Improving foreign language listening through subtitles: The effects of subtitle language and proficiency on Dutch high school and university students' perceptual learning in English

Abstract

This study investigated the influence of watching subtitled videos on perceptual learning in a foreign language, and whether language proficiency related to this influence. Dutch high school and university students watched an English video that was accompanied by either English, Dutch, or no subtitles. Before and after watching the video, they took a dictation task to measure their English speech perception. The results show that using English subtitles and no subtitles leads to similar scores of speech perception. They also show that using Dutch subtitles still leads to better scores after watching the video, the scores are lower than when watching the video without any subtitles. This seems to be the case mostly for listeners with a lower proficiency level. This result was however not confirmed in a follow-up analysis and therefore difficult to interpret.

To conclude, listeners should take subtitle language into account when watching foreign videos.