Impact of Watching Cartoons on the Acquisition of English Inflections: A Case Study of an Arab Child

Abstract

The aim of the study is to describes a longitudinal case where a Saudi boy watching selected TV cartoon programs for three hours daily since he was 3 years old until he was 10 years old. The present study focused on the child's acquisition of grammatical inflections. The child, Anmar, was born and grown in Saudi Arabia, in Buraidah city, which is considered to be an EFL setting. This longitudinal research study relied substantially on the case study methodology. It included observation, fieldnotes, audio, and video recordings. To add more transparency to the study two native speakers of English participated in analyzing the collected materials of audio and video recordings. Storytelling and grammatical tests were also administered to triangulate the research findings. The result of the study showed that Anmar, although showing slight resistance to watch English cartoons, soon he was totally engaged in these programs. He started to produce corrected memorized inflectional forms. Later after a few years the child stared to produce his own ideas using correct grammatical inflections with plural–s, 3rd singular –s, ed in the past, and irregular tense. Additionally, Anmar developed a high rate of awareness towards the use of other inflections even beyond the scope of the study, such as knowledge about gerund and participle. Although the study has its own limitation, it calls educational institutions, teachers and parents to organize a similar program for the children to facilitate the acquisition of the language in their childhood and early stages of schooling.