Pupils are already exposed to English through media before they arrive at school. Teachers must be aware of this and find a way to use it for teaching purposes. It has been proven that cartoons have a positive impact on the diversity of teaching, higher student motivation and confidence, lower levels of anxiety and stress, active participation in class, development of communication skills and a higher level of understanding of content. Cartoons represent a source of authentic language, as children see the language in use and discover the verbal and nonverbal elements of it, various dialects, and variations of the English language (Englishes). In EFL classroom, cartoons can be used to introduce new vocabulary, acquire grammatical rules, and English pronunciation. We can also use cartoons to develop reading, speaking, writing, and listening skills using cartoons. Teachers need to be careful when choosing cartoons, as they need to be of high-quality, match our teaching goals and be in line with the characteristics of our students. In this master’s thesis, we researched how teachers view the use of cartoons when teaching a foreign language in the first triad of primary school. We wanted to find out why teachers decide to include cartoons in their lessons, what is the criteria upon which they choose the cartoons, how often they use them, in which part of the lesson they use them the most often, how they present the new topic using cartoons, which cartoons they use, and how they feel about using cartoons with English subtitles. Also, we wanted to gain an insight into the negative aspects of using cartoons and the challenges that teachers face. We carried out a quantitative study. Based on the literature review, we developed a questionnaire that we forwarded to the teachers. We found out that Slovenian teachers recognize the pedagogical value of cartoons and are willing to include them in their lessons. Regarding the negative aspects, they pointed out the excessive use of technology and low cognitive activity. Teachers involved in the study use cartoons in their work, some more frequently than others. Most of them use this method to develop listening skills and increase motivation. Cartoons are most often used for repetition or at the end of the lesson. Almost all participants perform additional activities related to the cartoon after watching it. Based on teachers’ opinion, the greatest advantage of using subtitles is the recognition of written words and connecting the written form with the pronunciation of the word. However, despite recognizing the benefits of including subtitles, most teachers do not use them. Teachers agree that the biggest challenge of this approach is finding high-quality cartoons.
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