Teaching idioms and idiomatic daily expressions through captioned TV shows

This study was designed to investigate the possible effects of using English captioned TV shows on the acquisition of idioms and idiomatic daily expressions. It also aimed at identifying how participants perceived the use of captioned TV shows as a language learning tool and to what extent they exploited technological tools in the learning process. What is more, the present study inquired about the participants' ways of learning idioms/idiomatic daily expressions. 46 freshmen majoring in English Language Teaching at Dicle University participated in the study, taking part in a control group and an experimental group. The study was completed in 11 weeks during the spring semester of 2013-2014 academic year. To collect data from both the experimental group and control group, both qualitative and quantitative research methods were administered. A pre-questionnaire about ways of learning idioms/idiomatic daily expressions and watching English TV shows was administered to both groups. Then, the participants took a content specific pre-test consisting of idioms/daily expressions used in the TV shows. The experimental group watched captioned TV shows to learn idioms/idiomatic daily expressions and the control group learned the same idioms/idiomatic daily expressions without watching captioned TV shows. After the treatment, a post questionnaire and a posttest were administered to the participants. The data obtained from the study indicated that the participants who learned idioms/idiomatic expression through captioned TV shows outperformed the students who learned the same idioms/idiomatic expression without captioned TV shows. The findings from pre-questionnaires and post-questionnaires of both EG and CG suggest that watching English TV shows is one of the most preferred ways to learn idioms/idiomatic daily expressions. That might be due to visual, aural, contextual and textual aids within the message delivered in the TV shows. The findings also highlight that English TV shows without captions or Turkish subtitles are not so popular among the participants, whereas far more participants watch subtitled and captioned TV shows. This may stem from the fact that captions and subtitles serve as textual aids which contribute to comprehending and processing the information in TV shows. In addition, the findings concerning the use of technological tools indicate that TVs, Ipads, Mp4s are not that popular for the participants to watch English TV shows, and smartphones are not as popular as expected. However, the findings point out that computers are the most common technological devices used by the participants to watch English TV shows Keywords: captioned TV show, idiom, daily expression, ICT, authentic material, communicative approach