The Effects Of Different Subtitling Modes On Chinese EFL Learners’Listening Comprehension

The application of multimedia technology in English classrooms has gained inpopularity in recent years, as many researchers believe that English videos providelearners with authentic language communication scenes, and therefore can increasetheir enthusiasm in language learning and deepen their understanding of the targetlanguage and its culture. However, most Chinese EFL learners have trouble in fullycomprehending the language of English videos through only listening as theirlistening is relatively poor. Foreign research on the effects of video subtitling onlanguage learning began in the1980’s. In recent years, more research has beenconducted to investigate the effects of video subtitling on foreign language learning,specifically, the effects of subtitling on learners’ listening comprehension, the effectsof subtitling on incidental vocabulary acquisition, comparison of the effects ofcaptioning and subtitling. The findings from those research studies are of greatreference value for foreign language teaching.The current research investigated the effects of different subtitling modes onChinese EFL learners’ listening comprehension. The following research questions areposed for the study.1. Are there significant differences in the effects of Non-subtitling, Englishcaptions, Chinese subtitles, dual subtitles on global listening of Chinese EFLstudents?2. Are there significant differences in the effects of Non-subtitling, Englishcaptions, Chinese subtitles, dual subtitles on local listening of Chinese EFL students?3. Are there significant differences in the effects of Non-subtitling, Englishcaptions, Chinese subtitles, dual subtitles on vocabulary recognition of Chinese EFLstudents?Through convenience sampling,121non-English major freshmen studyingscience and engineering from four natural classes in China University of Geosciences (Beijing) were recruited as subjects for the research. Listening proficiency test andbackground information analysis showed the subjects’ listening proficiency in the fourclasses was comparable before the formal test. The four classes were randomlyassigned to one of the four test conditions: non-subtitling, English captions, Chinesesubtitles, and dual subtitles. Subjects in each condition were required to complete acomprehension test immediately after watching the test video materials and tocomplete a questionnaire on how they answer each question.The research found that:1) The three subtitling groups performed significantly better than thenon-subtitling group. Therefore, captions/subtitles significantly helped the subjects’comprehension. However, no significant difference was found between the threesubtitling groups.2) The subjects did not do the comprehension test well. One possible explanationfor the general poor performance is that the subjects were not used to the presentationformats in the test, which in turn hampered their information processing.3) Despite subjects’ reported preference for dual subtitles in the questionnaire,the test results found no significant difference between the dual subtitling group andthe other two subtitling groups.The current research supported previous research findings that subtitling cansignificantly enhance viewers’ comprehension. Results different from previous studieswere also found, e.g. dual subtitles did not have a significant advantage in enhancingsubjects’ comprehension and no significant difference in comprehension was found bythe three subtitling modes.