Exploring Students' Perceptions and Learning Experiences in Vocational English Listening Through English Subtitled Anime Films

Abstract

This study aimed to describe students' learning experiences, identify perceived benefits, and examine perceived difficulties when listening activities are conducted using English-subtitled anime films. Employing a qualitative descriptive design integrated within an instructional evaluation at SMK Negeri 1 Batam, data were gathered from eleventh-grade vocational students through an open-ended questionnaire. The thematic findings indicate that utilizing English-subtitled anime transformed conventional listening instruction into an engaging, interactive, and low-anxiety learning experience. Students perceived significant benefits, primarily regarding phonological-orthographic scaffolding, which bridged spoken audio with written text and supported contextual vocabulary enhancement. However, students also reported operational difficulties, such as handling high speech velocity, dealing with unfamiliar terminology, and managing visual attention-splitting between action and text. The study suggests that target-language subtitled anime functions as a useful pedagogical scaffold that helps convert passive media consumption into active target-language processing in vocational English for Vocational Purposes (EVP) instruction.