The Use of Anime with English Subtitles in Expanding Second Language Learners’ Vocabulary and Syntactic Complexity

This study examined the effect of subtitled anime on the learning gains of Second Language Learners in terms of vocabulary and syntactic complexity. The respondents, composing of Grade 8 students were divided into three groups and were subjected to experimentation. As a part of their classroom instruction, first group viewed anime with English subtitles, second group viewed English dubbed anime and the last group which considered as the control group utilized the regular language activities recommended in the learners' module. As pertained to in the Kruskall-Wallis Analysis of the learning gains of the three groups of respondents, the composition writing results garnered a p-value of 0.058 while the cloze test garnered 0.00 p-value; thus rendering the decision to reject the null hypothesis and proving that there was a significant difference in the learning gains of the students in vocabulary and syntactic complexity for those who used the English dubbed and subtitled anime as instructional material. Moreover, those who used the English subtitled anime achieved higher learning gains compared to those who used English dubbed anime. The statistical evidence was seconded further by the survey among the respondents along with their opinions regarding the utilization of subtitled anime as instructional material.