This convergent mixed-methods study examines kindergarten teachers’ and parents’ perceptions of English-language cartoons as educational resources that foster linguistic curiosity and incidental learning in Algerian children aged three tofive. Quantitative survey data were gathered from 90 kindergarten teachers and 120 parents to measure children’s exposure, adult mediation practices, and perceived indicators of linguistic curiosity; qualitative depth was added through a purposive subsample of 25 teachers and 25 parents and their open-ended responses. The quantitative findings show that adult mediation, in both home and classroom contexts, is the strongestcorrelate of perceived linguistic curiosity, and that exposure to cartoons predicts curiosity most clearly when it is paired with active mediation in the home. Parents reported higher perceived curiosity and more frequent mediation than teachers, a difference that qualitative accounts link to observation opportunities, daily routines, and the home environment’s affordances for co-engagement. Thematic analysis identified four mechanisms linking cartoons to early learning: curiosity enacted through play, the ambiguous evidentiary status of repetition, mediation as a meaning-making process, and contextual constraints such as contentsuitability, accent, and classroom logistics. Overall, the findings suggest that brief pedagogical strategies such as co-viewing, labeling, dramatization, and guided questioning can help transform audiovisual input into exploratory behaviour that precedes measurable learning. The paper discusses implications for early-years pedagogy, teacher training, parental engagement, and educational media design, and it outlines limitations and directions for longitudinal, child-level validation.
Saida Tobbi (2026) studied this question.