative
teaching rather than qualitative teaching. They teach the
Keywords: Language Acquisition, Sitcoms, TV Shows.
language skills required to get through the prescribed subject
and fail to fulfil the ultimate goal of acquisition of language.
I. INTRODUCTION
Skills like Listening and Speaking are not at all given
importance as concentration is more on Reading and Writing.
Nowadays, television series and sitcoms are becoming as This lapse can be compensated by allowing the learners to
watched as feature films, with a vast array to choose from. watch TV shows and sitcoms. Unlike movies, TV shows are
People have become engrossed in episode after episode of longer and people get involved with good characters. A
plots and characters. In our country the old TV shows have the well-written character is someone that people want to see,
same generic story line with a hero and a heroine but the grow and develop and enjoy returning to. Continuous
introduction of English TV shows has grabbed the attention of watching deepens the audience’s understanding of the
the population and it has also changed the scenario and caused relationship with the characters. There is also the shared
Indian producers to make better content. With the experience factor and the water cooler moment. TV gives the
ever-increasing popularity of TV series over films, the effect audience something to discuss together in the
caused by these shows has increased substantially. English is workplaces/colleges/schools. Questions like ‘Who will win
largely viewed as a language of the modern, educated this reality TV show?’ or ‘What will happen to this
professionals. Watching English TV shows is one of the best character?’ form the backbone of conversations.
ways to improve both the listening and the speaking skills.
The conversations in TV series show how native-English III. METHODOLOGY
speakers communicate verbally with one another in real life,
A survey was conducted among the undergraduate students
so the English you learn from these conversations is authentic.
belonging to a private engineering institution in Vellore.
Initially, it can be challenging to understand but in the long
Engineering students belonging to the age group of 17 to 22
run one can pick up the nuances of this foreign language and
were selected for the survey. Primary data were collected
improve language proficiency. Sitcoms are easier to
through survey using questionnaire. A set of questions
understand compared to TV shows, so watching them could
pertaining to the research was prepared and circulated among
be more preferable to improve one’s language.
the respondents through various modes like E-mail,
WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook. Responses were
collected from 106 respondents. The institution selected for
Revised Manuscript Received on January 10, 2020. the study consists of students across the country which is not a
* Correspondence Author
M. Vijayakumar*, Department of English, School of Social Sciences
common factor in all other institutions in Vellore or in any
and Languages, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India. other institution in Tamil Nadu. This can be considered as one
E-mail: vijayakumar.muthu@vit.ac.in of the limitations of the study. If the same study is done in any
Anu Baisel, Department of English, School of Social Sciences and
other institution, the results may vary. This study cannot be
Languages, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India.
E-mail: anu.baisel@vit.ac.in introduced to beginners or primary school children as it
S. Subha, Department of Science and Humanities, M Kumarasamy involves a lot of comprehension and critical thinking to
College of Engineering, Karur, Tamil Nadu, India. understand the concept.
E-mail: subhaprasath2012@gmail.com
K. Abirami, Department of English, Srinivasa Ramanujan Centre,
SASTRA Deemed University, Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu, India.
E-mail: abirami28@gmail.com

Published By:
Retrieval Number: D7502118419/2020©BEIESP Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
DOI:10.35940/ijrte.D7502.018520 2414 & Sciences Publication
 Impact of TV Shows on English Language Acquisition

IV. REVIEW OF LITERATURE the TV shows, 56% of the respondents feel that their fluency
has improved whereas the remaining 44% say that they are not
Several studies have already been made on using television
sure about it as they are already fluent in the target language.
shows in an L2 classroom. Guillory (1998), Taylor (2005)
On the other hand, when they are asked about the usefulness
and Etemadi (2012) have investigated the comprehension
of the shows, 88% are happy to say that there is an overall
level of the L2 learners. These authors used either a video
development in acquiring grammar, vocabulary,
material designed for this purpose or a documentary running
pronunciation, intonation and listening. 91% of the
to five to seven minutes. Sitcoms have been used by the
respondents agree that they have learnt contracted forms or
researchers (Sun Quan, 2016, Mayer, 1997) for developing
expressions for a lengthy word or phrase by watching these
the pronunciation, intonation and vocabulary aspects among
TV shows. When there is a specific question about the
the ESL learners. The investigation made by Zarei A A &
development of the language skills, surprisingly, 67% of the
Rashvand Z (2011) and Kruger J-L, Hefer E, Matthew G
respondents say that they have improved their speaking skill
(2013) shows that subtitles in films and other audio-visual
whereas improvement level for listening is 63%, vocabulary
materials help the learners of English language to acquire
61% and grammar 37%.
language skills. Joe Hambrook, in his article BBC English by
TV is a very interesting medium where ideas are brought to
Television (on Secondment to Children's Television
life. Good shows drag the audience into the show’s world and
Workshop), published in the book The Use of Media in
make them care for the characters. Some shows even end up
English Language Teaching (1979) opines that television
being favourite ones and they are remembered forever. As
materials have been used for language learning purposes since
such, the favourite characters tend to have a good impact on
1930. However, he advocates in his article that the material
the audience and they pick up a few signature phrases from
has to be selected, graded and produced depending on the
them. These newly-learnt phrases are incorporated into one’s
requirements. The principal objective of the present study is
day-to-day communication consciously or unconsciously.
entirely different from what has been done so far. This study
People even tend to use these phrases and expressions as their
aims at introducing TV shows and sitcoms to the young
WhatsApp status. While investigated about the everyday use
learners in order to give them an English air in the Indian
of phrases and catchy expressions acquired from the TV
atmosphere by encouraging them to communicate with their
shows, 85% of respondents agree that they use TV references
peers and colleagues in English.
in their daily lives. At the same time more than 81% of
respondents have said that they interact with people who
V. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
watch similar TV shows though they are unknown to them.
In terms of the language spoken by the respondents, it is This statement again proves that they are confident of
observed that they are using either of the following languages communicating with different kinds of people. Given below
as their first language: Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, are some of the expressions which they feel catchy and they
Tamil, Kannada, Marathi, English and a few other languages. are picked up from the TV shows: No more half measures,
Out of these 30% of people are using Hindi as their first Got dreams worth more than sleep, Binge, I'm not in danger, I
language or mother tongue. More than 95% of respondents am the danger, Antagonist, Void in my chest, Overwhelming
who belong to the age group of 17 to 22 watch TV shows and power, When there's a gun pointed at your head, you have 147
when asked about the number of TV shows they have different ways to counter, How you doing!, Bazinga,
watched, nearly 57% of people responded that they had Entourage, That is an oopsie!, Winter is coming! You better
watched 10 or more TV shows. Those who have watched take that back and It is a delicacy at any age.
more than three or four TV shows agree that they are able to The most common way of doing things is by imitation.
realise that their language skills are gradually improving. When someone recommends to people to do something, they
Almost 35% of students have agreed that they watch these are ready to follow it instead of taking their own decisions.
shows at least two hours a day and another 30% of students 96% of respondents say that they recommend to others to
have responded that they watch the shows one hour a day. watch a show if they feel that it is worth watching. People who
When there was a question about the choice of the watch many shows have few favourites which they tend to
programme, whether they prefer watching TV shows or a watch on and on. These might excite them or make them feel
bunch of random YouTube videos, more than 63% responded comfortable. Given here are some of the favourite shows of
that they prefer TV shows while the remaining respondents the respondents: Breaking Bad, Rick and Morty, Sherlock,
(nearly 37%) prefer to watch a bunch of random YouTube Aircrash Investigation, The Originals, Suits, Game of
videos. Thrones, Narcos, The Flash, Supernatural, Death Note,
TV shows have varied genres like Action, Thriller, Law, Naruto, 13 Reasons Why, Brooklyn 99, Young Sheldon,
Crime, Romance, Comedy, Romantic Comedy, Suspense, Vampire diaries, How I met your mother, World of dance,
Politics, Science, Suspense, Anime and many others that are Lucifer, Stranger things, Arrow, Dexter, Hunter X Hunter,
mentioned in a poll. They have become so varied that there is Silicon valley and F.R.I.E.N.D.S.
something for anyone to enjoy. But a few genres are always
more popular than their counterparts.The top genres include:
Suspense/Thriller (56.6%), Science Fiction/Crime (55.7%),
Detective/Suspense (50%), Comedy/Fantasy (45.3%) and
Anime (34.9%). When people are asked about the
improvement in their fluency level before and after watching

Published By:
Retrieval Number: D7502118419/2020©BEIESP Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
DOI:10.35940/ijrte.D7502.018520 2415 & Sciences Publication
 International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering (IJRTE)
ISSN: 2277-3878, Volume-8 Issue-5, January 2020

VI. FINDINGS OF THE STUDY 4. Etemadi, A. (2012). Effects of Bimodal Subtitling of English movies on
Content Comprehension and Vocabulary Recognition. International
Watching TV shows/sitcoms is normally a way to pass time Journal of English Linguistics, 2(1), 239–248.
either alone or with others. Unknowingly, this helps us learn 5. Frumusely, D.A., et al.(2015). Television Series Inside the EFL
Classroom: Bridging the gap between Teaching and Learning Informal
new words, phrases or sentences. Watching them with Language through Subtitles. Linguistics and Education. 32(B), pp
subtitles improves the quality of understanding. From the 107-117. Retrieved from
present study on The Impact of TV Shows on English http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2015.10.001
6. Guillory, H. G. (1998). The Effects of Keyword Captions to Authentic
Language Acquisition, the following findings are put forth: French Video on Learner Comprehension. Calico Journal, 15(1-3),
1. Majority of the respondents prefer to watch TV shows 89–108.
rather than YouTube or other Audio-visual sites. 7. Hambrook, J. (1979). BBC English by Television (on Secondment to
Children's Television Workshop), ed. The British Council, The Use of
2. On an average, two hours a day are spent on watching TV Media in English Language Teaching, ETIC Publications, London.
shows. 8. Kruger J-L, Hefer E, Matthew G. Measuring the impact of subtitles on
3. A large number of the respondents improved their language cognitive load: Eye tracking and dynamic Audiovisual Texts. ACM
skills and gained fluency only after watching the shows. International Conference Proceeding Series. 62-66.
10.1145/2509315.2509331.
4. The tendency to interact with people has improved as they 9. Mayer, R. E. (1997). Multimedia learning: Are we asking the right
start discussing the TV shows initially. questions? Educational Psychologist, 32(1), 1-19. Retrieved from
5. The viewers are able to pick up a few words, phrases and http://dx.doi.org /10.1207/s15326985ep3201_1
10. Quan, S. The Applicability in Selection of American Sitcoms as
expressions from the shows and use them in their everyday Materials for Teaching English Listening and Speaking. 2nd
language. International Conference on Social Science and Technology Education
6. Genres like Thriller, Crime, Detective, Comedy, Fantasy (ICSSTE 2016)
11. Taylor, G. (2005). Perceived Processing Strategies of Students
and Anime are watched more than the rest of the dramas. Watching Captioned Video. Foreign Language Annals, 38(3), 422–427.
12. Zarei, A A et al. (2011). The Effect of Inter-lingual and Intra-lingual,
VII. SUGGESTIONS Verbatim and Non-verbatim Subtitles on L2 Vocabulary
Comprehension and Production. Journal of Language Teaching and
In order to strengthen the learning possibilities among the Research, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 618-625.
student community, the following suggestions can be
considered: AUTHORS PROFILE
1. Since the interest of the student is more on the ungraded TV Dr. M. Vijayakumar, pursued his M.A. and M.Phil.
shows and online audio visuals than the graded prescribed from Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli. He had
materials, teachers can think of creating worksheets and his Ph.D from Anna University, Chennai on Diaspora
assigning tasks based on any of the popular TV shows. Studies. His research areas include Postcolonial
Literature, Indian Writing in English and Comparative
2. As the time spent on watching those TV shows is Literature. He is a life member of ISTE and ELTAI.
reasonably high, instructional plans are to be arrived at for
using it effectively for learning purposes.
3. There should be a space in the curriculum for teacher Dr. Anu Baisel, pursued his M.A., B.Ed., M.Phil, &
Ph.D. degrees from reputed national Universities. He is
autonomy so that he can design his own instructional
a certified International Trainer from International
materials depending on the level and interests of the Institute for Professional Excellence (IIPE) Canada. He
learners. is also a Motivational Speaker and has conducted
4. Tasks related to enacting a scene from the show or role play training sessions for Colleges and Corporates.
can be assigned to students as a follow-up activity, thereby
giving them an opportunity to use the acquired vocabulary.
Prof. S. Subha, pursued her M.A. from Bharathidasan
VIII. CONCLUSION University, Tiruchirappalli and M.Phil. from
Bharathiyar University, Coimbatore. Currently
It is observed from the study that there is a huge impact of Pursuing PhD in English Language Teaching in Periyar
TV shows on one’s English language proficiency. They not University,Salem. She is a Life Member of ELTAI.
only serve entertainment purposes but also show a steady
learning curve. People with varied interests communicate
with one another as these shows act as a spark in their Prof. K. Abirami, pursued her M.A. from
Bharathidasan University, Trichy, B.Ed. and M.Phil.
conversations. They also have a common feel that the way from PRIST University, Thanjavur. She has submitted
they communicate in English has become better but they her doctoral thesis for evaluation at SASTRA Deemed
might have to be slightly cautious about what they pick up and University. Her research areas are stylistics and ELT.
watch as everything around is not good. She is interested in writing poems and her poems have
been published in various anthologies.

REFERENCES
1. Billson, A (2013) Can you learn a language from watching foreign
films? Retrieved from
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2016/04/19/can-you-learn-a-langua
ge-from-watching-foreign-films/
2. Brown, S.K. (2010) Popular Films in the EFL Classroom: Study of
Methodology. Procedia – Social and Behavoural Sciences, 3, pp 45-54
3. Danping, W. (2012) Self-directed English Language Learning Through
Watching English Television Drama in China. Changing English, 19:3,
339-348

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Retrieval Number: D7502118419/2020©BEIESP Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
DOI:10.35940/ijrte.D7502.018520 2416 & Sciences Publication
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