Example of Journal Writing
Improving Vocabulary by Watching English
Movies
Risca Nur Kafidah
chakafidah [at]
gmail.com
Islamic
University of Kadiri, Kediri, East Java, Indonesia
Abstract
English movies are provided in many countries and are familiar to
non-native learners. They can motivate, solve ambiguity and remove some of the
anxiety of the learners. This paper aims at pointing out the benefits of
watching English movies related to the vocabulary improvement of English as
foreign language (EFL) learners.
Introduction
Language is the most important thing in human
life. It is the system of communication in speech and writing that is used by
people of a particular country or area (Hornby, 2010, p. 834). It means that
people can understand a language only if they can communicate one another.
English is one of the international languages that is
most used in many countries in the world.
It is considered being the first foreign language to be learned in Indonesia. As the EFL learners, they have to be
able to communicate well. Through communication they can express ideas,
thoughts, and desires. Thus, the presence
of language has overcome the problems to express and share their feeling, idea and knowledge to
others.
Before
learning a language, the EFL learners should have knowledge about the smallest
part of it. That is vocabulary. According to Hornby (2010:1662), vocabulary is all
the words in a particular language or the words that people use when they are
talking about a particular subject.
However,
the EFL learners find difficulties in memorizing new words. They may study
about grammar, texts, writing technique, speaking skill, etc. but they still
have a lack of vocabulary.
Setyosari
(2008:7) stated, “Choosing and using medium are one of the teacher’s methods in
teaching and learning process. The role of the medium is as the internal part
in teaching and learning process. Considering all the benefits of using medium
in facilitating the students’ learning, the teacher should provide it
appropriately. The presence of medium helps the students to understand the
material more. Hence, the usage of medium must be appropriate so that the
purpose of learning is reached. At last, the utilization of it can improve the
effectiveness, efficiency, and interest in learning.” In this case, the EFL
learners should find the new method to master vocabulary. Therefore, they use
the medium to help them. In connection with improvement of EFL learners’ vocabulary
and fact that they prefer English movies to Indonesian, the usage of audio-visual
medium is needed. Audio-visual medium is a medium that involves seeing and
hearing.
The
alternative method to solve the problem is by watching English movies. The
habit of watching English movies gives the opportunities to them to learn
English more. They can get new vocabularies, analyze grammar structure, imitate
the native speaker’s pronunciation, etc.
Studying
vocabulary can be done at anywhere and anytime. EFL learners should not listen
to their teacher giving new vocabularies in the class while sitting and
writing. It must be boring and tiring. Therefore, they use the enjoyable
activity to improve their vocabulary.
Improving
Vocabulary through Movies
Movie is a series of moving pictures recorded with
sound that tells a story, shown at the cinema or movie theater (Hornby, 2010,
p. 967). English movies are made by native English speakers. Therefore, the
language used is exactly how we hear it in real life. It is spoken quickly,
with native accents and pronunciation. It often uses many idioms and colloquial
expressions. However, EFL learners, especially in Indonesia, prefer English
movies to Indonesian.
Watching English movies will help EFL learners in
many ways (Bloomsbury International, p. 4):
1. Listening
skills:
You will hear English being used in a
very natural way. Some parts may be spoken too fast for you to understand but
it will be a perfect way for you to get used to hearing native speakers talk to
each other. You will also hear informal English slang words and phrases that
you often do not find in books or dictionaries.
2.
Speaking skills:
Hearing natives speak will also help
your speaking skills, especially your fluency. You will hear how to link your
words together and where to put intonation on certain words and sentences. Try
to watch films with your friends and speak about them afterwards or you can even
find movie scripts online and act out scenes with your friends! You can then
play the scene to check if your pronunciation is correct.
3. Pronunciation:
We all know that English pronunciation
is extremely difficult and when you read words, it is hard to know how they
should be said. Hearing native English talk to each other will help you to hear
how words are pronounced. If you are using English subtitles, you will also be
able to see how the words are written.
4. Vocabulary:
By watching English movies, you will
hear many new words and phrases, especially idioms and colloquial expressions.
Keep your notebook with you and write down any new words or phrases you hear
and you would like to remember or you don’t understand. You can look up the
meaning later or ask your English teacher.
5. Put
knowledge into practice:
In your English classes you will learn a
lot of vocabulary and grammar but you may not know how to use it in real life.
Watching English movies will help you understand how to use all the knowledge
you have learnt in everyday situation.
After knowing its
benefits, we have to know three tips on how to learn vocabulary by watching
movie, they are;
1. When
you hear an interesting word or expression: write it down.
2. Research
the words or expressions we like and find out how to use them.
3. Practice.
From the explanation
above, although we know that English movies help us to improve the other
skills, such as listening, speaking, grammar and structure, the significant
effect from it is that we are able to improve and enrich our vocabulary. We
know that vocabulary is the main point of a language. Besides its benefits of
improving our English skills, movies can also teach people about history,
science, human behavior, and any other subjects. It makes watching movies as medium
of learning English more enjoyable.
Choosing
Appropriate Movies to Learn English
According to Danim
(1995:19), “Movie has particular value, such as completing basic experience,
provoking new inspiration, attracting attention, showing treatment of real
object, explaining abstract things, etc.” After knowing the purpose of the
movie, we find difficulty in
choosing what movie that is suitable for our level
of English. If our level of English is quite low, we can choose a movie that we
already watched which is made for children with simpler language (for example,
Pixar or Disney films). However, if we have higher level of English, we can try
to challenge ourselves and watch movies with more advance language or we can
watch them without using subtitle.
Some recommended movies
taken from FluentU English Language and Culture Blog which can be considered by
EFL learners;
1.
Finding
Nemo
Finding
Nemo is an animated film about a clownfish
called Marlin who loses his son, Nemo. On the way, he meets another fish called
Dory. Together, they set out on an amazing adventure to find Nemo across the
huge ocean. It is one of the best animated movies for all audiences.
2.
Harry
Potter
If you like magic, Harry Potter will take you through the mysteries of Hogwarts and
the wizards’ world. It is an eight-part movie about the battle between the good
and the bad wizard. The story is centered on the main characters, Harry Potter
and Lord Voldemort.
3.
Lord
of the Rings
Lord
of the Rings is another one of the greatest
film series in the magic category. Set in the lands of the Middle Earth, there
are three primary races – dwarves, humans, elves as well as other races such as
Hobbits, orcs and werewolves. The series follows the dark plot of a rebellion
led by Sauron, the most evil being. To oppose this evil, a small group of
fighters take on a brave mission – to destroy a ring that is said to hold the
powers of Sauron himself, which would mean the fall of him with its
destruction.
Research to
Prove the Effectiveness of Watching English Movies
Sabouri et al. (2015) did the research about the
impact of watching English subtitled movie in vocabulary learning in Iran. They
stated, “The movie by the title Avatar
was purposefully selected because it consisted of military, wildlife and forest
vocabulary items altogether and its intermediate difficulty level of the
lexical items was expected to highly reinforce the vocabulary achievement by
the learners. The Avatar movie is an
American movie which is first released in 2009 in the genre of epic and science
fiction.” (p. 114). The vocabularies which the researches were supposed to
study included in the movie and were presented to the learners during
implementation process of the study. They also
explained, “The process of movie watching was mostly learner-centered and their
presence was an essential need, though teachers handled the preparing of the
material in the classes. The teachers introduced the learners to the movie and
its essential role in their education and they asked learners to pay attention,
learn and focus on the items needed for the study. The teachers provided
necessary information related to definitions of the words in the movie in order
to maintain better understanding of the new lexical items for the learners.”
They did some tests to the participants
to know how the improvement of their vocabulary after watching English
subtitled movie was.
The participants were placed in experimental and
control group randomly as all of the members of the groups had the same level
of vocabulary knowledge. All groups received the same pre- and post-test
vocabulary items.
At first, words were selected based on their
difficulty and they were tried to be balanced based on the level of the
learners. A paper including twenty English words extracted from the selected
movie were distributed among learners and the learners were asked to choose the
best answer in their sheets. Questions and answers were provided in English and
all the words which were extracted from the movie of Avatar were covered
in the treatment phase which the learners were supposed to find the best
definition based on their background knowledge of lexis (p. 115).
The results gathered from the analyses revealed the
answer that learners who had watched English subtitled movies in classrooms had
performed better in the vocabulary achievement tests and their scores increased
significantly (p. 122).
Conclusion
In order to improve their vocabulary mastery, the
EFL learners try an enjoyable activity instead of memorizing words
traditionally. Watching English movies with using subtitle is chosen to help
them. There are some benefits which they can get from it. According to research
study (Sabouri et al., 2015), the EFL learners show significant improvement
after watching English subtitle movie.
From this study, it is obvious that doing enjoyable activity to improve
English skills can be considered as an effective method for EFL learners.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
*
Author, G. (2014). How to Learn English by Watching Movies.
Retrieved May 14, 2015, at 9:45 a.m., from Magoosh TOEFL Blog: www.magoosh.com/toefl/2014/how-to-learn-english-by-watching-movies/
*
Baggio, Learn English through Movies and Film: A
Complete Guide. Retrieved May 14, 2015, at 9:45 a.m., from FluentU English
Language and Culture Web site: www.fluentu.com/english/blog/learn-english-movies-films-esl/
*
Danim, S. (1995). Media Komunikasi Pendidikan. Jakarta:
Bumi Aksara
*
Hornby, A. S. (2010). Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary.
New York: Oxford University Press.
*
Learning
English with Movies: How to Improve Your English Listening and Speaking Skills
with Movies. Retrieved May 14, 2015, at 9:45
a.m., from Bloomsbury International Web site: www.bloomsbury-international/images/ezone/ebook/learn-english-with-movies.pdf
*
Sabouri, H., Zohrabi,
M., & Osbouei Z. K. (2015). The Impact of Watching English Subtitled Movies
in Vocabulary Learning in Different Genders of Iranian EFL Learners. International Journal on Studies in English
Language and Literature (IJSELL), 3 (2),
114, 115, 122. Retrieved May 14, 2015, at 9:45 a.m., from www.arcjournals.org
*
Setyosari, P. (2008). Pemanfaatan Media.
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