Vocab Development: Effects of Watching Captioned Movie Clips on EFL Learners

The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – TOJET April 2009 ISSN: 1303-6521 volume 8 Issue 2 Article 4

EFFECTS OF WATCHING CAPTIONED MOVIE CLIP ON VOCABULARY
DEVELOPMENT OF EFL LEARNERS
Assist.Prof.Dr. Dogan YUKSEL & Assist.Prof.Dr. Belgin TANRIVERDI [e-mail] ABSTRACT
The current study examined the effects of watching a closed-captioned movie clip on incidental vocabulary learning in a pre-test post-test experimental design. 120 college students from a college preparatory class, who were learning English as a foreign language (EFL), participated in the study. Two weeks before the treatment, all of the participants completed a 20-item vocabulary knowledge scale (VKS) that was adopted from Wesche and
Paribakht (1996). One month after the treatment, they were given another VKS with 20 words. The participants were randomly assigned to one of the two groups: Group A (movie clip with captions); Group B (movie clip without captions). T-test analyses were conducted to examine development between and within each group.
Results revealed that both groups demonstrated significant gains based on the VKS, and Group A improved more in the post-test. However, the development between the groups was not significant. Pedagogical implications of the study are discussed in the end.
Key Words: Use of technology in EFL, captions, English-as-a-foreign-language, teaching vocabulary.
INTRODUCTION
Using captions and/or subtitles to facilitate the comprehension of video materials is taken for granted by many teachers and researchers. Moreover, many educators believe that television programs with captions seem to provide a rich context for foreign language acquisition. It is also argued that viewers are, generally, quite motivated to understand what is shown and said on television when the captions are provided (Danan, 2004).
Many educators recommend their students to watch TV and movies with captions in the belief that being exposed to the

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