FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY, KOSOVSKA MITROVICA

STUDY PROGRAM: ENGLISH LANGUAGE – LANGUAGE MODUL

The Usage of Cartoons in Discourse

for Children between the Age of 5-8

Seminar Paper

Student:Adela Brunčević Mentor: Danijela Kulić

Kosovska Mitrovica, jun2023

 Contents
Introduction..................................................................................................................................2
1. Cartoon’s Influence on Children.........................................................................................4
2. Usage of Cartoons in English Language Acquisition..........................................................5
2.1 Negative Features.............................................................................................................5
2.2 Positive Features....................................................................................................................6
3. Activities..............................................................................................................................7
4. Motivation............................................................................................................................8
5. Bibliography........................................................................................................................9

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 Introduction

“The adult world and the child’s world are not the same.”1

Cartoons represent an enormous source of entertainment to children, every one of them

likes to watch cartoons on daily basis because cartoons are amusing, appealing, interesting and
a great source of fun. But not everything about cartoons is so positive, sometimes cartoons can
have a negative influence on children, therefore if we want to use a cartoon for classroom
activities, we have to choose wisely and carefully. Children of the age between 5-8 are at the
specific stage of life when their brain has plasticity which helps them learn new language
naturally, but after this period that plasticity gradually disappears. Bearing that on mind,
cartoons can be a great source of language acquisition as well, because at that age they more
easily learn the language through entertaining source rather than from books or some formal
instruction. Formal instruction or books sometimes can be dull and strictly followed which
disables youngsters to show their creativity and their full potential, on the other hand, cartoons
can be interesting, innovative and offer a relaxed approach to acquire second language because
children watch cartoons from the earliest stages of their life and it represents something safe,
comfortable and familiar to them. From those earliest stages, we can hear children saying
some repetitive lines from cartoons what proves how much they are appealed to cartoons and
prone to accepting new ideas and learning language – unconscious development of their
vocabulary. Cartoons usually have morals helping children to learn some values, ideas which
public schools and institutions are sometimes devoid of. Some cartoons create utopia, a
perfect, save place full of children’s innocence which can help them at that age establish a
healthy emotional life.
1
Scott, A. Wendy, Ytreberg, H. Lisbeth, Teaching English to Children, New York, Longman,
1995, p. 3, 4

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“Children of seven are relatively mature children with an adult side and a childish side.
Their basic concepts are formed. They have very decided views of the world.
They can tell the difference between fact and fiction.
They ask questions all the time.
They rely on the spoken word as well as physical world to convey and understand the
meaning.
They are able to make some decisions about their own learning
They have definite views what they like and what they don’t like doing.
They have a developed sense of fairness about what happens in the classroom and begin to
question teacher’s decisions.
They are able to work with others and learn from others.” Scott and Ytreberg (1995:3-4)2

Children at the age between 5-8 are very delicate for teaching and they can be a handful
because they are slowly growing into men with their own opinion and the sense for right or
wrong. In this seminar paper, it will be shown how suitable cartoons can be in a classroom,
what are their negative and positive features, how to spark some interest in pupils and
motivate them, and what activities we should use.

2
Scott, A. Wendy, Ytreberg, H. Lisbeth, Teaching English to Children, New York, Longman,
1995, p. 3, 4

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 1. Cartoon’s Influence on Children

One might say that children are “sitting ducks” when it comes to influence, they are like
plasticine, waiting to be shaped. Everything they watch, they absorb. Childhood is a period of
a tremendous biological, psychological, and social development. They learn some major life
skills during this period – to walk, talk, read, care for others and themselves… Cartoons are
their major vehicle of fun during that period, but cartoons transcend the purpose of fun, they
can also be regarded as teaching machines nowadays. As we watch cartoons and observe the
way children absorb information, it seems meaningless to treat cartoons as just a source of
entertainment. Children tend to pick up some words and behaviors by watching cartoons and
implement them in their daily life, but they sometimes make a mistake and use them in the
wrong context, for example: saying basketball but actually thinking of football. Boys are
fonder of action type of cartoons such as “Ben ten”, “Yu-Gi-Oh”, and girls like “Cinderella”,
“Beauty and the Beast”, and we are no stranger of the scenes where boys imitate some action,
battles, and girls try to impersonate some queens. They also understand cartoons and they
relate them to real life, they see that in “Tom and Jerry” Tom is a cat and Jerry is a mouse
where Tom chases Jerry, and they witness that in real life as well. Cartoons are full of
characters who belong to a specific group of people (doctors, teachers, lawyers, football
players) and it’s no rarity we see children already looking up to them and choosing them as
their role models, in this way, cartoons offer at the very least a specific words or phrases,
values and ideals. Being restless, curious and lovers of fun, they learn foreign language the

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most when both native and second language interact with each other in a friendly, free of
worries, safe and enjoyable environment.

2. Usage of Cartoons in English Language Acquisition

Due to development of science and technology, options for English language teaching have
increased. New ways of teaching are introduced through the usage of CDs, DVD players,
projectors, TVs which helps pupils focus on communicative, reading and listening aspects of
language. Cartoons are a way of teaching English in a classroom as much as outside of it. But,
we should be careful when choosing a cartoon for second language acquisition because of the
many reasons mentioned in the previous chapter. Some cartoons have negative features, as
well as positive, of course.

2.1 Negative Features

A feature that hinders the non-native speaker to comprehend English language is the use of
children’s or unusual voices. Often when the main characters are children, they are given
children’s voice naturally. A standard school listening material almost never contains unusual
children’s voices which results in children not having any experience in listening to higher
frequencies voices.

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Some cartoon characters may be defined by particular features (stammering, hesitation, below-
average intelligence) or dialects, to give us the insight of the personality of the character.
Native speakers recognize these stereotypes effortlessly: for example, a sassy male means it
possess some effeminate characteristics, a Southern accent implies laziness or below-average
intelligence. Nonnative speaker most probably will not recognize these messages or they may
interpret it according to their own culture, although the two cultures will not share the same
interpretation.
Another negative feature is aggression. In 2004, the American psychologist Stevie Hossler a
study according to which a child watches from the first contact with the TV until the end of
the high school about 18,000 hours. (Hossler, 2004:1), Also about the negative effects of
watching violent entertainment programs, surgeon Satcher presented in 2001 a report on
adolescent violence in which he found that the aggressive behaviour in young children is often
caused by violent television programs. Giroux and Pollock (2018:15) said that Disney movies
have become a teaching tool in building culture, values and ideals that resemble the traditional
ways of acquiring these attributes, such as school and family. Unlike what he says, Palacios
(2011:17) argues that the viewer of cartoons risks confusing reality with fiction, learning
negative stereotypes, mimicking the negative behaviour of some characters.
On the other hand, the return to fulfilling daily obligations and returning to everyday life can

lead to certain adaptive dysfunctionalities. So, if they spend the day watching cartoons, kids

can get to assimilate that how to solve problems by superheroes is also justified in real life,

trying to use the same "power" of their favourite characters. Imitation may seem harmless

when the child wants to wear a suit like the one his idol uses, but we must pay attention to

those moments in which he behaves as if he really was. As parents and teachers, we should

know the psychological effects of the animated series on our children. Reducing the number of

hours in front of the screen, encouraging other activities and explaining that the characters are

not real are some of the commitments we must take to avoid further serious problems in the

future. Although there is no consensus on the time a child can spend watching cartoons or

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television programs in general without harm, studies show that ideally it should not exceed

sixty minutes a day. Not only possible acts of violence become harmful to small viewers, but

their language is also affected by these entertainment programs, often inadequate for their age

or use of expressions erroneously. Overexposure to watching these entertainment programs

can also be a source of anxiety in children that affects creative skills and encourages children

to experience emotions and potentially dangerous sensations for their physical and mental

health.

2.2 Positive Features

Cartoons are colorful and entertaining, children feel they are escaping their everyday life and
entering a fantasy world full of fun and amusement. Therefore, if we want to use a cartoon in a
classroom and motivate them for some class activity, we already have their attention and
motivation. No need for further motivation.

With older pupils, we can use animated version of some well-known cartoon because that
probably represents something different for them and it may provoke them to read the book.

Cartoons usually have a simple plot which is to follow. The good characters fight the villains
and the good ones prevail. They usually last between 5-10 minutes and the story cannot get to
confusing and complicated, even the prolix cartoons have a simple story which can be used in
a classroom. These cartoons are not suitable to show in one sitting, because it might take up to
20 minutes of our period and our goal is not to entertain children but to teach them language.
We should break the cartoons in scenes, and use one of the scenes. It is advisable to end a
scene with a cliffhanger which can evoke a desire to watch a cartoon at home.

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Some characters in cartoons use elision, contractions, unusual voices, slang… It usually
represents an obstacle for young learners, but it can also be a great opportunity to learn street
language and slang, because plenty of that can be found in some cartoons.

Each cartoons bears a moral lesson with itself such as “what goes around comes around”, “you
shouldn’t cheat on a test”… We are not strangers of witnessing a child having a dilemma
whether to do something or not because it has seen in a cartoon something that is not
permitted. Not only do these types of cartoons have a moral lesson, it is yet inspiring and
thought provoking.
Altough the animation is characterized by its ability to attract children through the imagination
The animation is characterized by its ability to attract children through the imagination and the
aesthetics of technology
that makes it distinctive, including:

1.In my personal observation, animated films are attractive, bright and accurate in color
distribution, making them
attractive to the viewer.
2.Animation films are easily intelligible by young and old.
3.Animation films are characterized by short texts, which make them attractive and easy for
young people.
4.Animation films are characterized by their ability to address the imagination that tends to the
child loves and merges
with it.
5.The sound in animation films plays an important role in conveying a particular message, the
importance of sound lies
in the perception of movement. In the compatibility and synchronization between image and
sound, the recipient has
more than one sense to confirm his feelings and the drama shown before him, when we
express a movement with a
voice, it becomes more effective than the movement without sound. The animation uses
sounds and music which is
considered an essential element in animation.
6. Movement: Animation depends on the art of movement which is based on the theory of
remaining of the vision on the
retina for 1/10 of the second after the disappearance of the actual image.

When parents or teachers want to educate kids using cartoons they should have in mind certain
things:
1. Age appropriate entertainment- Safe cartoons provides engaging child- appropriate
entertaining visuals that support children’s cognitive and emotional- development
through colorful images, easily recognizable characters and engaging storylines.

9
 2. Positive role models- High-value cartoons often feature positive role models and teach
valuable life lessons. Through relatable characters, children learn important values like
kindness, empathy, and problem solving skills, shaping their moral compass from an
early age.
3. Educational content-Safe and high- value cartoons go beyond entertainment. They
incorporate educational elements such as teaching numbers, letters, shapes and other
fundamental concepts. Kids can learn about since, nature, history and diverse cultures
while enjoying their favorite shows
4. Language and Communication Skills- Watching well- crafted cartoons exposes
children to a rich vocabulary and helps develop their language and communication
skills. They learn new words, sentence structures and improve their listening
comprehension through dialogues and storyrtelling.

3. Activities

We can test whether pupils understand the text and whether they are used to the characters’
voices by using a “fill in the gaps” exercise. We make a transcript of the most of the text and
leave out some words or phrases. Firstly, after they have listened to a cartoon and its
characters’ voices they may become more accustomed to them. After they are done, we should
check their final version.

Some stories are worth understanding, especially for longer cartoons, for they have a great
culmination and a moral lesson, thus we can make a transcript for some scene and have pupils
perform roles before viewing so they can read and comprehend what they are going to look at.

Pupils can also perform a miniplay if provided with a complete transcript of a cartoon. In this
way they can mimic a character and learn a proper pronunciation.

We can make a tense exercise by making a transcript, leaving out correct form of verbs and
putting a bare infinitive verbs in brackets.

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We can choose a present perfect or some other tense structure used in a cartoon and present it
to them.

The teacher can take words that he thinks could be a problem to pupils and write them on
blackboard. After asking them if any of them already know some of the words, listening to
their explanation and correcting if someone misunderstood the word, he should provide them
with the correct explanation.

The teacher can write some adjectives on the blackboard and ask pupils which group of
adjectives describes a certain character the best, that way they can learn new descriptive
adjectives and describe a character. We can also tell them to write adjectives that describe
certain character and categorize it in their groups or tell them to describe their favorite
character using as many adjectives as possible.

The teacher can make a transcript of the part of cartoon and make a dictation exercise.

The teacher can provide pupils with a tumbled storyline without the end, and they should put
the storyline in order and write the end as they fancy.

4. Motivation

“Researchers seem to agree that motivation is responsible for determining human behavior
by energizing it and giving it direction, but the great variety of accounts put forward in the
literature of how this happens may surprise even a seasoned researcher.” Dornyei (1998:117)

Motivation most definitely has a part in language acquisition and it is very important that we
motivate pupils in a right way, because children try harder, give their best and show self-
confidence. Children are very motivated when they identify with the culture of the foreign

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language and in some way seek to become familiar of even integrate into that society. There
are two types of motivation according to Robert C. Gardner and Wallace E. Lambert and we
should try to invoke the second one, integrative.

“Our use of attitude as a motivational construct presupposes an intention on the part of

students to learn the language with various aims in mind, and to pursue these aims with
varying degrees of drive strength. Our test battery consequently included indices of
motivational intensity and orientation. The "Orientation Index" classifies purposes in one of
two ways: "integrative," where the aim in language study is to learn more about the language
group, or to meet more and different people; "instrumental," where the reasons reflect the
more utilitarian value of linguistic achievement.” Gardner and Lambert (1959:267)

It is very important that student is driven by integrative motivation, because instrumental

motivation is driven by pupil’s desire to attain a good mark or meeting some requirements and
that is not a good source for language acquisition. On the other hand, integrative motivation is
more innocent and easily evoked in pupils of this age because they are too young to have the
desire to achieve some goals set before them. A good way to motivate them is to finish a
cartoon on the cliffhanger, in that way, they will expand their efforts and look for the cartoon
at home which will subconsciously result in the culture acknowledgement, language
acquisition and inclination to become familiar with the culture of the language cartoon was
primarily produced.

5. Conclusion
Generation Alpha is a new term used to describe children born between 2010-2020,
they are described as children who are given tablets instead of pacifiers. Some
psychologists say that this generation see more of their phone screen than their own
family. Another huge factor was Covid-19, there was a lockdown and somehow
parents did not know what to do and they start using their ipads or parents’ phones.
Having that in mind, we discuss about negative and positive features on animated
films. Negative features are aggressive behavior,violence and others. The level of
influence of media messages on children and young people varies depending on how

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 children and young people perceive the exposed content, as fictitious or real. Huesman
(2003) state that the perceived reality of the violence that children watch can be used to
predict aggression at older ages. Kirsh (2006) divides children’ real and imaginary
distinction into periods according to their development. According to this distinction, it
is stated that a 2-year-old child may try to clean the egg that was broken on the
television, while a 3-year-old child will believe that when the television turns over, the
contents will also be spilt. In addition, a 4-year-old can still identify "real" information
as fictitious at the age of 6-7, but the child will not do the wrong things she or he has
done before, but is still developing to make the distinction between imaginary and real.
Children realize at the age of 9 that news and documentaries reflect reality. Since the
distinction between real and imaginary develops after the age of 7, it becomes difficult
for children to distinguish what they should model or imitate in the programs they
watch. Lacroix (2004) states that children know the characters in animated films even
before they see the film. Mastro and Ortiz (2008) emphasize that strong and prominent
characters can have greater effects on viewers’ attitudes and perceptions. This is an
indication that cartoon characters can be modelled by children. Cartoons and
animations with fantastic content are especially important in this respect.
However, there are also positive features when we talk about animated films, here are
some:
1. In my personal observation, animated films are attractive, bright and accurate in
color distribution, making them attractive to the viewer.
2. Animation films are easily intelligible by young and old.
3. Animation films are characterized by short texts, which make them attractive and easy
for young people.
4. Animation films are characterized by their ability to address the imagination that tends
to the child loves and merges with it.
5. The sound in animation films plays an important role in conveying a particular
message, the importance of sound lies in the perception of movement. In the
compatibility and synchronization between image and sound, the recipient has more
than one sense to confirm his feelings and the drama shown before him, when we
express a movement with a voice, it becomes more effective than the movement

13
 without sound. The animation uses sounds and music which is considered an essential
element in animation.
6. Movement: Animation depends on the art of movement which is based on the theory of
remaining of the vision on the retina for 1/10 of the second after the disappearance of
the actual image.
When parents or teachers want to educate kids using cartoons they should have in mind
certain things:
1. Age appropriate entertainment- Safe cartoons provides engaging child- appropriate
entertaining visuals that support children’s cognitive and emotional- development
through colorful images, easily recognizable characters and engaging storylines.
2. Positive role models- High-value cartoons often feature positive role models and teach
valuable life lessons. Through relatable characters, children learn important values like
kindness, empathy, and problem solving skills, shaping their moral compass from an
early age.
3. Educational content-Safe and high- value cartoons go beyond entertainment. They
incorporate educational elements such as teaching numbers, letters, shapes and other
fundamental concepts. Kids can learn about since, nature, history and diverse cultures
while enjoying their favorite shows
4. Language and Communication Skills- Watching well- crafted cartoons exposes
children to a rich vocabulary and helps develop their language and communication
skills. They learn new words, sentence structures and improve their listening
comprehension through dialogues and storytelling.

In conclusion, I would like to add that teachers should be careful nowadays, when they
want to use animated cartoons in English discourse, they should carefully choose an
appropriate cartoon, they should have in mind childrens’ emotional needs and the
cognitive development of the small viewers.

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 6. Bibliography

Scott, A. Wendy, Ytreberg, H. Lisbeth, Teaching English to Children, New York, Longman,
1995, p. 3, 4

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Dornyei, Zoltan, Motivation in Second and Foreign Language Learning, United Kingdon,
Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 117

Gardner, Robert and Lambert, Wallace, Motivational Variables in a Second-language

Acquisition, Canadian Journal of Psychology, 1959, p. 267

Huesmann L.R., Moise-Titus, J., Podolski, C.L., Eron L.D Longitudinal ,Relations Between
Children's Exposure to TV Violence and Their Aggressive and Violent Behavior in Young
Adulthood: 1977–1992. Developmental Psychology, 2003, p.143

Kirsh, S. J: Cartoon violence and aggression in youth. Aggression and Violent Behavior.
2006, p. 547-557.
Lacroix, C “Images of Animated Others: The Orientalization of Disney’s Cartoon Heroines
from The Little Mermaid to The Hunchback of Notre Dame” , 2004, p.141
Mastro, D., Ortiz, M: ‘Media and Communication Theories’. Child Development,
Multiculturalism, and Media, 2008, p.89-93

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