Điều tra về mức độ hiệu quả của việc sử dụng video có phụ đề để dạy kỹ năng nghe cho sinh viên chuyên tiếng anh năm thứ nhất, trường cao đẳng sư phạm thái bình

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ****** TRẦN THỊ HIỀN AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECTIVENESS OF

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

******

TRẦN THỊ HIỀN

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECTIVENESS OF

USING VIDEOS WITH SUBTITLES IN TEACHING LISTENING SKILL

TO THE FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS

AT THAI BINH TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGE

Điều tra về mức độ hiệu quả của việc sử dụng video có phụ đề

để dạy kỹ năng nghe cho sinh viên chuyên tiếng Anh năm thứ nhất,

trường Cao đẳng Sư phạm Thái Bình

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

******

TRẦN THỊ HIỀN

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECTIVENESS OF

USING VIDEOS WITH SUBTITLES IN TEACHING LISTENING SKILL

TO THE FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS

AT THAI BINH TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGE

Điều tra về mức độ hiệu quả của việc sử dụng video có phụ đề

để dạy kỹ năng nghe cho sinh viên chuyên tiếng Anh năm thứ nhất,

trường Cao đẳng Sư phạm Thái Bình

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Dr Hoàng Thị Hạnh

HANOI – 2017

DECLARATION

I certify that this minor thesis entitled “An investigation into the effectiveness of using videos with subtitles in teaching listening skills to the first-year English majored students at Thai Binh Teacher Training College” is the study of my own research and the substance of this research has not been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution

Hanoi, 2017

Signature

Trần Thi ̣ Hiền

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest thanks to my beloved supervisor

Ms Hoang Thi Hanh, PhD for the invaluable support, guidance, and timely encouragement she gave me while I was doing this research I am truly grateful to her for her advice, suggestions and useful materials right from the beginning when this study was only in its formative stage

I would also like to send my sincere thanks to my colleagues at the Foreign Language Department, Thai Binh Teacher Training College, especially Ms Ha Thi Lan – the Dean and Ms Ha Thu Nguyet – the Vice Dean, for their helps and advice when I do this work

Additional thanks go to the students who actively participated in this study and willingly shared their experiences with me

Special thanks go to all the lecturers who taught me throughout the MA Program, whose lectures were useful for my thesis and sources of my professional development

Last, but by no means least, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all the members of my family: my parents, my husband, my sons and my elder brothers as well as my sisters-in-law who have constantly supported, inspired and encouraged me to accomplish the thesis

ABSTRACT

This action research examines the effectiveness of using subtitled/captioned videos in teaching listening skill to elementary students and explores the students‟ attitudes towards this kind of listening activity The study was conducted at Thai Binh Teacher Training College in 2016 within nine weeks Ten first-year students in one class were involved in the study Different data sources, viz pre-tests, post-tests, progress tests, journal writing; and interviews were analyzed in triangulation with one another The findings reveal that using subtitled/captioned videos potentially has positive effects on listening in terms of listening comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, especially of the students who took notes while watching videos, and fostering students‟ interests and motivation However, sometimes subtitles/captions make students feel distracted because they had to watch the videos, listen to the sound and read the subtitles at the same time Accordingly, implications for appropriate video selection, and process and procedure of using videos with subtitles are proposed

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi

LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES AND CHARTS vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Method of the study 2

5 Significance of the study 3

6 Organization of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Listening and listening comprehension process 5

1.2 Multimedia language learning 8

1.3 Input from visual and auditory modalities 12

1.4 Using videos with subtitles (captions) in teaching listening 14

1.4.1 Definition 14

1.4.2 Listening comprehension benefits from captioned videos 15

1.5 Summary 19

CHAPTER 2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 20

2.1 Research design 20

2.2 Research questions 21

2.3 Data collection instruments 22

2.3.1 Pre-test and post-test 22

2.3.2 Listening progress test 22

2.3.3 Students’ journals 23

2.3.4 Interviews 23

2.4 Situational analysis 23

2.4.1 The setting of the study 23

2.4.2 The first-year listening program 25

2.4.3 The course aims 25

2.4.4 The teaching material 26

2.4.5 The teaching and learning approach 26

2.4.6 The participants 26

2.5 Action research procedure 27

2.5.1 Identifying a problem and collecting data 27

2.5.2 Analyzing data and generating hypothesis 28

2.5.3 Planning action and implementing the action plan 28

2.5.4 Collecting data to monitor change 30

2.5.5 Analyzing data and evaluating the change 30

CHAPTER 3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 31

3.1 The students‟ listening comprehension 31

3.2 Students‟ attitudes towards the teacher‟s using videos with subtitles (captions) in teaching listening skills 34

3.3 Discussion 37

PART C: CONCLUSION 43

1 Concluding remarks 43

2 Implications 45

3 Limitations and suggestions for further study 46

REFERENCES 47 APPENDIXES I

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ALTE: Association of Language Testers in Europe

CEFR: Common European Framework of Reference for languages FLD: Foreign Language Department

IAAL: International Association of Applied Linguistics

L1: First Language

L2: Second Language

KET: Key English Test

TBTTC: Thai Binh Teacher Training College

LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES AND CHARTS

Table 1: Students‟ listening comprehension scores each week during the

intervention 33

Table 2: Reported perceptions of listening to subtitled/captioned videos activity 35

Figure 1: Mayer‟s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning 10

Figure 2: A generative model of Multimedia Learning 11

Figure 3: Action research cycle 20

Chart 1: The difference in the students‟ listening comprehension scores 32

Chart 2: The average percentage of listening comprehension scores 32

Chart 3: Changes in listening comprehension of the whole class during the intervention 34

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

Along with other skills, listening has been of great importance as Brett (1997, p 39) stated that „listening is a key language skill, it has a vital role in the language acquisition process‟ Listening is an efficient channel to provide comprehensible input for students, consequently, improving listening ability helps to widen students‟ input However, listening seems to get less attention

by a number of learners as they suppose that listening is the most difficult skill among four skills At Thai Binh Teacher Training College (TBTTC), listening is a great challenge for many first year students, even the English majored students Almost all students at TBTTC graduated from high schools

in rural areas of Thai Binh province where they rarely had opportunities to learn and practice English generally and listening skills particularly As a result, they not only lack necessary strategies to fulfill the listening tasks but also have difficulties in catching the meaning from the tape because of lacking vocabulary and having troubles with pronunciation That they have numerous challenges in listening makes them be frustrated and no longer want to learn it worsens their learning listening Therefore, it is essential to create and maintain the students‟ interest in the lessons and avoid boredom in learning listening

Thus, in order to support students‟ input as well as motivate them in learning listening then improve their language acquisition, it is essential for teachers to find out an effective method of teaching listening When studying and doing research, I realized that using multimedia (subtitled or captioned videos) may help me to give much more support for my students and help

them initially have feeling of desiring to listen and being capable of listening

to English

The above reasons have encouraged me to carry out the study entitled:

„An investigation into the effectiveness of using videos with subtitles in

teaching listening skill to the first-year English majored students at Thai Binh Teacher Training College’

2 Aims of the study

The study is intended to investigate the effectiveness of using multimedia (subtitled or captioned videos) in teaching listening skill to English majored students of elementary level In order to gain this aim, the study seeks to answer the following questions:

- Question 1: To what extent does using videos with subtitles (captions) improve first-year English majored students‟ listening skill?

- Question 2: What are the students‟ attitudes towards the teacher‟s using videos with subtitles (captions) in teaching listening skill?

3 Scope of the study

This minor thesis was conducted in Thai Binh Teacher Training College in order to investigate the effectiveness of using videos with subtitles

in teaching listening skills to the first-year English majored students

4 Method of the study

4.1 Methodology

Action research design is used since it deals the problem occurring in listening lessons that I have been undertaking in my own classroom and I would like to improve my students‟ listening, give them more support in listening so that they can use them as a scaffold helping them have feeling of enjoyment in listening process and having capability to listen to English It is

a practical action research one because as pointed out by Koshy (2005, p 10),

its purpose is to research a specific situation with a view toward improving practice, to focus on small-scale research project, to focus narrowly on a specific problem and to be taken by individual teacher within a classroom at a college

4.2 Data collection instruments

Students‟ journals: This instrument allows the researcher to collect the students‟ point of view about teaching listening

Interviews: The main purpose of this data collection instrument is to make sure that the information collected from the students‟ journals has its validity and reliability, which helps trigger insights about the teaching

Pre-test and Post-test: Through these two tests, the researcher can find the difference in the students‟ listening comprehension, compare the results before and after the time of doing an action plan

Listening progress test: This test is taken weekly and the scores were recorded to see whether the students‟ listening comprehension would be improved week by week or not

5 Significance of the study

The findings of the study are believed to be useful for me, a teacher working at FLD, TBTTC to be aware of the essential role of videos with subtitles to the students‟ comprehension in listening lessons since the research area is completely new to me

6 Organization of the study

The study is designed with three parts as follow:

Part A Introduction, introduces the rationale of choosing the topic, the aims

of the study, the scope of the study, the methodology, the significance and the organization of the study

Part B Development, is divided into three chapters:

Chapter 1 Literature review; provides basic concepts of listening, listening comprehension process, multimedia language learning, input from visual and auditory modalities; and using subtitled/captioned videos in teaching listening

Chapter 2 Methodology; presents the methodology used in the study including the participants, the settings, instrumentation, procedure, data collection and data analysis

Chapter 3 Results and Discussion; reports and discusses the major findings Part C Conclusion; summarizes what is addressed in the study, points out the limitations, draws pedagogical implications and provides some suggestions for further study

Present studies on listening have different views from the former ones Helgesen (2003, p 24) stated that “listening is an active, purposeful process

of making sense of what we hear” Similarly, Rubin (1995, p 151) defined listening comprehension as „an active process of understanding speech in which listeners select and interpret information which comes from auditory and visual clues in order to define what is going on and what the speakers are trying to express‟ That is to say, listening is a very demanding skill which requires the listeners‟ abilities to make use of auditory and visual clues to

„work out not only what is directly asserted in the text, but also what is implied‟ (Brown & Yule, 1983) The definition also emphasizes the role of the two models of information input – auditory and visual Therefore, in order

to help learners deal with the challenging process, while teaching listening, teachers should give them more supports, especially visual clues, not just playing the tapes

Many other definitions of listening comprehension also indicate the kinds of stimuli or information the speaker and the listener exchange For

instance, Mueller (1980, p 335) claims that listening comprehension rises from „a complex interplay of linguistic and extra-linguistic, contextual (often visual) information cues‟ Coakley & Wolvin (1986, p 20) also speculate that listening comprehension is „a complex communication behavior, involving a process of receiving, attending to, and assigning meaning to verbal and/or non-verbal stimuli‟ In the same way, according to Brown (2001), listening comprehension is a complex process which takes more than just hearing the sounds, but transferring them to the brain for later processing Listening comprehension, in other words, is a long and complex process in which listeners have to use a wide range of strategies and techniques to react towards the perceived input

Based on how the listeners process the input, researchers have classified listening process into two types: bottom- up process and top-down process

on form‟

 Top – down processing

Flowerdew & Miller (2005, p 24) stated that top – down process is a model in which listeners use their previous knowledge to process a text, rather than depending on the individual sounds and words In other words, according

to Vandergrift (2002), top down process is the process in which listeners employ background knowledge or textual schema to make sense of what they hear The knowledge may be the general knowledge based on life experience and previous learning, or the knowledge of language and content used in a particular situation

However, in order to understand messages, listeners need to make use

of the interaction between both types of listening process because in fact, listening comprehension is not either top-down or bottom-up processing These two processes cannot be separated during the listening processing Brown (1990, p 54) pointed out that there are three aspects involving both top-down and bottom-up processes from which listeners can interpret a message Firstly, before listening, listeners use their background (top-down)

to predict the message Then, while listening, they use the phonological system and other discrete aspects of the message (bottom-up) to confirm or reject their predictions and also collect the information or details they haven‟t predicted After listening, they try to infer what the speaker meant In daily listening, we usually employ all these aspects almost all the time While listening, as we confirm or reject predictions, we make new predictions and are drawing inferences at the same time, as we continue listening and deciphering the phonological code Vandergrift (2002) also stated that

„listeners use content words and contextual clues to form hypotheses in an exploratory fashion‟ Nevertheless, to what extent listeners use the one process or the other principally depends on their knowledge of the language, familiarity with the topic or the purpose of listening For instance, listening for gist involves primarily top-down processing, whereas listening for specific information involves primarily bottom-up processing to comprehend all the desired details

Furthermore, cognitive psychology also finds that listening comprehension is a complicate process in which listeners have to make use of what they already know about the topic to make appropriate inferences to the speech‟s meanings Therefore, the more they know about the topic, the more the listening process is facilitated (Byrnes, 1984) For that reason, before letting her students listen, it is essential for a teacher to elicit her students‟ background knowledge, organize their thoughts to make predictions prepared for listening Their burden of comprehension, thus, is reduced significantly According to Harris (1989, p 54), using video, which provides visual information such as body language, gestures, expressions and other vital clues regarding the contexts, the speakers would be a great way of aiding students with using top-down processes to decipher listening texts Lemmer (2009) also concluded that using video can help students „determine context more easily, better infer meaning of unknown vocabulary and see gesture, expressions of speakers‟ He also pointed out that using video is less artificial because it reflects the real-life situations more accurately than having to listen

to tapes blindly, without any visual clues

In short, second language (L2) listening comprehension is a complex process, crucial in the development of second language competence Guiding students through the process of listening not only provides them with the knowledge by which they can successfully complete a listening task; it also motivates them and puts them in control of their learning Giving students more support such as visual input provided by multimedia can be a great option

1.2 Multimedia language learning

Thanks to the development of technology, it is easy to combine different types of media, such as texts, sounds, images, and video, which

enhances the expansion of multimedia learning Meskill (1996, p 179) states that „multimedia allows integration of text, graphics, audio, and motion video

in a range of combinations‟ Similarly, according to Mayer (2005b), multimedia is the combination of texts and pictures; and multimedia learning takes place when we build mental representations from these words and pictures or „when students receive information presented in more than one mode, such as pictures and words‟ (Mayer, 1997, p 1) Many cognitive researchers (Baddeley, 1986; Sweller, 1988, 1994, 2005; Mayer, 2003, 2005, 2009) argue that multimedia supports the way that the human brain learns and they claim that people learn more deeply from words and pictures than from only words, which is known as „multimedia principle‟ (Mayer, 2001) According to Mayer (2009, p 6), words consist of „speech and printed text‟ and pictures can be „static graphics (such as illustrations or photos) and dynamic graphics (such as animations or video)‟

Mayer (2009) states that for multimedia learning, instructional messages should be designed in light of how human brain works He assumes that humans have two information processing systems – one for processing verbal information and one for working out visual information Therefore, if the material is presented in verbal mode only, „the potential contribution of our capacity to process information in the visual mode‟ is being ignored (p 6) He explains more: „Presenting both is like presenting the material twice – giving the learner twice as much exposure to the explanation‟ (p 7) That is the reason why multimedia presentations should be made use of in order to take advantage

of „the full capacity of humans for processing information‟ (p 6)

The model in Figure 1 shows how the human mind actively works in multimedia learning According to Mayer (2005b), this is „a demanding process‟ (p 46) in which the words and pictures presented by multimedia are

processed flexibly through two channels (auditory channel and visual

channel) by three memory stores; and new knowledge will be stored in the

long-term memory when the combination of its verbal model and pictorial

model is integrated with people‟s prior knowledge

Figure 1: Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning

(Mayer, 2005a)

In the research „Multimedia learning: Are we asking the right

questions?‟, Mayer (1997) with his colleagues question why a student can

read or listen to every word of a science passage but cannot use that

information to solve problem Their research has produced convincing

evidence that the presentation of a verbal explanation of how a system works

does not insure that students will understand the explanation In their research

for ways to help students understand science explanations, they have come to

rely increasingly on multimedia learning The generative model of multimedia

learning (Figure 2) indicates the constructive process of meaningful learning

in a multimedia environment, in which Mayer (1997) emphasizes that for the

integrating process, the final process of working out the presented information

Inter- grating images

Organizing

words Organizing

images selecting

words

selecting Words

Pictures

Ears

Verbal model

Images

Sounds

Prior knowledge

MULTIMEDIA

PRESENTATION

SENSORY MEMORY

WORKING

in multimedia environment, to take place, „the visual representation must be held in visual short-term memory at the same time that the corresponding verbal information is held in verbal short-term memory‟ (p 5) In other words, learners can construct the link between verbal and visual stimuli more efficiently when the text and demonstrations are introduced simultaneously This conclusion used to be improved by Salomon (1989) when he proposed a model that explained the collaboration of textual and visual media by studying the features of media, and the characteristics of tasks and learners According to this model, there are five types of variables related to the process of learning from textual and visual media: stimulus variables, cognitive variables, task variables, and accomplished psychological functions

He calls the integration of these types of variables „visual supplantation‟ (Salomon, 1989: 77) – a process when explicit visuals „model (that is – supplant) the kind of imagery that learners should have conjured up on their own, assuming of course that such imagery is necessary for the acquisition of the material to be learned‟ (Salomon, 1989: 77) In other words, the process of learning is supported by visual supplantation only when there is a complementary association between the textual information and visual

information

Figure 2: A generative model of multimedia learning (Mayer, 1997)

SELECTING WORDS

INTERGRATING

ORGANIZING IMAGES

SELECTING IMAGES

Text

Visually-based model

Image base Illustrations

ORGANIZING WORDS

Verbally-based model Text base

Based on a set of researches, Mayer (1997) also finds that learners at low level of background knowledge and high levels of spatial capability benefit most from the contiguous performance of verbal and visual information

Brett (1997) studies the effects of the use of multimedia on listening comprehension and he finds that in comparison with listening supported by other media (audio or video combined with pen and paper), listening performance in a computer-based multimedia – „that delivers video and audio

in combination with text‟ (p 39) achieved higher level He indicates that learners seemed to appreciate „the efficiency of multimedia that has everything (video picture, aural input, written tasks, and the place for response and feedback) in the same place‟ and „multimedia seemed preferable

to audio cassettes for learning‟ (p 47)

1.3 Input from visual and auditory modalities

A variety of input modalities is now being used in language teaching because

it is believed that multiple modalities help to improve language acquisition Paivio‟s Dual Coding Theory (1986, 1991, 2007) assumes that verbal and non-verbal information are processed by two distinct but interactive systems –

a verbal system specialized for dealing directly with language and a verbal (imagery) system specialized for dealing with non-linguistic objects and events The activation of both systems results in better recall which explains why combining visual images with verbal information can improve second language learning

non-Many researchers (Al-Seghayer, 2001; Chun & Plass, 1996a, 1996b; Plass et al., 1998, 2003; Jones & Plass, 2002) agree that vocabulary learning can be enhanced if new words are explained with both verbal input and images rather than with only one of these stimuli Jones (2004) also finds that

the combination of visual and aural information helps L2 learners understand more, because any recognized visual information is handled spontaneously in working memory and made available for processing further linguistic input Moreover, in his research, Al-Seghayer (2001) found that multimedia supporting with video and text led to better vocabulary learning than that with still pictures and text combination Gestures and facial expressions in video input have been found to facilitate listening comprehension in the L2 (Hernandez, 2005; Sueyoshi & Hardison, 2005) Besides, Vandergrift & Goh (2012, p 219) state that adding a visual component to listening instruction increases the authenticity of classroom listening practice This brings students opportunities to practice listening in like-real-life situations, then become more active and confident in real communication which is the final aim of teaching listening They also conclude that aural information supported by visual mode can lead to better comprehension for L2 listening

According to many L2 listening researchers (Baltova, 1994; Gruba, 1997; Progosh, 1996; Wagner, 2007), in almost all the real-life listening situations, the listeners can see the speaker, which shows that L2 listening involves not only verbal information but also nonverbal elements Therefore, they state that visuals with speech can assist the comprehension of L2 listeners

As pointed out by Wagner (2007), supporting the aural input with visual components can not only provide more authentic L2 listening tasks, but also

„lead to more construct relevant variance in the assessments, allowing for more valid inferences to be made from the results of those assessments‟ (p 67)

Most foreign language teachers agree that videos expose students to authentic materials and provide cultural contexts for the language (Herron & Hanley, 1992; Swaffar & Vlatten, 1997) As pointed out by Chung (1999), video offers listeners the opportunity to „read‟ visual as well as aural

messages Students provided with a video source understand and retain more than those who have a printed or an auditory source only Rubin (1990) also argues that video can enhance listening comprehension if it is selected so that

it provides abundant cues for information processing

However, Baltova (1994) argues that due to visual images, authentic videos help with overall comprehension of information, but they do not boost comprehending of the language per se He says that in order to help learners comprehend the language, on-screen text is often augmented into videos

The next section will discuss the use of subtitles (captions) as an screen text in teaching listening

on-1.4 Using videos with subtitles (captions) in teaching listening

1.4.1 Definition

According to Sydorenko (2010), on-screen text can be various forms: subtitles (L1 text, L2 sound), reversed subtitles (L1 sound, L2 text), or captions (sound is in the same language as the text) Jacob B Scheffer (2014) states that the terms „captions‟ and „subtitles‟ are used somewhat interchangeably „Captioning‟, initially invented as a means to assist the impaired hearing for television, is the use of the same language text on a video screen concurrent with the audio of the spoken text (Price, 1983)

„Subtitles‟, as defined by Livingstone (2013), are usually in the viewer‟s L1

or other language text on screen concurrent with the L2 spoken audio, and the text may be paraphrased so that the text on the screen matches the scene However, according to Danan (2004), captions are „called teletext subtitles in Europe, with subtitles in the same language as the sound track‟ (p 68)

Therefore, in this study, I just focus on subtitles as captions with L2 sound and L2 text (both in English) In other words, the terms „subtitles‟ and „

captions‟ are used alternatively indicating the verbatim transcription of the original language (English) of the videos

1.4.2 Listening comprehension benefits from captioned videos

When being first used in foreign language classroom in the 1980s, captioning was believed to be a good way to improve learners‟ attention, decrease anxiety, boost students‟ understanding of what was heard, and increase motivation (Burger, 1989; Froehlich, 1988; Grimmer, 1992; Vanderplank, 1988) Then, numerous researchers studied whether captioned video is more beneficial than non-captioned video (Baltova, 1999; Danan,

1992, 2004; Garza, 1991; Markham, 1993, 1999; Neuman & Koskinen, 1992) The general agreement among these researchers was that captioning is beneficial for listening comprehension

According to Danan (2004), „audiovisual material with captions or subtitles is a particularly powerful pedagogical tool which can help improve the listening comprehension skills of second-language learners‟ (p 67) because captions aid language learning by helping learners visualize what they hear, especially if the input is slightly beyond their linguistic ability Vanderplank (1988) proposed that attaching English text subtitles to English videos is one way of helping learners of English to comprehend authentic video programs while preserving a target language learning environment Bird & Williams (2002) found that comprehension is supported by captions because they increase processing depth They conducted an experiment studying how a bimodal presentation (aural and visual) of new words would affect the learning of the words They considered the effect of three conditions on word learning: text with sound, text without sound and sound without text The results showed that in comparison with words presented by the other two presentation modalities, words presented by the

combination of text and sound resulted in better recognition memory Their results also provide evidence that the cognitive systems dealing with auditory and visual word recognition are highly interactive and fully interconnected It means that captions help to increase processing depth, which supports comprehension

Chiquito (1995) and Chung (1993) also showed that captions are beneficial for the comprehension of videos‟ details Chiquito (1995) observes that listening and reading simultaneously forces L2 students „to review the video in order to read the captioned text, listen again, or to compare speech and text depending on what they have just missed‟ (p 219) Subtitled video may help L2 students associate the auditory and written forms of words more easily and quickly than video without subtitles (Chung, 1999) This increases the comprehension of videos‟ details

In addition, captions can help with word recognition and vocabulary building Neuman & Koskinen (1992) conduct a series of increasingly complex tests demonstrated the beneficial effects of captions and they show that captioning is more beneficial to vocabulary recognition and acquisition than traditional television watching, or reading while listening

Moreover, Danan (2004, p 69) concludes that captions help make the video more intelligible by bridging the gap between reading comprehension skills and listening comprehension, which is consistent with the Garza‟s study (1991) Garza (1991, p 246) points out that providing students with a comprehensible graphic presentation of an utterance means giving them an opportunity to assign meaning to previously unintelligible aural entities, gradually building their aural comprehension in relation to their reading comprehension For example: A ESL student might view a video clip showing two students meeting after class One says to the other, „Djeetjet?‟; the other

replies, „No, dju?‟ The student may not understand first, but when the captions show, „Did you eat yet?‟ „No, did you?‟ as underlying language of the spoken text, the student quickly understands and makes the connection between the printed and the aural text (Garza, 1991, p 246) He emphasizes that students working with captions will likely not miss the aural clue of a captioned expression the next time he/she encounters it in speech

The second area involves investigation into the level of proficiency at which learners benefit most from captions The results of past research are mixed Markham (1993) concluded that captions were more useful for advanced learners when the video materials were more abstract or complex, and that captioning should be used only when the video material is difficult for the learners at levels of intermediate to advanced To some extent, Taylor‟s (2005) research showed the same result when she found that third- and fourth-year students in his research performed better than first-year students after viewing the video with captions Like the third- and fourth-year students, the first-year students expressed a positive attitude toward captions; however, they still found them distracting and made it difficult to attend sound, image, and captions Whereas, Guillory (1998) found that captions are beneficial for beginning-level students However, she pointed out that students at this level benefit more when only key words are presented as captions, rather than when captions are presented in full sentence because key-word captioning may not cause cognitive overload

Another issue that many researchers concern is the individual strategies students use when watching captioned videos Vanderplank (1990) found that learners who took notes while watching captioned video produced more accurate language on subsequent comprehension exercises Those who did not take notes understood as well as the note-taking group, but „could recall little

or none of the language used (just as those who take no notes in a lecture may recall little of what was actually said in the lecture)‟ (p 227) Vanderplank concluded that even though captions attract attention, in order to make captions more beneficial it is important to take more specific strategies related

to rehearsal or practice of what is taken in through the captions into consideration Danan (2004) also emphasized that captions can lead to remarkable improvement in learners‟ listening comprehension as long as learners are taught to take advantages of relevant strategies

However, whether captions are totally effective is still controversial One common objection raised by educators to the use of captions is that students may ignore the sound and concentrate only on the captions (Borras & Lafayette, 1994, cited in Danan, 2004) This might be because they fear that subtitles distract learners‟ attention, especially that of lower-level learners, from the actual spoken language to the written text and create a sense of laziness on the part of students (Taylor, 2005) To respond to this objection, Markham (1999) conducted a study involving multiple-choice tests administered orally The results showed that thanks to the subtitles, the students‟ ability to identify the key words is improved significantly when they subsequently heard them again In order to demonstrate that automatic reading of subtitles does not prevent the processing of the soundtrack,

d‟Ydewalle & Pavakanun (1997, cited in Kathari et al 2004, p 29) conducted

a group of cognitive experiments According to their study, there were slower reactions in the presence of both sound and subtitles, which suggested that more complex, simultaneous processing of the soundtrack and the subtitles was occurring They stated that the viewers‟ attention seemed in fact to be divided between both subtitles and sound depending on their needs, and

usually they devoted more time to subtitles when they need to process complex information

Another criticism for the use of captions that Danan (2004) mentioned on

is that captions do not improve learners‟ ability to comprehend new materials without captions To contend this criticism, Bird & Williams (2002, cited in Danan, 2004) conducted two studies which tested how listening ability is affected by captions regardless of semantics The results of these studies support that captions aid learners with the phonological visualization of aural clues, making them become more certain of ambiguous input, then form more exactly a memory trace of the words and identify more easily identical sounds without textual support (p 70)

In short, audiovisual materials enhanced with captions or subtitles have been shown to be a powerful educational tool in many ways, such as they improve the listening comprehension skills of L2 learners, maximize the effectiveness of language learning by helping students visualize what they hear, and enhance language comprehension and lead to additional benefits like greater depth of processing (Danan, 2004: 67)

1.5 Summary

In this chapter, the overall picture of the listening and listening comprehension process as well as models of listening comprehension is reviewed Also, the theory of multimedia language learning, and input from visual and auditory modalities is revised, especially some views of using videos with subtitles (captions) are focused in this chapter

CHAPTER 2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 2.1 Research design

Action research is selected for this research because of the following reasons:

Action research is advantageous in many ways Glanz (1999) points out that,

in the first place, it is feasible because the research is done by the practitioner (the researcher) in his/her own practical context and situation Although it is done in reasonable time, action research brings immediate benefits to teaching practice In addition, he states that action research directly affects a teacher‟s practice and enables him/her to renew the classrooms and promote instructional improvement Finally, all the stages of action research are implemented in a strict order which allows educators to systematically

address to topics and issues that affect teaching and learning in classroom

According to McBride & Scotask (1989), the procedure of the action research consists of seven stages and can be illustrated as follows:

Figure 3: Action research cycle (MacBride & Scotask, 1989)

(2) Collecting data

(7) Analysis and evaluation

„spiral to next circle‟

(1) Identify a focus of interest

or a problem

(4) Planning action steps

(5) Implementing action steps

(6) Collecting data to monitor change

(3) Analyzing data/ generating hypotheses

Action research is now becoming increasingly popular in language education It is a process in which some decisions about the teachers‟ future practice result from problem identification and analysis on daily practice Action research involves a self-reflective, systematic and critical approach

to enquiry by participants who are simultaneously members of the context in which the research takes place The aim of action research is to identify

„problematic‟ situations or issues that participants consider worth investigating in order to bring about informed changes in practice (Cohen & Manion, 1994)

Burns (1994) identified some essential features that help to distinguish action research from other forms of educational research:

1 It is small scale, conceptualized and local in character, identifying and investigating teaching-learning issues within specific situations

2 It involves evaluation and reflection aimed at bringing about continuing changes in practice

3 It is participatory, providing opportunities for communities of participants to investigate collaboratively issues of concern within their social situation

4 It is based on data collection and analysis which becomes the basis for changes in practice

With the above important reasons, an action research approach was selected

to fulfill the study

2.2 Research questions

This study seeks to answer the following questions:

- Question 1: To what extent does using videos with subtitles (captions) improve first-year English majored students‟ listening skill?

- Question 2: What are the students‟ attitudes towards the teacher‟s using videos with subtitles (captions) in teaching listening skill?

2.3 Data collection instruments

2.3.1 Pre-test and post-test

To assess the effect of the program on students‟ listening comprehension, two tests were administered to the participants before and after the treatment The tests were taken from „Cambridge English: KET‟ exam which tests all four English language skills at A2 level based on the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) The listening paper of each test consists of five parts with 25 questions (25 items) requiring listeners to understand announcements and other spoken materials when people speak reasonably slowly

Listening comprehension was calculated by the percentage of the total

of correct items The results of the two tests were finally calculated and compared to check whether the intervention improved listening comprehension or not

2.3.2 Listening progress test

After each week, in order to check the students‟ listening comprehension, the teacher gave them a progress test which was a mini test with ten multiple choice questions relating to the content of the video the students had watched I used the individual chart for the students to note their progress – test scores to see whether they would be improved or not after each week This information would be combined with the journal writing‟s comments to help the researcher have a right direction in discussing and teaching listening strategies to the students in the following listening lessons

2.3.3 Students’ journals

To investigate the students‟ attitudes towards listening with the support of captioned videos, students were asked to write a report (journal) after each listening lesson This course of action is new to the students because this is their first semester at the college and they have never done this activity before To narrow the scope of their feedback, the researcher gave them a set

of guiding questions helping them to focus on these areas: their attitude towards the support, the benefits (if any) of the support, the difficulties they encountered, and the strategies they used while listening with the support The information from these journals then was analyzed in comparison with the journals written by students before the intervention to discover the changes of students regarding the above areas

2.3.4 Interviews

According to Koshy (2005), the main purpose of conducting interviews is

to collect richer, more honest and informative responses

The interviews were also set up before and after the treatment to make sure that what they said was consistent with the information they wrote in their journals and to get further information about their attitudes towards the ways the teacher teaches listening with and without subtitled/captioned videos Following the recommendation of Koshy (2005), the researcher recorded the interviews by her mobile phones for further analysis because it was impossible to take notes on all that was said during the interviews

2.4 Situational analysis

2.4.1 The setting of the study

The study was conducted at the FLD, TBTTC, Thai Binh which known as junior teachers education college for the whole province before For recent years, it has been opening more chances to the students having different

career purposes from teaching after graduation The students at the FLD have

to complete a three-year course in which English is a major subject Thus, English is taught in a formal setting with two stages During the first one, which lasts for one year, the students study general English in the form of four practical skills, namely, speaking, listening, reading, and writing By the end of the freshman stage, their English is of intermediate level, good enough

to communicate in English about everyday life activities For the last two years, the students continue studying these skills at the higher levels In the second stage, when the students are in the second or third years, they will have a chance to deal with such subjects as grammar, phonetics, semantics, lexicology, English and American literature, methodology, etc The first stage

is considered to be important to the students‟ development of the four communicative skills since they have more time and opportunities to practice these skills basically and systematically

Of the four skills being taught, listening is considered the most boring and the most difficult one to be acquired The difficulty lies not only in students‟ abilities to listen to the language, but also in working out what they listen to in order to fulfill the given tasks at the same time The skills involved in listening are complex L2 listeners have to pay attention to higher level skills

of organizing and analyzing as well as lower level skills of spelling, pronunciation The difficulty becomes even more pronounced if their language proficiency is weak In the meantime, when entering this college, the students are mostly beginners in English listening Unfortunately, for recent years, the input student quality has been estimated much worse than ever before Therefore, for the teaching to produce optimal learning results, apart from making use of theories into practice, teachers should constantly and step-by-step change the method as well as apply innovation right in their

classroom I hope that the use of multimedia (subtitled/captioned videos) will

be a basis for improving teaching English listening to my students

2.4.2 The first-year listening program

For these three years, listening skill has been combined with speaking skill, an indispensable component of the three-year listening and speaking course designed to train the full-time students in their first year at the college The program consists of 60 periods; 50 minutes for each period in classroom divided into two semesters The first semester includes 30 periods in which two are for two tests; one is for review; and 27 are lessons in classroom In this semester, the students have 15 units with different topics: meeting people; shopping; food and eating out; staying with a family; banks, post offices and bureau de change; health; at an airport; hotels; traveling; tourism; helping customers and colleges; goods and services; phone calls; talks and presentations; seminars and expressing opinions In the second semester, the time distribution is the same to the first semester with other topics familiar with students‟ life

2.4.3 The course aims

In the introduction to the course book written by Craven (2008) and Logan & Thaine (2008), the main aims of the course are to encourage autonomous learning by focusing on learner training; and to help them develop listening and speaking skills in accordance with the ALTE (Association of Language Testers in Europe) Can-do statements which describe what language users can typically do at different levels and in different contexts

In order to accomplish these significant aims, it is essential to give students suitable support for their autonomous studying Multimedia (subtitled/ captioned videos) is hoped to be such a scaffold