影片字幕對臺灣國中生英文字彙學習之效益研究

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(1)國立臺灣師範大學英語學系碩士論文 Master Thesis. Graduate Institute of English. National Taiwan Normal University. 影片字幕對臺灣國中生英文字彙學習之效益研究. The Effects of Captioning on the Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition of EFL Junior High School Students. 指導教授：劉宇挺博士. Advisor: Dr. Yeu-Ting Liu 研究生：陳儀如. Graduate: Yi-Ru Chen. 中華民國一百零五年八月. August, 2016.

(2) 中文摘要近年來，由於多媒體科技日新月異，以英語影片作為教學工具，以提升學生的英語能力，逐漸成了一種趨勢。此研究旨在探討字幕的有無對不同英語能力的國中生之字彙學習影響。本研究採準研究設計，研究對象為臺北市一所國中的八年級學生，共一百一十八位。將受試者分成有字幕組(實驗組)：六十人、無字幕組(控制組)：五十八人。此外，依照受試者英語成就測驗表現，將實驗組及控制組的學生平均分成三組英語能力組別：高成就、中等成就、低成就。本研究為期三個月，在實驗前一個月，所有受試者均接受單字前測，確認所有受試者均未習得本研究影片教材中所要檢測的單字字義，並在實驗第一週完成一份學習前問卷。接著，所有受試者均接受十週的教學實驗，並在整個教學實驗結束後一週完成一份學習後問卷。實驗期間，實驗組和控制組均在未接受相關字彙教學的情況下，進行一週一次的英語影片學習，共使用十部難易度適中的英語發音卡通影片做為實驗教材。每次實驗中，所有受試者均重複觀看影片兩次，看完第一次影片，研究者立即發下閱讀測驗試卷，並接著撥放第二次影片，受試者需於第二次影片撥放的期間完成閱讀測驗，此目的是希望藉由閱讀測驗，引導受試者將注意力放在影片內容理解上。第二次影片撥放結束，所有受試者均立即接受兩種單字測. 驗，依序為：單字字音辨識測驗、單字字義測驗，以檢測標的字彙(target words) 的學習情形。研究結果顯示：有字幕組，在單字字音辨識測驗和單字字義測驗的表現，皆優於無字幕組；此外，透過影片學習單字與學生的英語能力有顯著相關，意即英語能力較佳的學生能夠透過觀賞影片，習得較多的英文單字。最後，根據研究發現，本文亦提出結論及教學建議，提供教師和日後研究作為參考。. 關鍵詞：英語影片、字幕、字彙學習 i.

(3) ABSTRACT This study aims to explore the effects of captioning on (a) aural form recognition. and (b) form-meaning mapping of EFL junior high school students at different. linguistic levels without formal vocabulary instruction. A quasi-experiment design was adopted, and a total of 118 EFL 8th graders at a junior high school participated in the study. Sixty students were assigned to the captioned condition and the others were. assigned to the non-captioned condition (control). The students under the two caption conditions were evenly assigned into three linguistic groups (i.e., high-level,. intermediate-level, and low-level) based on their achievements in English. A three-month experiment was conducted; the learning materials involved ten. difficulty-appropriate videos from a cartoon series, Olivia, and each was viewed twice under both conditions. A reading comprehension test was given after the first viewing. as a tool to focus the students’ attention on the meaning of the message; two vocabulary posttests (i.e., form recognition and vocabulary acquisition tests) were administered. immediately after the second viewing. All participants took a vocabulary pretest one. month prior to the experiment to evaluate their prior knowledge of the target words and completed pre and post learning questions before and after the learning sessions. The. results of the study indicated that the availability of captioning significantly improved the participants’ overall form recognition and vocabulary acquisition. In addition, in both form recognition and vocabulary acquisition, the participants of high linguistic. competence acquired substantially more word gains from video viewing than others. These results prove the positive caption effects on EFL middle school students’ incidental vocabulary learning and suggest that learners’ linguistic competence. appears to be a crucial factor affecting the efficacy of using authentic captioned video material in language classroom. Pedagogical implications for employing captioned. video material to enhance EFL middle school students’ language gains are included.. Keywords: captioning, linguistic competence, incidental vocabulary acquisition ii.

(4) AKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply indebted to many people that have provided help with the. completion of this thesis. The thesis would not have been accomplished without their great support and assistance.. First of all, I would like to dedicate the most sincere gratitude to my advisor, Dr.. Yeu-Ting, Liu, who has guided me throughout this thesis. Thanks to his insightful. feedback and valuable advices, I have been able to overcome numerous obstacles and learned a lot in every phase of the thesis writing. In addition, his encouragement and. support have given me strength and made me believe that I could complete the thesis. on schedule. I have benefited a lot from his expertise in the research field and learned from him about being an influential and supportive teacher.. I would also like to express my gratitude to my committee members, Dr.. Mei-Zhen, Wu and Dr. Shih-Ping, Wang. Their valuable comments enriched my thesis and made it more organized and complete.. I also want to express my appreciation to the 118 students who participated in. this study. I am grateful for their cooperation and patience during the three-month experiment. Moreover, I would like to extend the appreciation to my colleagues,. Chuen-Cheng, Chen, who offered me valuable suggestions on the data analysis and Khan-Yu, Lin, who helped me complete the target word selection and test development.. Special thanks also go to my husband. Thanks to his assistance in the addition of. captioning to the video materials and addressing certain format issues, I could fully. concentrate on the design of the study and my thesis writing. His company, tolerance, and care have been the most powerful support for me during the hard times.. Finally, my heartfelt thanks go to my parents and sisters in Kaohsiung, who. always care about my health condition and provide me with unfailing love and. support. Talking on the phone with them has been the most effective way to cheer me up. Their unconditional love gives me courage to keep moving on.. iii.

(5) TABLE OF CONTENTS. 中文摘要......................................................................................................................... i ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................ii. AKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................... iii LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................vii. LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER ONE. INTRODUCTION ................................................................ 1. Motivation and Background .................................................................................. 1. Rationale and Purpose of the Study ....................................................................... 4 Significance of the Study ....................................................................................... 6. Organization of the Thesis ..................................................................................... 7. CHAPTER TWO. LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................... 8. Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition ......................................................................... 8 Definition of Intentional and Incidental Learning ......................................... 8. Vocabulary Acquisition from Context ........................................................... 9 Relevant Methodological Principles Regarding Incidental Vocabulary. Learning ....................................................................................................... 10. Captioning, an Aid or a Hindrance to Language Learning? ................................ 12 Captioning as a Hindrance to Language Learning ....................................... 14. Captioning as an Aid to Language Learning................................................ 15. Existing Studies on Effects of Captioned Video on Language Acquisition ......... 16 Definition of Captions and Subtitles ............................................................ 16 Caption-based Studies on Comprehension .................................................. 17. Caption-based Studies on Vocabulary Acquisition ...................................... 18 The Relationship between Captioning and Learners’ Linguistic Competence. ...................................................................................................................... 22. Major Findings and Limitations in Existing Studies ........................................... 27. Research Questions .............................................................................................. 28. CHAPTER THREE. METHOD ....................................................................... 29. Participants ........................................................................................................... 29 Design of the Study .............................................................................................. 30. Materials .............................................................................................................. 32 Video Selection ............................................................................................ 32 iv.

(6) Target Word Selection .................................................................................. 34. Procedures for Data Collection ............................................................................ 35. Instruments ........................................................................................................... 36 The Achievement Test .................................................................................. 36. Vocabulary Pretest ....................................................................................... 38 Reading Comprehension Test ...................................................................... 39. Vocabulary Posttests .................................................................................... 40. Follow-up Questions .................................................................................... 41. Data Analysis ....................................................................................................... 42. CHAPTER FOUR. RESULTS .......................................................................... 43. Results of Overall Form Recognition .................................................................. 43 The Participants’ Overall Form Recognition under Captioned and. Non-captioned Conditions ........................................................................... 44 Differences among Learners at High, Intermediate, and Low Levels of. Linguistic Competence on Overall Form Recognition ................................ 47. Results of Overall Vocabulary Acquisition .......................................................... 47 The Participants’ Overall Vocabulary Acquisition under Captioned and. Non-captioned Conditions ........................................................................... 48 Differences among Learners at High, Intermediate, and Low Levels of. Linguistic Competence on Overall Vocabulary Acquisition ........................ 50. The Caption Effects on Spoken Word Gains within Groups ............................... 51. Impacts on Form Recognition...................................................................... 52. Impacts on Vocabulary Acquisition ............................................................. 53. CHAPTER FIVE. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ............................... 55. Summary of the Major Findings .......................................................................... 55. Discussion ............................................................................................................ 56 Captioning and Aural Form Recognition ..................................................... 56. Captioning and Vocabulary Acquisition ...................................................... 57 The Unexpected Differences between the Scores of the Two Types of. Vocabulary Tests .......................................................................................... 59. Linguistic Competence and Word Gains from Video Viewing .................... 61. Qualitative Results ....................................................................................... 63. Pedagogical Implications ..................................................................................... 65 v.

(7) Limitations of the Present Study .......................................................................... 67. Suggestions for Future Research ......................................................................... 69. REFERENCES ........................................................................................................... 71. APPENDIXES ............................................................................................................ 76 Appendix A Pre-learning Questions.................................................................. 76. Appendix B Posttest 1: The Mighty Five ......................................................... 77 Appendix C. Posttest 2: Olivia Plans a Tea Party .............................................. 79. Appendix E. Posttest 4: Olivia’s Kite Party ....................................................... 83. Appendix D Posttest 3: Olivia’s Christmas Surprise ........................................ 81 Appendix F Posttest 5: Olivia’s Road Race ...................................................... 85. Appendix G Posttest 6: Olivia’s Meteor Mania ................................................ 87 Appendix H Posttest 7: Olivia’s Dog Wash ...................................................... 89. Appendix I Posttest 8: Olivia’s Hiking Adventure ........................................... 91 Appendix J. Follow-up Questions (Captioned group) ....................................... 93. Appendix K Follow-up Questions (Non-captioned group) .............................. 95. vi.

(8) LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Procedures for data collection ...................................................................... 36 Figure 2. Students’ performance in the eight form recognition tests under both. conditions ..................................................................................................... 45. Figure 3. Students’ performance in the eight vocabulary acquisition tests under both. conditions ..................................................................................................... 48. vii.

(9) LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Summary of literature on caption-based studies reviewed in Chapter Two ... 25. Table 2. Information about the 10 video materials ...................................................... 34. Table 3. Information about the target words ................................................................ 35 Table 4. Descriptive statistics of overall form recognition .......................................... 45 Table 5. Test of homogeneity of variances for overall form recognition .................... 46. Table 6. Summary of two-way ANOVA on overall form recognition ........................ 46 Table 7. Means and standard deviations for overall form recognition by level of. linguistic competence..................................................................................... 47. Table 8. Descriptive statistics of overall vocabulary acquisition ................................. 49 Table 9. Test of homogeneity of variances for overall vocabulary acquisition ........... 49. Table 10. Summary of two-way ANOVA on overall vocabulary acquisition ............. 50 Table 11. Means and standard deviations for overall vocabulary acquisition by level of. linguistic competence................................................................................... 51. Table 12. Summary of paired samples t-test for form recognition by students' linguistic levels under both conditions ........................................................................ 53. Table 13. Summary of paired samples t-test for vocabulary acquisition by students'. linguistic levels under both conditions ........................................................ 54. viii.

(10) CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Motivation and Background. For the past few decades, video material has been increasingly used in foreign. language classroom with an expectation that it can highly motivate students and makes their learning experiences more like those that occur in real world. After surveying. research evidence in the last ten years, Vanderplank (2010) summarizes in his review that video, an audiovisual medium, is a valuable teaching resource for cultural knowledge development as well as language learning when the material is. well-selected. With respect to foreign language learning, Secules, Herron, and. Tomasello (1992) further clarify that video permits learners, especially those who have little exposure to the target language outside the classroom, to witness the natural. conversation and interaction happening in authentic settings and observe the use of. different accents, registers, gestures and facial expressions in communication, which in the long run will lead to improved learning outcome.. In general, there are three main reasons why video can serve as a promising. instructional tool for second language learning (e.g., Lin, 2010; Neuman & Koskinen, 1992; Tschirner, 2001). First of all, from a cognitive input encoding perspective, the potential usefulness of video can be explained by Paivio’s dual coding theory.. According to Paivio (1986), human cognition involves the activities of two distinct. subsystems—verbal (linguistic) and nonverbal (imagery) systems. The two systems are in charge of representing and processing stimuli of different modalities. The verbal. system is specialized for dealing with language information while the nonverbal system is specialized for dealing with nonlinguistic events. The two “modality-specific”. systems exist independently but at the same time they are functionally interconnected,. so the activity in one system can activate activity in the other. The interaction of verbal. (e.g., auditory words and visual words) and non-verbal (e.g., visual images and sounds) stimuli processed through separate cognitive systems can integrate and result in improved information processing.. Paivio’s dual coding theory predicts that learners will have better performance of. information processing and knowledge acquisition if they encode the material both 1.

(11) visually and verbally. Results of Mayer and Anderson’s (1991) study provided. empirical evidence for the theory. To test the dual coding hypothesis, forty-eight. college students were randomly assigned to one of the four treatment groups—auditory words only, animation only (without words), auditory words plus animation, and control groups. As predicted by the researchers, the participants in words plus. animation group substantially outperformed the other three groups on the subsequent problem-solving test. The findings not only support the assertion that concurrent. presentation of verbal and imagery modalities results in better learning but also confirm the great potential of video material as effective instructional tool.. Second, from a developmental perspective, with careful selection, video can. provide language learners with the exposure to rich “comprehensible input,” which, in Krashen’s (1982) view, is a necessary condition for second language acquisition.. Comprehensible input, by Krashen’s definition, is the understandable messages with structures a bit beyond learners’ current level. To be more specific, second language. acquisition and literacy development occur when learners focus on the meaning of the message, not on the form of the language through being exposed to language a little beyond their linguistic competence. Given the cognitive subconscious process of. language acquisition, once the difficulty of video material is taken care of, video could be expected to be a powerful instructional tool for providing learners with large amount of authentic and comprehensible language input.. Third, from an affective perspective, qualitative results of existing studies suggest. that when viewing videos, learners usually show great confidence in comprehending. the entertaining information in authentic contexts. This finding reveals that video could potentially minimize the fear of failure in learning and thus foster positive self-efficacy. (Borrás & Lafayette, 1994; Danan, 1992). The strong correlation between self-efficacy and positive learning outcome can be confirmed by Krashen’s (1982) Affective Filter Hypothesis. In Krashen’s view, for L2 acquisition, certain emotions such as anxiety,. self-doubt, or boredom will interfere with the efficient processing of language input. He claims that learners with high motivation, self-confidence, and a low level of anxiety are better equipped for success in second language acquisition. To be more specific,. positive affect not only plays a facilitative role in second language acquisition but is. necessary for acquisition to take place. Owing to the motivational and affective impacts. on viewers, video has been commonly employed as a pedagogical tool for encouraging 2.

(12) and improving second language acquisition.. However, the potential value that video possesses mentioned above does not. guarantee improved second language learning. For increasing the effectiveness of. video on language learning, one of the effective help options that instructors of second or foreign language frequently turn to is captioning, the on-screen text (Grgurović & Hegelheimer, 2007; Pujolà, 2002). Bird and Williams’ (2002) and Danan’s (2004) studies try to explain the potential benefit of captioning on second language. acquisition. Both studies indicate that by visualizing what video viewers hear and. indicating the word boundaries, the addition of captioning could be a powerful aid in. language learning of second language learners whose linguistic proficiency level is not as good as native speakers.. In fact, many researchers have dedicated their research effort to explore the effects. of captioning on second or foreign language acquisition in the past few decades. Specific benefits of captioning revealed by existing studies include increased. motivation and attention among students (Danan, 2004; Vanderplank, 1988), improved. chunking ability (Bird & Williams, 2002; Danan, 2004), increased oral communicative performance (Borrás & Lafayette, 1994), enhanced comprehension of the video. materials (Baltova, 1999; Garza, 1991; Hayati & Mohmedi, 2011; Huang & Eskey, 1999; Winke, Gass, & Sydorenko, 2010), and better acquisition of both written. (Montero, Peters, Clarebout, & Desmet, 2014; Neuman & Koskinen, 1992; Sydorenko,. 2010) and aural (Bird & Williams, 2002; Huang & Eskey, 1999; Markham, 1999) word. forms as well as word meaning (Baltova, 1999; Neuman & Koskinen, 1992; Sydorenko, 2010).. Some researchers, however, have concerns about the distracting role that. captioning may play in different aspects of language learning or for learners at different levels of linguistic competence and the possible impediment to language development. due to learners’ overreliance on the visually-presented text (Grgurović & Hegelheimer, 2007; Hayati & Mohmedi, 2011; Lwo & Lin, 2012; Neuman & Koskinen, 1992; Taylor, 2005; Webb & Rodgers, 2009b; Yang & Chang, 2014). In fact, existing caption-based studies have revealed some inconclusive results, and one of them is about spoken vocabulary acquisition. While results of Markham’s (1999) study indicate that. university-level ESL learners in captioned group could substantially recognize more novel words aurally than those in non-captioned group, Sydorenko’s (2010) study 3.

(13) demonstrates the opposite outcomes. In contrast to Markham’s study, results of. Sydorenko’s study indicate that for university-level beginning learners of Russian,. captioned videos tend to benefit their written vocabulary acquisition only. To aural form recognition, however, the presence of captioning tends to be a hindrance. In. addition, it is worth noting that all the aforementioned studies which focused on spoken. vocabulary acquisition (Bird & Williams, 2002; Huang & Eskey, 1999; Markham, 1999; Sydorenko, 2010) recruited young adults (i.e., university-level students) as participants. Hence, the effect of captioning on younger learners’ (e.g., middle school students). spoken vocabulary acquisition still requires empirical validation. In addition, while most teachers regard the addition of captioning as a beneficial support for EFL. learners especially those at lower linguistic level, some previous studies demonstrate that captioning tends to benefit students with high linguistic competence to a. significant extent (Lwo & Lin, 2012; Neuman & Koskinen, 1992; Taylor, 2005).. The opposite findings of Sydorenko’s and Markham’s studies and the results of. previous studies which are in opposite to most EFL teachers’ assumption call for more empirical evidence to shed light on the relationship between captioned video and. foreign language acquisition. The rationale and the purpose of this current study are detailed in the following section.. Rationale and Purpose of the Study. For decades, investigation of second and foreign language acquisition through. watching video material has attracted great attention centering on the relationship. between captioning and students’ gains of the target language. However, literature on. language acquisition from watching captioned videos indicates that several issues still require further exploration. First, compared to written vocabulary acquisition,. relatively little empirical research has been conducted to investigate the effects of. captioned video material specifically on spoken vocabulary acquisition, and if any, the. results are mixed (Markham, 1999; Sydorenko, 2010). In fact, although the majority of caption-based studies with an aim on word gains focus on written vocabulary. knowledge and appear to reach a consensus that captioning is beneficial to written. vocabulary acquisition, this positive effect, to a certain extent, is not surprising since the captioned group receives the visually-presented textual input while the. non-captioned group doesn’t. On the other hand, whether the visually-presented textual 4.

(14) input can serve as a facilitative tool to improve spoken word gains still remains unclear.. Moreover, the reason for selecting spoken vocabulary acquisition as the target focus of this study is that in addition to written word knowledge, knowing a word involves several different aspects. According to Nation (2001), with respect to receptive. knowledge, knowing a word involves knowing what it sounds like (i.e., the spoken. form), what it looks like (i.e., the written form) and the meaning (i.e., form and meaning associations). Given the essential characteristic of aural vocabulary knowledge and the. existing empirical gap, more research on the effect of captioning on spoken vocabulary acquisition is still in demand.. Second, most existing research on captioning selects adult or young adult learners. such as college students as participants while the effect of captioning on younger. students has not been adequately tested empirically (Taylor, 2005). However, with the prevalence of audiovisual material in all levels of EFL teaching, it is surprising that. little empirical evidence has been gathered to support the effectiveness of captioning on young language learners such as middle school students. Therefore, more research is. warranted to shed light on the effect of captioned video on the language acquisition of young learners such as middle school students.. Third, some studies have revealed limitations of captioning and suggested that in. spite of the beneficial aspects described above, captioned video may not be suitable for learners at all levels of linguistic competence (Lwo & Lin, 2012; Neuman & Koskinen, 1992; Taylor, 2005). While captioning, from EFL teachers’ perspective, is usually regarded as a powerful listening support for low-level students, previous research. findings indicate that compared with learners of higher linguistic competence, learners of lower linguistic competence may gain relatively less from viewing videos.. Nevertheless, this claim is essentially based on studies conducted on young adult. foreign language learners (Taylor, 2005) or ESL middle school students (Neuman &. Koskinen, 1992), and whether this finding is still relevant to younger learners in EFL. context still requires empirical validation. Although Lwo and Lin (2012) recruited EFL middle school students as participants, the result yielded from their study still requires replication with other method design. Specifically, two methodological issues should be cautious of when interpreting their research findings. First, the small number of. participants (N = 32) may be an issue and should be taken into consideration. Second, their study adopted the method of pausing scene by scene to obtain students’ oral 5.

(15) responses, which as a result may interfere with getting the whole picture of video content.. In sum, previous literature shows that whether captioning is an aid to vocabulary. acquisition has not been thoroughly investigated. In addition, due to the inconsistency. in the determination of the learners’ linguistic profiles and some methodological issues in the limited previous studies, more empirical evidence is warranted to shed more light. on the caption effect on learners at varying linguistic levels. This current study attempts to address these gaps by employing the video materials which contains ample. comprehensible input to examine the effects of captioning on spoken vocabulary. acquisition of EFL middle school students at different levels of linguistic competence.. The purpose of this current study is twofold. The main purpose is to investigate the. effects of captioning on EFL middle school students’ spoken vocabulary acquisition. when learners’ focus is on the meaning of the message. Specifically, this study aims to explore students’ spoken word gains through incidental learning in two different. aspects, namely, aural form recognition and form-meaning mapping, under two video. viewing conditions—with captioning and without captioning. The secondary purpose is to look into the relationship between EFL middle school students’ linguistic. competence in English and their vocabulary gains through watching videos with or. without captioning. In other words, the current study attempts to examine whether the word gains obtained by EFL middle school students are influenced by their linguistic abilities.. Significance of the Study. Although videos are prevalent in our everyday lives and commonly used in. Taiwanese English language classrooms, as a junior high school teacher in Taiwan, I. perceive that for most junior high school English teachers, they are quite vague about the effect of the presence or absence of captioning on students’ foreign language. learning, and often in a dilemma over whether to use it or not. Therefore, this current. study will be conducted with a hope to offer better understanding about the relationship between captioned video material and EFL middle school students’ foreign language learning.. Hopefully, this study may make the following contributions. First, the results of. the current study may verify whether captioning can be an aid to EFL young learners’ 6.

(16) spoken vocabulary acquisition. Second, drawing on level-appropriate video materials, this study aims to determine the optimal video/ caption viewing condition for two different aspects of spoken vocabulary acquisition, aural form recognition and. form-meaning mapping. Finally, the current study intends to verify whether EFL young learners’ vocabulary acquisition through captioned video is under the influence of their linguistic competence or not. It is hoped that the above insights may collectively. provide some pedagogical implications for EFL teachers, particularly the junior high. school instructors and educators in Taiwan, to take into account when teaching learners at different levels.. Organization of the Thesis. The outline of the thesis is briefly delineated as follows. Chapter One provides. background information about the relationship between captioned video and foreign. language learning as well as the rationale for this study. Chapter Two will first present some background information about incidental vocabulary acquisition from context followed by relevant methodological principles. Then literature on the relationship between captioning and language acquisition will be reviewed in the following. categories: 1) comprehension of the video material, 2) vocabulary acquisition, and 3). the relationship between captioned video and learners’ linguistic competence; research questions will be proposed at the end of the chapter. Chapter Three will describe the. research methodology employed in the current study. The results will be presented in Chapter Four based on the research questions. At last, Chapter Five will discuss the. results yielded from this study, summarize the major findings, and finally offer some pedagogical implications and suggestions for future research.. 7.

(17) CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter reviews relevant literature on exploring the effects of captioning on. incidental vocabulary acquisition. There are four main sections. Section one provides some background information on incidental vocabulary acquisition from context followed by several methodological principles concerning incidental vocabulary. acquisition. In section two, the inconclusive argument—whether captioning is an aid or a hindrance in language learning is discussed, together with some empirical evidence. Section three reviews a body of existing studies of effects of captioned video on. language acquisition in second or foreign language context. Existing caption-based. research will be presented in the following categories: 1) comprehension of the video material, 2) vocabulary acquisition, and 3) the relationship between captioned video. and learners’ linguistic competence. The final section will briefly summarize the major findings and limitations in the previous studies. Research questions will be proposed at the end of the section.. Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition. This section aims to provide some background information for an understanding. of incidental vocabulary learning from context by introducing definitions of intentional and incidental learning first and then offering some theoretical background of. incidental vocabulary acquisition from context. Relevant methodological principles regarding incidental vocabulary acquisition are also presented in this section. Definition of Intentional and Incidental Learning. According to Hulstijn (2001), with respect to second language learning, the term. “intentional” learning is defined as the learning involving deliberate committing to. memory to a large quantity of words including their sound, spelling, and meaning and many grammar rules. The other complementary view on L2 learning is “incidental”. learning which involves the “picking up” of vocabulary and grammatical structures by simply engaging in a variety of message-focused tasks. When students acquire. language knowledge incidentally, the main focus of their attention is on the meaning and function of language rather than on its form. 8.

(18) Vocabulary Acquisition from Context. It is widely believed that most vocabulary, both in L1 and in L2, is acquired. through incidental learning while few words are gained in an intentional fashion such as memorizing a bilingual word list (Coady, 1997; Ellis, 1994; Nation, 2001). That is,. learners gain large amount of vocabulary by being exposed to massive quantities of. language input through meaning-focused activities without explicit direction to lexical features. To put it simply, most words are acquired like a “by-product” that is attained. when learner’s primary objective is to do something else such as comprehension of the material.. A well-known proponent of this view is Krashen, who considers language. acquisition including vocabulary knowledge as a subconscious process taking place when learners are paying focal attention on messages and using the language for communication (Krashen, 1989). Krashen claims that there are two conditions. necessary for language acquisition to occur—one is comprehensible input containing i. + 1, and the other is low affective filter. With regard to comprehensible input, he further argues that students have acquired most of their language knowledge through ample exposure to comprehensible input containing structure a little beyond their current. competence (i + 1), and this is done with the assistance of context, world knowledge and extra-linguistic information.. The other requisite lays the success in second language acquisition to attitudinal. factors. The Affective Filter Hypothesis put forward by Krashen states that there are a variety of affective variables showing strong relationship with second language. acquisition. Learners with high motivation, good self-efficacy, and low anxiety are more open to the input and generally can do better in second language acquisition. From Krashen’s viewpoint, he values the quality of input beyond all things since incomprehensible input would be only noise to language learners but not help;. simultaneously affective variables act as an impediment or facilitator to language acquisition.. Krashen further suggests six requirements for optimal input that could be regarded. as criteria of material selection—comprehensible, interesting/relevant, not. grammatically sequenced (i.e., natural input), quantity (i.e., substantial quantity), filter strength (i.e., low anxiety), and tools for conversational management (i.e., 9.

(19) communicative competence). By taking the principles of optimal input and the. characteristics of video material together, it suggests that video material seems to be. able to fulfill all the requirements. That is to say, when video material is well-selected, it may serve as a powerful pedagogical resource by providing learners with. considerable amount of input of quality, which will encourage second language acquisition to occur.. Relevant Methodological Principles Regarding Incidental Vocabulary Learning To examine incidental vocabulary learning from context, there are several. methodological principles needing to be deliberately taken into account in experimental design. Firstly, in operational terms, incidental and intentional learning can be simply distinguished by forewarning or not forewarning participants the subsequent tests on their knowledge. Hulstijn (2001) indicates that there are two experimental methods. employed in the studies of incidental and intentional learning, and the Type II design is adopted in most later research. In the Type II design, all participants are directed to. learn some of the stimuli while additional stimuli which learners are not instructed to learn are also presented to them at the same time. After the learning session,. participants are unexpectedly tested on their retention of the additional stimuli.. According to Hulstijn’s explanation, the key to provoking processes of incidental. learning of certain knowledge will lie in the pre-learning instruction. Take research aiming at incidental vocabulary learning for example. The pre-learning instruction. given by the researchers could be “try to understand the story, and afterwards you (i.e., students) will be given a comprehension test based on the material.” Owing to the. instruction, during the learning sessions, students will undergo intentional learning. when reading the text in order to get prepared for the subsequent comprehension test.. But learners will simultaneously have incidental learning in which they are exposed to. unfamiliar words embedded in the text without expecting to take tests to measure their acquisition of those novel words afterwards.. Second, incidental vocabulary learning entails appropriate lexical coverage of the. learning material. Lexical Coverage refers to the percentage of known words in text, which is a valuable predictor of reasonable comprehension of the material as well as. incidental vocabulary learning in the text (Webb & Rodgers, 2009a). If a text contains too many unknown words, little learning or successful guessing (i.e., the key to 10.

(20) incidental vocabulary acquisition) will take place (Huckin & Coady, 1999; Paribakht &. Wesche, 1999; Waring & Nation, 2004; Webb, 2008; Webb & Rodgers, 2009a). Owing to the decisive role of lexical coverage in language learning in a text, several previous studies (Hirsh & Nation, 1992; Hu & Nation, 2000; Laufer, 1986) aim to explore the lexical threshold, a percentage at which few learners below gain any significant comprehension or incidental learning.. Hu and Nation (2000) attempts to investigate (1) the relationship between. unknown word density and reading comprehension and (2) whether there is a lexical. threshold for adequate comprehension by testing 66 advanced learners’ comprehension in four versions of the text coverage levels—80%, 90%, 95%, and 100%. The results. indicate that there is a strong correlation between text coverage and comprehension. In addition, they estimate that if there is a lexical threshold, it is likely to be between 80% and 90% since all the readers reading at the 80% level have difficulty comprehending. the text while some reading the 90% version gain adequate comprehension. Therefore, according to the results of Hu and Nation’s (2000) study, for incidental vocabulary. learning to take place in a text, the lexical coverage level should be at least 90 %. In. other words, to stimulate word gains from context through incidental learning, at least. 90 % of the running words need to be familiar to the learners; otherwise, little learning will occur. Therefore, when selecting materials for incidental vocabulary learning,. researchers have to bear this in mind and search for level-appropriate materials for the target participants.. Thirdly, learning vocabulary from context is a cumulative process during which. learners gradually acquire and develop their vocabulary knowledge instead of gaining large amounts of word knowledge by initial meetings (Nation, 2001). In other words, rather than being measured by an all-or-nothing dichotomy, the acquisition of. vocabulary knowledge should be examined on a continuum. Accordingly, two. important principles in method design need to be taken into account when examining incidental vocabulary learning.. One of the critical factors in incidental vocabulary learning is word repetition. As. mentioned above, learning vocabulary from context is an incremental process in which word knowledge is acquired and strengthened by repeated encounters with the words in a variety of contexts. Limited vocabulary learning could be expected from single. meetings with a word (Nation, 2001; Waring & Nation, 2004; Webb, 2008). According 11.

(21) to Nation, the ideal number of encounters will be six times to the target words.. Although the present study may not ensure to provide the learners with six repetitions. of every target word in every video segment due to the time limit, repeated viewing is. guaranteed. The other methodological design of importance is that since it is generally assumed that vocabulary learning is an incremental process with noticing as the initial. step (Hulstijn, 2001), more than single one assessment should be developed to measure vocabulary acquisition more accurately.. Last but not least, when conducting research on vocabulary learning, the control of. participants’ prior knowledge of the target words is of vital importance. Among the. ways to measure students’ pre-knowledge of the target words, one common method is to ask participants after the experiment to indicate whether they knew the words prior. to the treatment. Then the researcher will exclude the pre-known words indicated by the participants from analysis. This method, however, may cause poor reliability due to students’ self-reported data. Hulstijn (2001) suggests designing a vocabulary test. administered prior to the experiment to tackle the problem of reliability. As Hulstijn. suggests, to measure the participants’ prior knowledge of the target words, they can be pre-tested by being asked to indicate the words they know and do not know on a word. list comprising target words, non-target words, and pseudo-words in random order. The yes-responses to pseudo-words will be subtracted from the number totaled from their. yes-responses to the real words. In this way, the concern about participants’ inclination to overestimate their lexical knowledge could be dealt with to some extent and leads to better control of students’ prior vocabulary knowledge.. In sum, when well-selected, audiovisual resource composed of multiple input. modalities, such as video material, is believed to serve as a potential instructional tool that provides a variety of contextual clues useful for incidental learning. This present study aims to determine whether EFL junior high school students would acquire. unknown words embedded in captioned videos phonologically and semantically. without being directed to do so. Experimental design of this current study is based on. the aforementioned methodological principles of importance in incidental vocabulary learning.. Captioning, an Aid or a Hindrance to Language Learning?. While language teachers have attempted to provide learners with ample exposure 12.

(22) to the target language happening in a natural context, video materials display promising. potential as an effective instructional tool that enables learners to be exposed to a large. amount of authentic comprehensible input. Besides, with the emergence of multimedia. learning environments and the accessibility of videos such as DVDs and video clips on YouTube, language learning today has found new effective pedagogical platforms. In fact, teaching and learning language in a multimedia environment is an unstoppable trend.. Now it is commonplace to say that video, the audiovisual material, is a beneficial. pedagogical tool that possesses characteristics to successfully motivate learners, build. up their confidence in understanding the information and lower their anxiety when they process the language of the material and will consequently help facilitate learners’. language learning. In addition to producing positive attitudinal influence on L2 learners, the effectiveness of video material is also supported by a cognitive information processing theory proposed by Mayer.. Drawing on Paivio’s dual coding theory, Mayer (1997) puts forward a cognitive. theory of multimedia learning based on three basic assumptions about how the human mind works—dual channels, limited capacity, and active processing. First, the. dual-channel assumption indicates that the human information-processing system. contains two channels—the auditory channel and the visual channel. When learners encounter certain stimuli, information presented to the ears will be processed in the. auditory channel (e.g., narration and background sounds) while information presented. to the eyes will be processed in the visual channel (e.g., animations and on-screen text). Based on the empirical evidence yielded from Mayer and Anderson’s (1991) study,. Mayer further claims that in multimedia learning in which learners receive more than one input modality, students can build connections between information processed in both channels, and this leads to better performance in understanding an explanation.. Second, the limited capacity assumption is that humans are limited in the amount. of information that can be processed in each channel at one time. Due to the constraints on the processing capacity of each channel, learners have to make decisions about. which piece of incoming information to pay attention to. According to this assumption, in multimedia learning when the visual on-screen text is added to the animation, the existing visual depiction, cognitive overload may occur because the processing demands in the visual channel may exceed the available processing capacity. 13.

(23) Third, according to Mayer and Moreno (2003), “meaningful learning requires a. substantial amount of cognitive processing to take place in the verbal and visual channels”. In multimedia learning, learners engage in three important cognitive. processes—1) paying attention to the presented material, 2) organizing the information into coherent representations, and 3) integrating the presented material in both channels with existing prior knowledge. In fact, the cognitive theory of multimedia learning not only explains the potential benefits of multimedia material such as videos but at the. same time indicates the possible impediment that may be generated from the presence. of captioning. Relevant discussion and more empirical evidence will be presented in the following section.. Captioning as a Hindrance to Language Learning. With the development of technology, video not only provides students with. motivational visual and auditory input, but also enables video viewers to have a wide. selection of the presence of on-screen text. However, the result of video viewing is still inconclusive when captioning is used in second language acquisition. While several existing studies have indicated the benefits captioning may have on L2 and FL acquisition, there are some doubts about the presence of captioning.. The major concern is that for second or foreign language learners, captioning may. be a distractor and viewers may rely on the visual words without paying attention to the oral input when reading the on-screen text (Borrás & Lafayette, 1994). The reliance on. captioning, in the long run, would be likely to breed learners’ laziness in video viewing and slow down the development of learners’ listening abilities; hence, the addition of captioning may be a hindrance to learners’ language acquisition.. The proposed explanation of why learners might ignore auditory input when. watching captioned video is the limited processing capacity. The redundancy effect. obtained by Sweller and Chandler’s (1991) study explains the relationship of material elements and learning effect. They suggest that if single element (e.g., visual images). can make learners fully understand the material, adding other elements such as text (i.e., redundant elements) will impose cognitive load and may lead to negative learning effects. Therefore, Sweller and Chandler (1994) assumed that acquisition may be. harder when the learning material contains a large amount of information compared with material containing less information.. 14.

(24) Accordingly, those who have concern about captioned video may regard it as a. material containing too much information since learners receive three types of stimulus simultaneously—visual images, audio, and text, and attempting to attend to all the three modalities may result in cognitive overload. The fact is that we are limited in the. amount of information that can be processed at one time and this limitation will force us to make decisions about which information to pay attention to when perceiving. multiple modalities in multimedia learning environment. So, the question: “Will. learners focus on the captioning and forget to listen when they are reading the visual words?” still requires further investigation.. Captioning as an Aid to Language Learning. Researchers and educators who believe in the beneficial effects of captioning, on. the contrary, often perceive captions as listening support. According to Schmitt (2000), when learners are exposed to oral input, segmenting the flow of speech stream into individual words is the initial step in understanding. He further indicates that the. parsing skill is a crucial task for both native and non-native speakers. Therefore, for second language learners whose linguistic proficiency level is not as good as native. speakers, the addition of captioning could be a powerful aid in language learning by. visualizing what they hear and indicating the word boundaries (Danan, 2004). Bird and Williams (2002) also indicate that with the assistance of captioning in phonological visualization of the auditory input, language learners tend to be more confident in comprehending the material.. Results of Vanderplank’s (1988) study provide empirical evidence of the. effectiveness of captioning. Two groups of students—1) fifteen European ESL students, ranging from high-intermediate to post-proficiency and 2) eight Arabic ESL students from low-intermediate to advanced, participated in the nine-week experiment. The. students were asked to watch captioned programs covering a variety of genres one hour a week, provide reflects, and undertake some activities related to the learning session. such as pair work and role-play. The researcher’s observation was also recorded during the experiments. Although results of Vanderplank’s study were mainly obtained from qualitative data without comparison of a control group, improved performance and. linguistic skills were evidently observed. He suggested that students did make progress by repeated exposure to captioned video over period of time. For example, findings of 15.

(25) this study indicated that over the nine-week viewing session, learners seemed to. develop their chunking ability gradually and were able to process longer strings of sound and text. Moreover, the participants’ feedback also reported the presence of. captioning helped the video materials easier to follow, and thus lowered their anxiety and boosted their confidence in viewing videos containing unfamiliar language.. Therefore, the researcher claimed that far from being a distractor, captioning. might have great potential to enhance second language acquisition. The rationale was. on the basis of class observation. He explained that both the improved chunking ability and confidence in video viewing derived from captioning may lead to spare capacity for conscious language learning. In other words, with the addition of captioning, learners tended to acquire more linguistic knowledge.. In short, from the brief discussion over the viewpoints of those who favor and. disfavor captioning, it is obvious that the argument of whether captioning is an aid or a hindrance to language learning is still inconclusive. In the following section, more empirical evidence of the effects of captioning on language acquisition will be presented.. Existing Studies on Effects of Captioned Video on Language Acquisition The effectiveness of audiovisual material has attracted researchers’ attention. during the past few decades. Among a bulk of studies, many of them have focused their attention on exploring the effects of caption availability. This section will review empirical evidence from existing studies dealing with the relationship between. captioning and second/ foreign language acquisition through viewing video material.. Definition of the two terms, captions and subtitles, will first be provided followed by. literature review on effects of captioning on language acquisition in L2 and FL context.. Existing caption-based studies will be reviewed in the following categories—effects on comprehension, effects on vocabulary acquisition, and the relationship with learners’ linguistic proficiency.. Definition of Captions and Subtitles. Generally speaking, there are two main options of on-screen text for video viewers. to choose from, and they are captions and subtitles. To avoid misunderstanding, it will. be necessary to clarify the two terms prior to moving on to literature review. According 16.

(26) to Markham’s (1999) definitions, a commonly used distinction between the two types of on-screen text is as follows: Captions refer to on-screen text in the same target. language as the video soundtrack and subtitles refer to on-screen text in L1 combined with soundtrack in the target language. Because captioning enables EFL learners to have maximal exposure to the target language while subtitles might cause lexical. interference (Guichon & McLornan, 2008), this current study aims to examine the effects of captioning only and so is the focus of the literature review. Caption-based Studies on Comprehension. There are perceived advantages in the integration of video material in language. instruction. The combination of different modalities of input displays great potential to expose learners to comprehensible input, encourage learners to notice language, and. may lead to increased language learning. Several existing caption-based studies have indicated that L2 learners can substantially improve their listening or reading. comprehension with the addition of captioning (Borrás & Lafayette, 1994; Danan, 2004; Garza, 1991; Hayati & Mohmedi, 2011; Markham & Peter, 2003; Vanderplank, 1988; Winke et al., 2010).. Garza’s (1991) study is a case in point. To investigate the effects of captioned. video on advanced learners’ comprehension and retention of the viewed/ heard content, he recruited forty college students of Russian as foreign language and seventy ESL college students to participate in the study. The learners of Russian and English as. target language were randomly divided into two groups respectively (with or without captioning) watching five video segments representing five different genres. Each segment was between two and four minutes in length and was viewed twice.. Following the initial viewing, the participants were given the comprehension. check questions in advance of the second viewing. After reading through the questions,. the students viewed the segment again and then finished answering the questions. After the administration of comprehension checks, five students were chosen randomly from each group to participate in an oral recall interview in which they were asked to recall information of the video segments and keep the language as close as possible to the original content.. The data generated from the comprehension checks in both target languages. indicated that the presence of captioning significantly improved second and foreign 17.

(27) language learners’ global comprehension of the language in the captioned videos.. Besides, results of the segment recall interviews revealed that students who viewed. videos with captioning consistently demonstrated a great tendency to remember and use the specific original words or phrases from the video segment.. Results of Garza’s study indicated that in addition to increasing comprehension of. the linguistic content of the videos, the addition of captioning to already visually and acoustically rich video materials may also promote the use of novel words acquired from the videos. Moreover, captioning may help bridge the gap between language. learners’ listening and reading competence by allowing the learner to employ his or her already-developed reading comprehension skills to help strengthen and gradually build skills in listening comprehension.. Results of Winke et al.’s (2010) study also demonstrated the beneficial effects of. captioning on listening comprehension as well as novel word recognition in the foreign language learning context. One hundred and fifty university-level foreign language. learners of Spanish, Russian, Arabic, and Chinese participated in the study and almost all of them were native speakers of English. During the treatment phase, researchers made the students watch three video segments twice, once with captioning and once without, in random order while the Spanish learners had two additional groups: one. watched the videos twice with captioning and the other watched them twice without captioning.. Results of their study showed that the effect of captioning order was not. significant for the comprehension test. However, the Spanish learners who viewed the. videos with captioning both times gained significantly higher scores on comprehension tests and novel word recognition tests than the learners viewing the videos without. captioning both times. Accordingly, the researchers attributed the better performance to the availability of captioning. Moreover, the qualitative data also indicated that many. participants reported positive attitudes towards captioning which served the function to draw their attention to the language in the video.. Caption-based Studies on Vocabulary Acquisition. In addition to substantially improving second and foreign language learners’. listening or reading comprehension of the video material, captioning has also been. demonstrated to benefit language learners in vocabulary acquisition (Markham, 1999; 18.

(28) Montero et al., 2014; Neuman & Koskinen, 1992; Sydorenko, 2010; Vanderplank, 1988; Winke et al., 2010). Among these studies, most of them focus on examining two aspects of vocabulary knowledge— word form recognition (written and aural) and the mapping of form and meaning. In this part, previous caption-based studies on different vocabulary aspects will all be reviewed.. With respect to written vocabulary learning, Neuman and Koskinen’s (1992) study. demonstrated the beneficial effects of captioning on incidental vocabulary acquisition by using a series of vocabulary measures. One hundred and twenty-nine bilingual. seventh and eighth graders of varying English proficiency levels participated in the 9-week study and were assigned to 4 groups: (1) captioned TV, (2) traditional TV. without captions, (3) reading along and listening to text without video stimulus, and (4) textbook only (as control group). Three science units were developed and selected from. 3-2-1 Contact series as materials and each unit was taught over a 3-week period. At the end of each week, the students in the first three conditions were given a written form recognition test and a test on information recall. At the end of the study, a 90-item. multiple choice test was administered to measure the knowledge of all target word meanings by presenting the words in isolation.. Results of the study indicated that the participants who viewed captioned-video. segments consistently outperformed others in written form recognition, word meaning, as well as recall of information. Accordingly, they suggested that providing multiple input modalities to bilingual language learners simultaneously appeared to improve. incidental vocabulary acquisition rather than overwhelming their attentional capacity. Another noteworthy result of Neuman and Koskinen’s study demonstrated the. importance of learners’ proficiency levels. By analyzing the relationship between vocabulary acquisition and participants’ proficiency levels, they suggested that. bilingual middle school students who were more proficient in English tended to make more vocabulary gains than others of limited English proficiency. Therefore, they concluded that captioning might have beneficial effects on learners’ incidental. vocabulary acquisition; however, the learning outcome depended on L2 learners’. linguistic proficiency; more proficient L2 learners seemed to benefit more from the captioning. In their terms, learning vocabulary incidentally by watching captioned video followed the law of Matthew Effect—“the rich get richer.”. Montero et al., (2014) conducted a one-shot experiment and suggested positive 19.

(29) results in line with Neuman and Koskinen’s findings by examining different types of. captioning. One hundred and thirty-three undergraduate students of French as second language were randomly assigned to four groups viewing three French video clips (each between three and five minutes in length) twice with—1) full captioning, 2). keyword captioning, 3) full captioning with highlighted keywords, and 4) no captioning (as control group). To ensure incidental vocabulary acquisition, the participants were informed of the comprehension tests beforehand, but were not forewarned of the subsequent vocabulary test.. Results of the study indicated that students in the first three groups (with. captioning) scored equally well on written form recognition test and significantly outperformed the control group (without captioning). In other words, it was the. presence of captioning, rather than the salient input such as keyword captioning,. benefited L2 learners’ incidental vocabulary acquisition. Overall, several existing. studies have demonstrated beneficial effects of captioning on written form acquisition. However, researchers also point out that this positive effect is quite predictable because to some extent, the written format of the vocabulary posttests tends to favor learners who are exposed to the visual text.. While the aforementioned caption-based studies focus on written form recognition,. Markham’s (1999) study extends the value of captioned video to spoken vocabulary acquisition. One hundred and eighteen advanced, university-level ESL learners. represented fifteen L1 backgrounds participated in his study. The multimedia materials were two video segments, about twelve minutes each, concerning different. topics—whales and civil rights movement. The participants viewed the two videos with or without captioning in alternating order. After they watched each of the video. segments, a 50-item listening-only multiple choice test was administered to examine listening word recognition.. Results of the study demonstrated that the university-level ESL students derived. substantial listening benefits in terms of aural form recognition from viewing captioned video material. In contrast, the students who viewed the videos without captioning. could recognize substantially fewer novel words in the listening-only test. That is to say, the improved performance on listening word recognition suggested that ESL learners. did not ignore the auditory input while captioning is available; in fact, students seemed. to be able to transfer the textual input (captioning) to subsequent listening tasks. In brief, 20.

(30) these findings responded to those skeptics who are concerned about the hindering role. that captioning may play in language learning and indicated that captioning serves as an aid to L2 learners.. Taken together, existing research reviewed above has demonstrated that captioned. video could be beneficial for either written or spoken vocabulary acquisition in second and foreign language acquisition. It is worthy of note that the presence of captioning does not invariably work in all cases. For instance, Sydorenko’s (2010) study which focused on exploring written and spoken vocabulary acquisition simultaneously. yielded different results. The study examined the effect of different types of input modalities (video, audio, and captions) on both written and spoken vocabulary. acquisition. Twenty-six university students who were beginning learners of Russian. participated in this study and were assigned to three treatment conditions: 1) video with audio and captions, 2) video with audio (without captions), and 3) video with captions (without auditory input).. During the learning session, the participants were asked to watch three authentic. video segments from a Russian comedy series; each of the video segments was two to three minutes in length. Before the first-viewing, the participants were instructed to. focus on meaning while prior to the second-viewing, they were directed to pay attention to the language. After viewing each of the three video clips, they took the tests. consisting of written and aural recognition, written and aural translation (from L2 to. L1), and word knowledge test to indicate their prior knowledge of those target words. At the end of the study, they completed a final questionnaire.. Results indicated that for beginning university-level learners with better reading. skills than listening ones, captioned video tended to aid their written form recognition and the mapping of form and meaning while non-captioned video tended to facilitate. phonological vocabulary recognition. The different effects of captioning on written and aural recognition indicated that the presence of captioning could enhance written. vocabulary acquisition only; to aural vocabulary recognition, however, the on-screen text appeared to be a hindrance. The conflicting results of Sydorenko’s (2010) and Markham’s (1999) studies call for more empirical evidence to shed light on the. relationship between the presence of captioning and students’ spoken vocabulary acquisition.. 21.

(31) The Relationship between Captioning and Learners’ Linguistic Competence. In general, existing caption-based research has demonstrated its positive influence. on second language acquisition. However, some studies indicate that captioning may not be useful in enhancing language learning of all learners. Empirical evidence of. some previous studies suggests that captioned video only benefits learners of higher linguistic competence of the target language while learners of lower linguistic. competence may gain relatively little language knowledge through watching captioned video material (Lwo & Lin, 2012; Neuman & Koskinen, 1992; Taylor, 2005).. As mentioned before, Neuman and Koskinen’s (1992) study also explored the. relationship between captioning and learners’ proficiency levels. To be more specific,. they defined the participants’ proficiency levels by oral English proficiency scores and examined the relationship between bilingual English middle school students’. proficiency level and incidental vocabulary acquisition through watching captioned video. The results indicated that the bilingual learners of high proficiency acquired more vocabulary gains than the students of lower proficiency in English.. The importance of learners’ linguistic level of the target language in. captioned-video viewing is also pointed out by Taylor (2005). Different from Neuman and Koskinen’s study, Taylor determined the participants’ linguistic levels by the length of previous study and aimed to examine the effects on foreign language. beginning learners. He divided 85 beginning students of Spanish at university-level. into two groups based on their length of previous study of the target language: students of 3-4 years of study and students of 1 year of study. The participants were randomly. assigned to watch a 10-minute video material with or without captioning. After viewing the video, they were given three tasks—two comprehension tests and one strategy self-report.. The statistic results reported that the students with more study outscored those in. their first year in the captioning session, but not in the no-captioning session. In fact, for first-year learners of Spanish, those in the captioned group scored lower than those in the non-captioned group. It seemed that the addition of captioning did not facilitate. first-year beginner-level college students’ comprehension; on the contrary, the presence of captioning seemed to be detrimental to their understanding of the video. Therefore, Taylor concluded that it was not the presence or absence of captioning affected. beginning learners’ comprehension of video material; instead, learners’ comprehension 22.

(32) depended on their length of study of the target language since students with more. classes in L2 would have more opportunities to be exposed to the target language.. Taylor’s study appears to confirm that captioning may not be as beneficial for. enhancing beginning learners’ comprehension as it is for more experienced learners. Moreover, the results from the strategy measure also indicated that more first-year. students than third-year students found the captioning distracting and had difficulty attending to all the three modalities (sound, image, and captions) at the same time.. Although both quantitative and qualitative results suggested the negative effects. that captioning might have on learners of less study, the report on strategy use from Taylor’s study showed that almost all the participants overwhelmingly perceived captioning as a useful tool for comprehension and the learners indicated that the. presence of captioning positively built their confidence in processing the content in foreign language. Accordingly, the researcher recommended continued systematic exposure to captioned video for practice in dealing with multiple input modalities simultaneously.. Moreover, Lwo and Lin (2012) also indicate that captioning seems not as useful as. what the results have shown in the previous studies; instead, effects of captioning. depend on learners’ L2 linguistic competence. Thirty-two EFL eighth graders in Taiwan participated in Lwo and Lin’s study. They defined the participants’ linguistic. competence by the scores of achievement tests in grade seven and divided them into. two groups: sixteen with high English competence (with average marks above 80) and sixteen with low English competence (with average marks of approximately 60). Students with high and low English competence were equally assigned to four. treatment groups: 1) no captions, 2) Chinese captions, 3) English captions, and 4) Chinese plus English captions, viewing two animations once. As a result, each. treatment group consisted of four students of high linguistic competence and four of low linguistic competence.. During the video-viewing session, the researchers used the oral repeating method. to collect the information about the students’ processing of the content when watching and listening to the video material. Therefore, once the learning session began, the. screen was paused scene by scene or sentence by sentence so that the students could. answer the researcher’s questions orally. Once they completed answering the question, the next scene in the learning system was played. After viewing the first lesson, three 23.

(33) tests—vocabulary recognition, vocabulary application, and sentence comprehension. were administered. After viewing both lessons, an interview was conducted for further exploration in students’ understanding and attitudes toward the learning sessions.. Although the procedure of data collection was quite disturbing and unnatural. compared with viewing videos in everyday life, Lwo and Lin’s study generated the results consistent with the studies mentioned above and they reported three main. findings of the study. First, the acquisition of vocabulary and reading comprehension via videos has little to do with the availability of captioning; instead, it depended on students’ linguistic competence in the foreign language. Second, students liked. captioning, either in native or foreign language, despite the slight difference in effects of different captioning on the learning outcome. Moreover, teenage learners mainly relied on visual images and auditory input as important tools for understanding the video content but not the textual input, captioning.. Given the empirical evidence from a body of research reviewed above, the. presence of captioning seems to have potential effects on improved general listening. comprehension and enhanced vocabulary acquisition of second and foreign language learners. However, some limitations and empirical gaps also emerge from previous. related studies and require further investigation. Summary of the previous studies on. caption effects reviewed above is presented in Table 1 below. Studies one to seven are those yielding positive caption effects on learners’ language acquisition while studies eight to ten indicate different results of learning from viewing captioned video materials.. 24.