Exposure to English Movies: Learners' Vocabulary Comprehension and Content Knowledge

This quasi-experimental pre-test–post-test study, conducted within an action research framework and entitled “Exposure to English Movies: Learners’ Content Knowledge and Vocabulary Comprehension,” aimed to determine learners’ content knowledge and level of vocabulary comprehension. The respondents were thirty BSED 2 English students enrolled during AY 2021–2022 at West Visayas State University–Calinog Campus, selected through convenience sampling. A researcher-made instrument was utilized, consisting of two parts: Part I described the respondents’ profile, while Part II included the pre-test and post-test measuring content knowledge and vocabulary comprehension. The pre-test comprised a 15-item vocabulary test and a 15-item content knowledge test. The intervention involved exposure to three English movies: Little Women, Forrest Gump, and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay. Mean was used for descriptive analysis, while the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test and Spearman’s rho were employed for inferential analysis at a 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that respondents demonstrated an average level of vocabulary comprehension during the pre-test (M = 9.00), which improved to a high level in the post-test (M = 10.80). In contrast, content knowledge remained at an average level, with pre-test results (M = 9.67) slightly decreasing in the post-test (M = 8.13). The Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test indicated significant differences between pre-test and post-test scores in both vocabulary comprehension (z = -3.48, p = 0.001) and content knowledge (z = 4.04, p = 0.000). However, Spearman’s rho revealed no significant relationship between the two variables. These findings suggest that exposure to English movies enhances vocabulary comprehension but requires structured instructional support to improve content knowledge.