The Effects of TV Series as Curricular Activities on Speaking Skills of English Language Learners

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of TV series, as curricular activities, in the target language on the speaking skills development of the students studying at the preparatory school of a state university in Turkey. Therefore, 48 students participating the study were divided into two groups; the control group and the experimental group. While the control group and the experimental group were subjected to the same curriculum carried out by the school, the experimental group additionally watched one 25-minute episode of “How I Met Your Mother” series every week for thirteen weeks. After the learners watched the episodes, they formed groups of 4 or 5, and they had conversations where they expressed their feelings and thoughts about the episode that they had just watched. In the present study, a mixed method research design was used. Quantitative data were collected through two speaking examinations, and qualitative data were collected via interviews with the participants of the treatment group to find out the learners’ perception of the usage of TV series in language learning. The results indicated that the experimental group surpassed the control group with a statistically significant difference in terms of the general speaking scores and interaction scores of the post-test. Furthermore, the interviews carried out with the learners revealed that most of the learners (87,5%) found the TV series very useful in their language learning process. Among all the participants, 70,8% of them explicitly indicated that TV series helped them to improve their speaking skills.