Teaching with Technology

Article #7

The importance of listening in language learning is often overlooked because human beings have a tendency to look at speaking as the major index of language proficiency, when it is actually listening competence that is larger than speaking competence.  If you look back over the past decades you will notice that language-teaching methodology was preoccupied with spoken language.  Too often language learners were practicing phrases orally they  didn’t even understanding.  In the late 1970s, a variety of research studies showed evidence of the importance of  input in second language acquisition.  Simultaneously, researchers were examining the importance of how learner’s converted input into intake,  or how it is stored in the a learner’s competence.  Listening comprehension is an interactive process and language teachers need to stress its importance to language learners because without it it may cause difficulty in processing speech (Brown 299-300).

Multimedia language learning material has become important in second language classrooms because it is “an important avenue of research in Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL)” (Grgurovic 45).  Pedgogical materials stressed the importance of input modification and interaction.  This study was conducted to provide evidence that “subtitles or transcripts are more effective in providing modified input to learners” (Grgurovic 45).  A small group of intermediate ESL college students were the focus of this study, which was a multimedia listening activity containing a video of an academic lecture and offered the students help in the form of captions and transcripts.  The result showed that the students interacted with the captions more than written help options.

The results of this study showed that the language learners preferred using subtitles more often and for longer periods of time than transcripts.  “Overall, the results showed that the participants spent less time interacting with help options that was anticipated when the study was set up (Grgurovic 61).  The major argument in this study is that students prefer subtitles and use them more often than transcripts; therefore, CALL designers should offer both options “rather than superimposing a prescribed route” (Grgurovic 61).  This study also points out that the view of the second language acquisition theory resulted in low comprehension because it did not offer subtitles or transcripts as an option. 

Brown, H. Douglas. Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy.  3^rd Ed. 2007. Pearson Education, Inc. pp299-300

http//llt.msu.edu/vol11num1/grgurovic/