Soap opera vs. sitcom: Word coverage and incidental vocabulary learning

 vs. 

Do you know which program is more beneficial to learn English? The Simpsons of Friends?

10th Conference for the American Association for Corpus Linguistics

October 7th Friday

Topic: Soap opera vs. sitcom: Word coverage and incidental vocabulary learning

Presented by Al-Surmi, Mansoor at Northern Arizona University

        In the conference, Al-Surmi suggested TV shows provide authentic materials contents through satellite worldwide, and they have combination of visual and aural input which make learning easier for L2 learners. Teaching English with TV contents is likely to be effective in that L2 learners can witness the dynamic of reaction. His research inquires include "Can L2 learners incidentally learn vocabulary by watching TV show?" and "How many vocabulary knowledge is needed for incidental vocabulary learning to occur?" His research was based on Webb and Rodger (2009) suggesting that the coverage of vocabulary at the 3,000 word level relatively provides the potential range of vocabulary need to comprehend TV programs.

        Using the soap opera corpus composed of the 2008 episodes (The Young and The Restless) and sitcom corpus of "Friends", Al-Surmi analyzed them with the RANGE program. The researcher’s findings showed that soap and sitcom would likely be more beneficial for incidental vocabulary learning if they are used when learners had sufficient knowledge of the first 3,000 word families.

       Interestingly, this study investigated that genre covering the first 3,000 most frequent words tend more likely to provide incidental vocabulary learning occurrence. Furthermore, watching one or more episodes might not be as effective as having thee knowledge of the first 3,000 word families. However, the researcher also admitted that animations for kids are more appropriate teaching materials than sitcom or soap opera, and it is also proved under the same hypothesis.