







































English Language Teaching Educational Journal             ISSN 2621-6485 

Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020, pp.151-162                                                                                                            151 

       10.12928/eltej.v3i2.2461             http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index         eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id 

Video Cartoons and Task-Induced Involvement: Effects to 

Pupils’ L2 Incidental Literacy Acquisition 

Elaiza Flor S. Arabianaa,1,, Dayvin Adrian Ember A.  Maliferb,2, Helen R. Betoniob,3* 

abc English Department, MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology, Philippines 
1 elaizaflor.arabiana@g.msuiit.edu.ph;  2 dayvinadrianember.malifer@g.msuiit.edu.ph; 3 helen.betonio@g.msuiit.edu.ph*  

* corresponding author 

 

ARTICLE INFO 

 

ABSTRACT 

 

 

Article history 

Received   04 July, 2020 

Revised   29 July, 2020 

Accepted   3 September, 2020 

 While most studies that explored children’s incidental literacy 

acquisition focused on input from written text, this quantitative-

qualitative study investigated the effects of using audio-visual input 

through close-captioned Aesop’s Fables cartoons from PinkFong and 

Task-Induced Involvement (n=6 eight-year old pupils). Wilcoxon 

Signed Rank Test reveals that there is a significant difference in the 

pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttests scores after the 

intervention as shown in the 90%-95% confidence level. This study also 

examines quantitatively the interconnectedness of the four areas of 

children’s literacy skills: vocabulary, oral vocabulary and pronunciation, 

orthographic skill and comprehension after watching cartoons and 

engaging in tasks. Findings reveal a high correlation between the four 

literacy skills reflected as 95% confidence intervals. These findings 

reveal that incidental literacy acquisition is approached holistictically: 

the acquisition of one skill leads to the acquisition of the other literacy 

skills.  

This is an open access article under the CC–BY-SA license. 

    

 

 

 

 
Keywords 

 

Incidental literacy acquisition 

task-induced involvement 

close-captioned videos 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Introduction  

The early years of a child’s life provide avenues for language and literacy development (Mielonen 
& Paterson, 2009). Years ago, children’s exposure to language in their early years was only limited 
to their social interaction among their family members and other children. However, for many 
families now, “media has become a fabric of daily life” (Rideout, Hamel & Kaiser Family 
Foundation, 2006, p.4). The digital age has created a huge impact in the children’s routine and daily 

interactions (Vulchanova, Baggio, Cangelosi & Smith, 2017). With the availability of new digital 

tools and media and them becoming commonplace, today’s children have more opportunities to 
listen, hear and see language in different platforms and environments allowing them to develop 
emergent literacy skills through their exposure. These emergent literacy skills are listening, speaking, 
reading, and writing (Blanchard & Moore, 2010).  

The term "emergent" denotes the “developmental process of literacy acquisition and recognizes 
numerous forms of early literacy behavior” (Gunn, Simmons & Kameenui, 2004, p.1). Zhao (2008) 
defines literacy as “the ability to interpret and understand messages relayed from others” (as cited in 
Mielonen and Paterson, 2009, p.15). It is a “fundamental skill that unlocks learning” (Terry, 2020) 
which is used as a tool for an individual to acquire knowledge independently. For children, language 
development and literacy start even before they enter primary school. This is referred as Emergent 
Literacy which refers to the information, capacity, and frame of mind that children develop as they 
start to learn reading and writing in the whole early childhood period (Save the Children, n.d.). 

10.12928/eltej.v3i2.2461
http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index
mailto:elaizaflor.arabiana@g.msuiit.edu.ph
mailto:dayvinadrianember.malifer@g.msuiit.edu.ph
mailto:helen.betonio@g.msuiit.edu.ph
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Whitehurst and Lonigan (1998, p.1) refer to these skills and knowledge as “developmental precursors 
to reading and writing.” The ubiquitous use of English in media has exposed children to the English 
language prior to the start of their formal L2 English learning which allowed them to receive rich 
syntactic and semantic input for language learning (De Wilde & Eyckmans, 2017). The development 
of these emergent literacy skills continues as children explore the world filled with awe (Blanchard 
& Moore, 2010).  

Emergent literacy as the first stage in reading development (Save the Children, n.d.) is also 
developed even when children are engaged in “non-intentional activities” especially with the use of 
media and technology. Hulstijn and Laufer (2001) define incidental learning as a “by-product of any 
activity not explicitly geared to lexical learning” (as cited in Zhao, et al., 2016). Blanchard and Moore 
(2010) use the term “non-intentional activities” referring to opportunities in which children are 
exposed to language and pictures but the exposure does not have an intended learning objective or 
curriculum. Young children may simply be watching, listening, and talking to others who are sharing 
the digital media experience. This digital experience can be considered play, but learning is achieved 
in this phenomenon without them even noticing it happening. Huckin and Coady (1999, p.18) define 
this incidental language acquisition as a “by-product, not the target, of the main cognitive activity” 
(as cited in De Wilde & Eyckmans, 2017). Saracho and Spodek (2006) explain that reading and 
writing skills are developed even when the learner is playing (as cited in Mielonen and Paterson, 
2009). In second language acquisition, input plays a major role which makes audio-visual input, the 
video, a good source of L2 input (Perez & Rodgers, 2019). 

As early as the late 1970s, research on the impact of the mass media on language development 
began (Vulchanova, Baggio, Cangelosi & Smith, 2017). One of the few earliest studies that dealt 
with audio-visual input among young learners was conducted by Winn (1977 as cited in Vulchanova, 
Baggio, Cangelosi & Smith, 2017) which utilized the effect of the children's television programme 
Sesame Street on language development. The findings reveal that it has significant effects, however, 
only in combination with adult intervention. d’Ydewalle and Van de Poel (1999) in Denmark utilized 
subtitled television programs in a foreign language as language input to Dutch speaking children. 
They found that children tend to acquire more when the foreign language is in the sound form than 
in the written form (subtitles). In the following years, the dearth of studies that explored the effects 
of digital media on emergent literacy skills development emanate from television and computer 
studies (Blanchard & Moore, 2010). 

Recently, studies that explored incidental literacy among young learners include Jensen (2016) 
which explored Extramural English activities that include gaming, watching television and listening 
to music in relation to vocabulary learning. Language input and the child's interaction with the 
environment play a significant role in language development as highlighted in the language 

acquisition theories (Vulchanova, Baggio, Cangelosi & Smith, 2017). As such, this study aims to 
determine whether the integration of digital media (audio-visual input), particularly animated 
cartoons with closed captions (CC) as language input and Task-Induced Involvement (TII) as child’s 
interaction with the environment will lead to the pupils’ L2 Incidental Literacy Skills Acquisition 
(ILSA). With this new digital reality, the study intends to explore its effect on the children’s 
acquisition of the basic human skill: language.  Harun and Tedlos (2013) found that children have 
the tendency to take cartoons as their models and to reflect the characters in their daily games through 
the imitation of a few lines uttered or the behaviors acted by the cartoon characters they associate 
themselves with. Children who experience and are exposed to media-digital input such as animated 
cartoons may lead to more opportunities to incidentally learn more language items. De Wilde & 
Eyckmans (2017) findings confirm that language is incidentally acquired by children before the start 
of formal English instruction through the exposure they receive from media, specifically, gaming 
and computer use which showed a significant relationship to the children’s test results.  

The dearth of studies mentioned prove that few studies deal with younger language learners’ 
incidental literacy skills acquisition since most studies dealt with older participants (teenagers and 
university students). These studies on adult learners also addressed learner’s incidental literacy input 
usually through reading from written texts and which focused only on gains obtained from one skill 
especially vocabulary (Zhao, et al., 2016; Ponniah, 2011). This is not surprising since vocabulary is 
the most significant component of L2 knowledge for all learners to develop whether the learner aims 
for academic or interpersonal competence (Savielle-Troike, 2012). These studies include vocabulary 



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gains from reading and listening (Xiaoning & Feng, 2017), L2 listening using a dimensions 
framework (Zeeland & Schmitt, 2013) and reading and translation (Huang, 2008). Previous research 
on audio-visual input still focused on older learners only (Lin, 2010), gaming and learning L2 
vocabulary (Sylven & Sundqvist, 2012), and gaming frequency and game type as predictors of L2 
vocabulary learning (Sundqvist, 2019).   

Integrating Task-Induced Involvement (TII) after the audio-visual input, this study investigates 
the processes of the children’s incidental acquisition of new words or lexical items (vocabulary), 
understanding how these words are put together and understanding the plot of a story 
(comprehension), acquiring the ability to write and spell the words they have seen and heard onscreen 
(orthography) and acquiring the ability to pronounce new words or lexical items by imitating the 
sound from the video (pronunciation) after multiple exposure to two video cartoons. This process is 
operationally defined in this study as Incidental Literacy Skills Acquisition (ISLA), the phenomenon 
in which learners unintentionally learn new literacy skills: vocabulary skill, pronunciation, 
orthography skill and comprehension skill. This study aims to answer the following research 
questions: (1). What is the level of literacy skills of the students before the intervention? (2). Is there 
a significant effect on the children’s literacy skills before and after the intervention? (3). What is the 
extent of the learners’ incidental literacy skills acquisition? 

The null hypothesis (H0) is that there is no significant effect in the student’s incidental vocabulary 
acquisition after the intervention of animated cartoons with closed-captions with the facilitation of 
Task-Induced Involvement where the extent of comprehension does not lead to the incidental 
acquisition of vocabulary, pronunciation, comprehension and orthographic skill. While the 
alternative hypothesis (H1) is that there is a significant effect in the student’s incidental vocabulary 
acquisition after the intervention of animated cartoons with closed-captions with the facilitation of 
Task-Induced Involvement where the extent of comprehension leads to the incidental acquisition of 
vocabulary, pronunciation, comprehension and orthographic skill.  

In this study, the process of Incidental Literacy Skills Acquisition is explored anchoring on Dual 
Coding Theory by Paivio (2006) and Involvement Load Hypothesis developed by Laufer and 
Hulstijn (2001). Anchored on the Dual Coding Theory (DCT) by Paivio (2006), this study examines 
how the verbal, nonverbal and textual cues affect the learners’ SLA in terms of comprehension, 
vocabulary, orthography, and pronunciation. The DCT has been directly used in literacy and 
language learning as a general cognition theory (Kanellopoulou, Kermanidis and Kanellopoulou, 
2019). According to Paivio (2006), the Dual Coding Theory involves the two distinct subsystems 
activity—the verbal and the nonverbal system. The verbal system specializes in dealing with 
language (text, sound, or sign language) and the nonverbal specializes in dealing with non-linguistic 
objects (symbols, pictures, or videos) (Paivio, 2014 as cited in Kanellopoulou, Kermanidis and 
Giannakoulopoulos 2019). Paivio (2006) further adds that these two systems are composed of 
internal representational units, which he calls logogens and imagens, which are both activated when 
one recognizes, manipulates, or thinks of words and things. Hence, these units can function 
unconsciously to improve cognitive performance (Paivio, 2014 as cited in Kanellopoulou, 
Kermanidis and Giannakoulopoulos, 2019). The representations of these units are modality-specific 
(Paivio, 2006) so every visual, auditory, haptic or feel and motor properties of language that one 
encounters correspond to a different logogen and imagen. These representation units are connected 
to a sensory input and response output systems as well as to each other so that they can function 
independently or cooperatively to mediate nonverbal and verbal behavior (Paivio, 2006). In simpler 
terms, this theory proposes that both the verbal and nonverbal systems are involved in the learners’ 
language phenomena.  The children’s exposure to animated digital media, which comprises verbal 
and nonverbal cues, makes this theory relevant to this study.  

Language learning as a process in which verbal and image representations are absorbed by the 
brain is a complex process. When the learners already acquired language items comprehensible and 
appropriate for their level from the video materials, their ability to remember and recall what they 
have learned—immediate or after a span of time— becomes the next concern. Thus, this paper also 
probes at the learners’ retention of information anchoring on the Depth of Processing (DOP) model 
by Craik and Lockhart (1972) which states that there are three forms that a learner deals with 
information. The first form is structural processing which refers to encoding the appearance of 
something that resembles typescript of the word (orthographic skill when acquired and imitated). 



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This is also referred to as formative processing which is at shallow level (Liu, 2015).  The second 
form is phonemic processing which associates the sound (pronunciation skill when acquired and 
imitated). These two forms are both ‘shallow processing’. The last form is semantic processing which 
happens when learners encode and analyze the meaning of a word and then relate it to similar words 
with similar meaning (vocabulary skill and comprehension skill) (Liu, 2015). This study focuses on 
both ‘shallow’ and ‘deep processing’ of the lexical items mediated through digital media which 
involve meaningful and complex analyses (sound, text, image, thinking, association) of information 
that would lead to longer retention time and enhance easy access from memory (Liu, 2015). 

In the present study, DOP is associated with Incidental Literacy Skills Acquisition, in which 
structural, phonemic, and semantic elements are integrated into one medium. This study takes on a 
material that can put these elements together into test with cartoon videos containing captions 
embedded on them. This multimedia material contains text, sound and image that would further 
motivate and facilitate the acquisition of the mentioned literacy skills and then guarantee retained 
knowledge. In relation to DOP, a study by Hulstijn & Laufer (2001) identified the components of 
incidental tasks which are conducive to the kind of elaborate processing and measurement of the 
DOP. They proposed the task-specific construct and named it as Task-induced Involvement (TII) for 
L2 vocabulary acquisition. The fundamental idea of this hypothesis named as Involvement Load 
Hypothesis is that the acquisition of new words and retention of unfamiliar words are affected by the 
amount and gravity of involvement in processing these new words. Involvement Load has three 
components: need, search and evaluation (Liu, 2015).  

Following the principles cemented by the theories in the study’s framework, the research proposes 
that children who repeatedly watch videos with verbal, visual, and textual cues which they never 
encountered before, and who participate in the integration of activities in the TII will incidentally 
acquire L2 literacy skills. These audio-visual-textual cues from the videos viewed by the learners all 
represent the conceptual meaning of the word absorbed during the cognitive processes of the viewers. 
These cues are arranged and integrated in the memory through the activation of and interaction 
between visual and verbal cognitive processing. The audio cues are aimed to induce the learners’ 
pronunciation skills. The visual cues together with the audio and textual cues are aimed to induce the 
learners’ vocabulary, orthography, and comprehension skills, thus their L2 Incidental Literacy Skills 
Acquisition. Task-induced Involvement facilitates the comprehension, new vocabulary and concept 
absorption after the viewing experience which leads to knowledge processing, hence the Incidental 
Literacy Skills Acquisition. 

Producing competent readers and writers in the later stage of their life is achieved when there is 
a support for children’s language and literacy development (Timothy & Christopher, 2017). As 
such, there is a need to enrich the literature conducted among young learners or children’s incidental 
literacy skills development through audio-visual input. There is also a lack of empirical research that 
investigated the interconnectedness or the holistic process of incidental language acquisition of 
comprehension, vocabulary, pronunciation and orthographic skills. Furthermore, no recent study has 
further utilized both audio-visual input and task-induced involvement as tools in incidental literacy 
skills acquisition. These are the gaps that the current study aims to address.  

2. Method 

The study is a quantitative-qualitative pre-experimental research design (single group) which did 
not employ a comparison group. This study used a pretest, a one-time immediate posttest and a one-
time delayed posttest method to determine the effects of video materials with closed-captions and 
the task-induced involvement (TII) in the pupils’ literacy skills acquisition. The design of this study 
compared the change in the subjects’ literacy skills scores before and after the experimental 
intervention. The qualitative aspect of the study is the assessment of the incidental acquisition of the 
comprehension skills of the respondents through the TII. 

The study was conducted at a Public Elementary School in the Southern part of the Philippines. 
Owing to the school’s locality which is a 30-minute motorcycle ride to the city area, the residents 
have limited access to media found in the internet and cable TV which is of primary importance 
considered in this study. The class distribution of its pupils was also considered where the classes 
are heterogenous, and the pupils are not sectioned according to their ranks.   



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Participants were selected based on a given set of criteria. All participants must be 8 years of age, 
a current Grade 2 pupil of the research locale, have no exposure to English language cable television 
and internet at home, be a Sebuano native speaker, uses his or her native tongue in speaking outside 
the school and at home, interested and willing in participating, and must not have watched Pinkfong 
Aesop Fables videos before. Also, a very important criterion is the children should be in the 
Instructional level based on their Philippine Informal Reading Test result. To ensure that the pupils 
have the same literacy skills level, those who passed the given criteria were also subjected to a short 
standardized reading test, spelling and comprehension test. Only six pupils passed the criteria given 
and the tests conducted. These pupils also had no prior knowledge about the methodology and the 
video materials. 

Research instruments utilized for the intervention were two Aesop Fables videos from PinkFong’s 
YouTube channel, “The Lion and the Mouse” and “The Greedy Dog.” These videos were also 
validated to be free from violent scenes and appropriate for the Grade 2 level by a Developmental 
Psychology professor and her Developmental Psychology class. The length of the videos was less 
than 3 minutes which was a primary consideration in determining the 10-minute attention span of 
eight-year old children (Kapur, 2011).   There were also 16 target words for each video. Furthermore, 
the validated tasks for the task-induced involvement integrated in this study were classified as basic, 
moderate, and advanced based on Hulstijn and Laufer (2001). These were given to the participants 
collectively every after the audio-visual input as fun activities and were nor graded at all. These also 
used various colorful activity materials such as flash cards and poker chips. The tasks allowed the 
children to discuss and deliberate answers as a group. Table 1 below presents the summary of the 
data gathering procedure which was applied to both Videos 1 and 2.  

Table 1.  Summary of Data Gathering Procedure 

Data Gathering Stages Research Instrument 
Day 0 Pilot Testing 
 

Day 1 Pre-test 

Audio-Visual Assessment Tool through Powerpoint 

Day 2 (Video 1) 
First Video Exposure 

Video 1 and Tasks in Basic Category 

Day 3 (Video 1) 

Second Video Exposure 

Video 1 and Tasks in Moderate Category 

Day 4 (Video 1) 
Third Video Exposure 

Video 1 and Tasks in Advanced Category 

 

Day 5 Immediate Posttest 

Audio-Visual Assessment Tool through Powerpoint 

4 days after the last video exposure and 8 days after the 
pretest: Delayed Posttest 

 
Audio-Visual Assessment Tool through Powerpoint 

 

The scores were recorded and compared across all skills and per accumulated score from the 
pretest, immediate posttest and posttest. Furthermore, the scores were statistically analyzed via 
nonparametric analog t-tests for paired data sets: Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test. This test was used to 
determine if there are significant differences between the pupils’ pretest scores vs. immediate posttest 
scores, immediate posttest scores vs. delayed posttest scores, and pretest scores vs. delayed posttest 
scores before and after the intervention. Due to the small sample size, Kendall Rank Order 
Correlation Test is the ideal test (De Wilde & Eyckmans, 2017) which was used to determine the 
significant interrelationships between the scores. The qualitative analysis was also applied to the 
observational data obtained from the pupils’ performances in the tasks.  

3. Results and Discussion 

3.1. Significant Effect After the Intervention 

This study found that multiple exposures to English animated video cartoons with closed captions 
(CC) and Task-Induced Involvement can lead to the incidental literacy acquisitions of vocabulary, 
pronunciation and orthographic skills which also facilitate comprehension skills of children language 
learners. Test scores for each video exposure are presented separately in this section: Video 1 and 



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Video 2. The succeeding tables present a comparison of the scores obtained by the pupils in the 
pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest. It is important to note that the increase of test scores 
is compared in this manner: pretest and immediate posttest; immediate posttest and delayed posttest; 
and pretest and delayed posttest scores in the three literacy skills. 

Table 2 presents the scores of the pupils after their exposure to Video 1. The figures alone show 
that there are score differences as shown in the significant increase in particular to the pretest versus 
immediate posttest scores and changes in the immediate posttest versus posttest scores across the 
three skills. This supports the claim that there are literacy skills acquisitions after the intervention.  

Table 2.  Score Comparisons of Pretest, Immediate Posttest and Posttest for Video 1 

Pupils     Vocabulary  Pronunciation  Orthography Accumulated 

 Pre IP P Pre IP   P Pre IP  P Pre IP P 
A 
B 
C 

D 
E 
F 

0 
2 
1 

0 
0 
0 

6 
10 
4 

4 
0 
9 

6 
9 
7 

3 
2 
9 

0 
1 
1 

0 
0 
0 

5 
9 
3 

3 
0 
8 

5 
6 
5 

2 
2 
7 

0 
1 
0 

0 
0 
0 

4 
5 
2 

1 
0 
6 

3 
6 
3 

1 
1 
6 

0 
4 
2 

0 
0 
0 

 15 
  24 
  9 

  8 
  0 
  23 

14 
21 
15 

6    6 
5 
22 

IP - Immediate Posttest  P- Posttest 

Table 3 presents the statistical presentation of the summary of the significant differences between 
the pretest and immediate posttest, immediate posttest and delayed posttest, and pretest and delayed 
posttest scores in the three literacy skills. As presented in the table, the immediate posttest and the 
delayed posttest scores in the pronunciation and orthographic skill have no significant differences 
which means that the scores in the immediate posttest were mostly retained in the delayed posttest. 
This is similar for the accumulated immediate posttest and posttest score.  

Table 3.  Table of Significant Differences of Scores for Video 1 as Tested via Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test 

(nonparametric analog of the t-test for paired data sets) 

Variable Imm 
Vocab 

Post 
Vocab 

Imm 
Pron 

Post 
Pron 

Imm 
Ortho 

Post 
Ortho 

Imm 
Total 

Post 
Total 

Pre Vocab         
Imm Vocab         

Pre Pron         
Imm Pron         
Pre Ortho         
Imm Ortho         

Pre Total         
Imm Total         

Legend:Percentage of Confidence Level 90%        95% 

    

Table 4 presents the pretest, immediate posttest, posttest scores for each literacy skill and the 
accumulated scores of the vocabulary, orthographic and pronunciation literacy skills tests for Video 
2. It clearly presents the increase of the scores from pretest to immediate posttest, the increase of the 
scores from pretest to posttest and consistent scores from immediate posttest to the posttest. As 
shown, the scores of the participants have increased and there are acquisitions in the vocabulary, 
pronunciation, and orthographic skills on the target words in Video 2, and some of these acquisitions 
were retained by the children after four days. The immediate posttest-posttest scores of pupils A and 
C were maintained.   

 

 

 

 



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Table 4.  Score Comparisons of Pretest, Immediate Posttest and Posttest for Video 2 

Pupils Vocabulary  Pronunciation   Orthography Accumulated 

 Pre IP P Pre IP   P Pre IP P Pre IP P 

A 
B 
C 
D 

E 
F 

1 
2 
1 
1 

2 
1 

6 
11 
5 
3 

2 
5 

6 
9 
5 
3 

2 
5 

0 
0 
0 
0 

0 
0 

5 
9 
5 
2 

2 
2 

5 
 7 
5 
1 

1 
3 

1 
1 
0 
0 

0 
0 

4 
8 
4 
1 

1 
2 

4 
6 
4 
0 

1 
2 

2 
3 
1 
1 

2 
1 

  15 
   28 
   14 
   6 

   5 
   9 

15 
22 
14 
4 

4 
10 

IP - Immediate Posttest  P- Posttest 

Table 5 presents the statistical presentation using the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test of the pretest 
vs. immediate posttest, immediate posttest vs. posttest and pretest vs. posttest scores in Video 2 which 
compares all of the test scores across all the three literacy skills to determine if the differences in the 
scores are significant.  

The results show that there is a significant difference in the literacy skills’ pretest vs. immediate 
posttest and pretest vs. posttest score comparisons with 90%-95% confidence levels. This indicates 
that the pretest-immediate posttest and pretest-posttest score differences are significant, thus, the 
increase in the test scores from the pretest to the immediate posttest and to the posttest as shown in 
Table 3 is significant.  

Table 5.  Table of Significant Differences for Video 2 as Tested Via Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test 

(nonparametric analog of the t-test for paired data sets) 

Variable Imm 
Vocab 

Post 
Vocab 

Imm 
Pron 

Post Pron Imm 
Ortho 

Post 
Ortho 

Imm 
Total 

Post 
Total 

Pre Vocab         

Imm Vocab         
Pre Pron         

Imm Pron         
Pre Ortho         

Imm Ortho         
Pre Total         

Imm Total         
         

 
Legend: Percentage of Confidence Level 90%           95% 

           

Consistently, it can be gleaned in the preceding tables, both in the two videos, that the pretest 
scores across the three skills are generally 0 to 2 only which have increased as shown in the 
immediate and the delayed posttest scores. Tables 2 and 4 have confirmed that the increase is 
statistically significant after the video exposures. However. no significant differences were found 
between the immediate posttest and the delayed posttest scores which means that their acquired 
literacy skills were mostly retained even days without exposure to the intervention because there was 
no significant decrease or increase of scores between the two posttests.   

 

3.2. Extent of Incidental Literacy Skills Acquisition 

The degree to which the pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttest scores in all literacy 
skills for both videos are correlated with one another is also a part of this study’s investigation. How 
one literacy skill has correlation within its test results and with other literacy skills are determined 
through statistical tools and qualitative discussion.  

Since in this study, language is seen to be operating as a whole in the context of L2 incidental 
literacy acquisition, this paper determined the significant interrelationship between the scores within 
one skill and across the three literacy skills. The following findings support the paper’s claims that 



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language or literacy acquisition is wholistic – the acquisition of one literacy skill leads to the 
acquisition of another skill.  

As presented in Table 6 that follows, the blue intersections follow a 95% confidence level. This 
means that there are high correlations between the vocabulary, pronunciation, and orthography skills.   

 

Table 6.  Table of Significant Correlations as Tested Via Kendall Rank Order Correlation Test for   Video 1 

(nonparametric analog of the Pearson’s Test for test of correlation) 

Test Variable Video 1 

Immediate Posttest Vocabulary 100% 83% 

 Pronunciation  83% 
Posttest Vocabulary 89% 93% 
 Pronunciation  96% 

 

Table 7.  Table of Significant Correlations as Tested Via Kendall Rank Order Correlation Test                    

for Video 2 (nonparametric analog of the Pearson’s Test for test of correlation) 

Test Variable Video 2 

  Pronunciation Orthography 
Immediate Posttest Vocabulary 81% 89% 
 Pronunciation  92% 
Posttest Vocabulary 89% 79% 

 Pronunciation  96% 

 

Table 7 above presents the significant correlations of the literacy skills scores in the second video. 
Consistently, there are also positive interconnections between the vocabulary, pronunciation, and 
orthography skills outcome results with a 95% confidence level.  

This high correlation of one literacy skill with the other literacy skills implies that when one 
literacy skill is acquired by the learner, there is a high probability that the learner will also acquire 
the other literacy skills in the process.  The results from the pretest, immediate posttest and delayed 
posttest are highly correlated, interconnected with each other as well and across the other literacy 
skills.  This justifies the claim that literacy acquisition works holistically.  The acquisition of one 
literacy skill leads to the acquisition of another literacy skill. The vocabulary acquisition primarily 
also leads to the other literacy skills.  This implies that if the learner gave an incorrect vocabulary 
(failure to recognize a word and its meaning), there is a high probability that the pronunciation and 
orthographic skills will be incorrect as well (failure to spell and pronounce a word).  

One aspect that was also explored is the frequency of the target words presented in the video. It 
should be noted that target words need to be present in the video in three forms - audio-visual-textual 
cues. It was found that the target words with the highest frequency (words mentioned many times) 
in the two videos were acquired by more than half of the pupils across the three skills. We refer to 
frequency here as the input frequency (Ambridge, Kidd, Rowland & Theakston, 2015). In contrast, 
low frequency target words were only acquired by less than half of the learners. Examples are the 
target words mouse (Video 1) and meat (Video 2) which were the sole words mentioned eight times 
in each video while the rest of the words were mentioned only once or twice. Results show that four 
out of six children (Video 1) and five out of six children (Video 2) acquired the words, respectively. 
This corroborates the findings of Schwartz and Terrel (1983 as cited in Ambridge et. al, 2015).  

 

3.3. Relationship of Comprehension Skills to the Other Literacy Skills 

Task-induced Involvement after each video exposure facilitated not only the incidental 
acquisition of comprehension skills but also the incidental acquisition of vocabulary, oral and 
orthographic skills. The tasks provided a way for the participants to share their ideas and 



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understanding of the two stories presented in audio-visual input. Since tasks were presented as play, 
all of them enthusiastically did the tasks while interacting with the other children when the WH 
questions were asked as part of the task completion. Typical among children, arguments also arose 
among them in completing the tasks, but these arguments were tolerated with the aim that these can 
induce critical thinking and more team discussion allowing them to receive more incidental linguistic 
input. The participants’ comprehension skills were, therefore, incidentally acquired within the 
process. This was shown when the children were able to recognize the characters of the story, 
describe their traits, understand, and discuss the story’s plot and share the moral lesson of the story.  

In answering the basic WH-questions, answers to these questions included the target words that 
will supply the answer. Hence, to answer the comprehension questions, the children utilized their 
vocabulary and oral acquisitions to explain events in the story. This became an indicator how tasks-
induced involvement facilitates incidental literacy skills acquisition. Consequently, with attention-
inducing and effective Task-Induced Involvement and multiple exposures to videos, children will 
obtain complete incidental acquisitions of the literacy skills.  

The result on vocabulary acquisition findings of this study corroborate previous research (e.g. 
Jensen, 2016); Sylven and Sundqvist, 2012) who both explored the relationship of gaming and the 
development of English vocabulary knowledge. Their study found that the frequency of the 
children’s exposure to gaming was correlated significantly to their high score on the vocabulary test. 
Consistently across all literacy skills, the 90% to 95% confidence level in the pretest vs. delayed 
posttest scores indicates that the participants had retained most of the target words from the pretest 
to the delayed posttest even with an eight-day interval. The results also imply that the longer the 
students are exposed to a word, there is a strong likelihood that they will retain the meaning 
associated with the word. The repetition of the words in the video was also significant before the 
pupils fully acquired them.  

In terms of pronunciation (oral vocabulary), the video exposure and the tasks which required them 
to use the target words in their conversation with their peers contributed to these target words’ oral 
vocabulary skill to be acquired. As presented in the statistical data above, the extent of the literacy 
skills acquisition reaches to the orthography skills thus proving a complete acquisition from 
comprehension, vocabulary, pronunciation, and orthography. Though in few cases, some pupils 
obtained partial acquisitions only, such as correct vocabulary and correct pronunciation with 
incorrect spellings. However, it is greatly evident in all the data presented that when one literacy skill 
was acquired, the participants also acquired other literacy skills which led to complete literacy skills 
acquisitions (ILSA). In a similar way, the incorrect answer to one literacy skill affects the other 
literacy skills causing partial acquisitions. Llach & Gomez’ (2007) study supported this claim where 
they found that a child spells a word according to his/her pronunciation. Spelling affected 
pronunciations, pronunciations affected spellings, incorrect vocabularies affected both spellings and 
pronunciations. These literacy skills correlated with each other.  

Furthermore, the Kendall Rank Order Test proved that the vocabulary posttests scores are 
correlated or covaried with each other including the pronunciation posttests scores and the 
orthography posttests scores. The vocabulary, pronunciation and orthographic skills are also found 
out to be correlated or interrelated to one another based on the scores. In other words, correlations 
and interconnectedness exist within test scores of one literacy skill and across test scores of other 
literacy skills. The findings on the high frequency words with more children acquiring them across 
the three skills corroborates the Dual-Coding Theory by Paivio (2006) which state that these units 
presented as verbal and non-verbal cues in audio-visual input can function unconsciously to improve 
cognitive performance (Paivio, 2014 as cited in Kanellopoulou, Kermanidis and Giannakoulopoulos, 
2019). The non-verbal and verbal codes occurring frequently may have positive impacts on recall 
(Kanellopoulou, Kermanidis and Giannakoulopoulos, 2019). This supports Ambridge, Kidd, 
Rowland & Theakston (2015) claim that “All other things being equal, frequent forms will be 
acquired before less-frequent forms” (p.241). Focusing solely on input frequency, Schwartz and 
Terrel (1983) as cited in Ambridge, Kidd, Rowland & Theakston (2015) also found that high-
frequency words were correctly recalled significantly and consistently than low-frequency words. 
Hence, for pedagogical implications, language input in both cues is undoubtedly effective and more 
importantly, if the frequency is increased. 



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Lastly, findings of this study contribute to the existing researches that prove the effectiveness of 
the involvement of tasks that created the levels of need, search and evaluation of meanings (Laufer 
and Hulstijn, 2001).  Thus, the preceding data show that there is a significant effect in the pupils’ 
incidental vocabulary acquisition after the intervention of animated cartoons with closed-captions 
with the facilitation of Task-Induced Involvement where the extent of comprehension leads to the 
incidental acquisition of vocabulary, pronunciation, comprehension and orthographic skill. Hence, 
the null hypothesis is rejected.   

4. Conclusion 

The quantitative and qualitative data in this study proved that there is a significant difference in 
the children’s pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttests scores after the intervention. Hence, 
incidental literacy skills acquisition is possible using animated videos with closed-captions and Task-
Induced Involvement. The extent of acquisitions is complete and wholistic which begins with the 
acquisition of comprehension skills followed by vocabulary, pronunciation and orthographic skills. 
In addition, retention of acquired words after a period of time is possible.  Furthermore, literacy skills 
are significantly correlated to one another. L2 incidental literacy skills acquisition works as an 
interconnected cycle where the acquisition of one skill leads to the acquisition of another literacy 
skill. Thus, proving the interconnectedness and relationship of each of the literacy skills. This further 
provides another view towards L2 literacy learning. Lastly, integrating fun group activities that 
involve language tasks after video exposures will serve as good motivations of cognitive noticing 
processes and facilitating incidental acquisition of comprehension skills which lead towards 
incidental acquisitions of other literacy skills among young learners.   

Therefore, animated videos and Task-Induced Involvement can be effective classroom tools for 
young learners to incidentally acquire second language literacy skills and eventually retain these 
acquisitions days after the last intervention.  The investigation into this occurrence will also be 
helpful to the curriculum designers and teachers in incorporating digital media to the lessons they 
teach in the classroom.  Hence, the use of TII and animated videos such as PinkFong’s Aesop Fables 
to early grade schoolers is an effective teaching strategy for L2 incidental learning in the Filipino 
classroom. With the limitations of this study which include a pre-experimental research design and 
shorter viewing session, the findings of this study can be further explored and confirmed with the 
utilization of static group comparison. Furthermore, a long-term consumption of audio-visual input 
with a delayed posttest conducted after a month to further assess retention is suggested to further the 
findings of this study on the effects of the audio-visual input to the children’s incidental literacy 
skills. Children as recipients of audio-visual input should also be explored more with the limited 
literature in this area that focus more on teenagers and university students.  

 

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