Does grammar learning have to be boring? Learning L2 grammar constructions from original version television series

The effects of informal and leisure exposure to original version (OV) TV series is part of a growing area of research into out-of-school activities done by EFL students (e.g. Sockett 2014). OV TV series supported by captions have been found to be a fruitful source of input for L2 vocabulary learning and content comprehension (Vanderplank, 2016). Yet, very little is known about potential L2 grammar learning from extensive viewing of OV TV series, or the input-related factors that may affect it. This study situates itself in the constructionist perspective of grammar, a novel approach to explore learning from this type of input, and addresses the following research question: To what extent does L2 construction learning from audio-visual input depend on caption support, frequency, recency, and construction type?

To address these questions data were collected from 112 university non-linguistics learners of English. The design included pretest, immediate posttest, delayed postest, and extensive watching of 10 episodes (218 minutes) of English OV TV series with three groups, Captions, textually enhanced Captions, and No Captions. In our presentation, we will see the effects of extensive viewing on L2 grammar constructions learning, the value of using captions, and the mediating roles of constructions learnablity factors. As captions are ecologically valid for OV TV series viewing - both in and out of the classroom - we will also discuss the relevance of our findings to informal learning. 

Sockett, G. (2014). The online informal learning of English. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Vanderplank, R. (2016). Captioned media in foreign language learning and teaching: Subtitles for the deaf and hard-of -hearing as tools for language learning. Oxford: Palgrave Macmillan.