The previous research attributes the vocabulary development of students to their being
exposed to the target words in a specific context (in subtitled cartoons). Nation and Waring
(1997) point out that it is one of the most important vocabulary learning strategies and an
essential part of any vocabulary learning program. Since the participants were not informed
about the purpose of the study beforehand and were not allowed to use their dictionaries
during the treatment phase, they most probably took advantage of this strategy with the help
of contextual clues embedded in the cartoons. Based on this fact, it is assumed that incidental
learning of the vocabulary items occurred due to the incorporation of target words into the
cartoons that functioned as a context, obviously a fundamental notion within the process of
incidental vocabulary learning (DeRidder, 1999). It is also preferred by teachers since
teaching words in isolation does not produce the desired results.