The Effect of Captioned Videos on Iranian Advanced EFL Learners' Listening Comprehension

The use of technology in general and multimedia in particular has increased rapidly during the past decades. One of the areas of research which has gained much attention in the literature of ELT is the use of captioned videos as a rather modern technology and its effect on developing the listening comprehension of ESL/EFL learners. The purpose of this study was to find the effect of captioned videos on the listening comprehension of advanced Iranian EFL learners in the context of private language institutes. For this purpose, ۳۰ advanced EFL students were selected and homogenized based on the results of a Cambridge IELTS listening comprehension test which served as the pre-test of this study. They were then randomly assigned into control and experimental groups. The experimental group watched movies with captions while the control group received the same movies without any captions. The results indicated that captioned videos did not affect the listening comprehension of the experimental group as the experimental group. Based on the obtained results, it was concluded that providing captions for Iranian EFL students do not increase their listening comprehension, but it could be helpful in overcoming some of their listening comprehension difficulties. The results of this study have clear implications for both learners and teachers and other stakeholders of ELT. They can use captioned videos as a multimodal teaching and learning opportunity to lower the anxiety and processing demand and improve the learners' learning skills.

Keywords:

Captioned Videos , Listening Comprehension , EFL Learners