An Effect of English Subtitles on Listening Comprehension:Content Comprehension and Vocabulary Recognition

An Effect of English Subtitles on Listening Comprehension:Content Comprehension and Vocabulary Recognition

This study is an attempt to investigate the effect of English subtitled video clips on listeningcomprehension and vocabulary recognition. For this study, 38 freshmen in English educationdepartment at a university in Seoul were selected and divided into two groups. Group A watchedfour English clips with English subtitles, and Group B watched the same English videos withoutsubtitles. The two groups received the same test. Two-way MANOVA was conducted todetermine if there is a significant difference in comprehension and vocabulary tests betweengroups and between three different English listening proficiency levels. The result indicated thatthere was no significant difference between groups and listening proficiency levels on theperformance of both tests. Therefore, this study concluded that English subtitles do not affectthe students’ understanding on contents and vocabulary recognition. However, from the focusgroup interview, students argued that English subtitles had an impact on understanding andvocabulary learning. Future studies with more students and other listening materials are neededso that they will be able to find some relationships between subtitling and students’performance.