The effect of films with and without subtitles on listening comprehension of EFL learners

The present study represented a preliminary effort to empirically examine the efficacy of subtitled movie on listening comprehension of intermediate English as a Foreign Language students. To achieve this purpose, out of a total of 200 intermediate students, 90 were picked based on a proficiency test. The material consisted of six episodes (approximately 5 minutes each) of a DVD entitled ‘Wild Weather’. The students viewed only one of the three treatment conditions: English subtitles, Persian subtitles, no subtitles. After each viewing session, six sets of multiple-choice tests were administered to examine listening comprehension rates. The results revealed that the English subtitles group performed at a considerably higher level than the Persian subtitles group, which in turn performed at a substantially higher level than the no subtitle group on the listening test.  With the increasing access to TV, video equipment and more recently, the computers, teachers have found more opportunities to use audio-visual materials at all levels of foreign language teaching, and they have frequently used them effectively in language classes (Kikuchi, 1997, p. 2; see also Canning-Wilson, 2000; Kothari, Pandey & Chudgar, 2004; Lewis & Anping, 2002; Meskill, 1996; Ryan, 1998; Weyer, 1999). In the same line, Richards and Gordon (2004, p. 2) maintain that video, as a medium, enables learners to use visual information to enhance comprehension. It allows learners to observe the gestures, facial expressions and other aspects of body language that accompany speech. It also presents authentic language as well as cultural information about speakers of English. For many years, a widespread view on audio comprehension held that both targetlanguage captions and native-language subtitles were anathema to developing listenBritish   but this popular view has not been well tested (Robin, 2007, p. 111). So, more and more English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers have begun, in recent years, to use movies in their classes at different levels; however, what has unfairly remained unresolved is the use of subtitles in movies. Teachers of English are sometimes in a dilemma whether they should show a film with or without subtitles and in what language and, above all, which way will benefit their students most in relation to listening comprehension. A huge gap is observed between the use of subtitled films and listening comprehension in academic settings in Iran, too. In order to bridge this gap, the researchers took up this issue and conducted a study in order to determine the role of unsubtitled/subtitled films in language learning/teaching in the Iranian contexts. In fact, the study aimed to find out which of the following is likely to be more effective in developing listening comprehension: bimodal subtitling (English subtitles with English dialogues), standard subtitling (Persian subtitles with English dialogues) or English dialogues with no subtitle. Review of literature Markham (1989) investigated the effects of subtitled TV upon the listening comprehension of beginner, intermediate and advanced learners of English. He used two subtitled videos on topics not known to the learners. Each group viewed both movies with and without subtitle. He measured the participants’ comprehension through multiplechoice questions based on the language of the video. Coming to a point where all three groups using the subtitles performed significantly better, he speculated that ESL (English as a Second Language) students might be able to improve their listening and reading comprehension simultaneously (see De Bot, Jagt, Janssen, Kessels & Schils, 1986; Holobow, Lambert & Sayegh, 1984). In a study, Garza (1991) compared Russian and ESL learners’ comprehension of video segments with second language captions to that of video segments without captions. Five segments of authentic American and Russian video on a particular genre of video (drama, comedy, news, animation and music), each between 2 and 4 minutes in length, were selected. A 10-item (multiple-choice) comprehension test was used to measure students’ comprehension of the video segments. A total of 140 students, with varying levels of proficiency in Russian, viewed the captioned or captionless Russian video segments. Comparison of the comprehension test scores of the two groups of students revealed that students who viewed the video segments with captions gained the highest scores. Garza’s data clearly showed that a textually enhanced visual channel, which presents information redundant to that presented by the auditory channel, facilitates students’ comprehension. In their study, Neuman and Koskinen (1992) investigated whether comprehensible input, delivered by captioned television programmes, affected the acquisition of vocabulary and of conceptual knowledge. The participants were children in immersion programmes, and the video material was of science lessons. They picked out 90 of the most difficult words from these video lessons as target words, 10 for each week. Partici182 British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 42 No 1 2011   pants were assigned to one of four treatment groups: captioned TV, TV without captions, reading along and listening to the soundtrack, and reading only. Results for the vocabulary acquisition strand of their study, which used word recognition tests and tests of the words in context sentences, showed that the captioned TV group performed consistently better (see Danan, 1992). Danan (1992) investigated the effects of different subtitling conditions on vocabulary recall. She found, like Holobow et al (1984), that reversed subtitling not only produced the most favourable results, but that bimodal input also positively increased vocabulary recall. The results also showed benefits for beginners using such bimodal input, which was not the case in the study conducted by Holobow et al. She explains the success of reversed subtitling for vocabulary recall through the way in which translation facilitates foreign language encoding and that it may help with the segmentation problems. She continues that students often have difficulty recognising word boundaries in the spoken language, especially if they are not familiar with some of the words. Listening to and reading the text at the same time can at least help students distinguish known from unknown words (Danan, p. 521). Automatic reading of subtitles, however, does not prevent the processing of the soundtrack. To demonstrate this point, d’Ydewalle and Pavakanun (1997, as cited in Kothari et al 2004, p. 29) carried out another group of cognitive experiments and relied on a double-task technique measuring reaction times to a flashing light during a television programme. Their findings confirmed the value of bimodal L2 input for intermediate-advanced levels of L2 learners. According to their study, the slower reactions in the presence of both sound and subtitles suggested that more complex, simultaneous processing of the soundtrack and the subtitles was occurring. According to them, with both subtitles and sound, attention seemed in fact to be divided between the two according to the viewers’ needs, with more time usually devoted to subtitles for the processing of complex information. One study by Koostra, Jonannes and Beentjes (1999) focused on 246 Dutch children in Grade 4 (before any formal instruction in English) and Grade 6 (following 1 year of English at school) after they watched a 15-minute American documentary shown twice with or without subtitles. The study demonstrated that children acquired more English vocabulary from watching subtitled television, although even children in the condition without subtitles learned some new words. Children in the subtitled condition also performed significantly better on a word recognition test, consisting of words heard in the soundtrack and words that could have been used in the context of the particular programme. To examine the effect of captioning on aural word recognition skills, Markham (1999) designed another experiment involving multiple-choice tests administered orally. A total of 118 advanced ESL students watched two short video programmes (12 and 13 minutes respectively) with or without captions. In the subsequent listening tests, participants heard sentences directly taken from the script and immediately followed by four single words (one key word which belonged to a sentence just heard and three Subtitled films and listening comprehension 183   The tests showed that the availability of subtitles during the screening significantly improved the students’ ability to identify the key words when they subsequently heard them again. To test how subtitling affects listening ability regardless of semantic information, so as to assess recognition memory in relation to sound alone, Bird and Williams (2002) focused on the implicit and explicit learning of spoken words and non-words. Implicit learning pertained to auditory word recognition while explicit learning referred to the intentional recollection and conscious retention of aural stimuli. A first experiment with 16 English native and 16 advanced non-native speakers demonstrated that participants in the captioned condition were better able to implicitly retain the phonological information they had just processed. They also showed superior explicit recognition memory when asked to aurally identify words that had been presented in a previous phase. A second experim