THE IMPACT OF EXTENSIVELY EXPOSING IRANIAN VERY YOUNG EFL LEARNERS TO ENGLISH MEDIA ON THEIR LEARNING PROCESS

Abstract

Teaching and learning to speak English has become increasingly important in Iran mainly due to the fact that English has been identified as one of the world’s most widely-spoken languages. Therefore, the present research attempted to probe whether extensively exposing Iranian very young EFL learners to English media has any significant effect on their learning process, operationalized as their learning growth. The study involved 60 non-native very young EFL learners at different private language institutes in Iran. Data collection revolved around several general areas of interest, such as the influence of intervention on their language growth. An ‘Individual Growth and Development Indicator’ was used as the Pre-and-Post-test. The findings seem to indicate that the students who were highly exposed to films as a result of their own entertainment and consumer choices and their EFL classroom instruction demonstrated statistically significant differences in their English learning acquisition and overall EFL achievements as compared to those students who were less exposed to these films inside and outside the classroom by personal choice and curricular demand. The obtained results are discussed in terms of their relationship with the extant literature and implications for TESOL, especially with regard to the role of exposing EFL children to English multimedia sources in order to promote their learning. Article visualizations: