Peppa Pig: An innovative way to promote formulaic language in pre-primary EFL classrooms

Abstract

The present paper presents a study examining the effect of the preschool cartoon series Peppa Pig on EFL formulaic language acquisition. To this end, 55 Greek preschoolers from a private school in Athens were tested to measure the lexical chunks they have acquired. The children were divided into different groups: the control groups simply watched a set of episodes of Peppa Pig in English and then were tested, while the experimental groups watched the same set of episodes of the programme, received instruction, and then were tested. Results showed that preschoolers can benefit considerably from merely watching Peppa Pig episodes and that reinforcing it with instruction can lead to significant formulaic gains.