Original scientific paper
Effective Use of the Media: Video in the Foreign Language Classroom
Slavica Čepon
; Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Abstract
Because there is no study in the existing literature to address the usefulness of video exposure to teach a foreign language (FL), the present article has tried to close this research gap. The study reveals the impact of unassisted video exposure on FL lexis and grammar acquisition, reading-based general comprehension and writing skill. The study first employs quantitative pre- and post-test surveys, and then qualitative in-depth interviews with students at the Faculty of Economics in Ljubljana. The key finding is that a video format is useful for teaching/learning a FL in terms of FL abilities, quantitative results indicate that writing shows greater acquisition effects than reading-based general comprehension. FL grammar was the least impacted upon, whereas vocabulary acquisition shows the most beneficial effects. The interviewees’ reflections from in-depth interviews suggest that by exposing native speakers of Slovenian to subtitled video viewing optimal conditions for them to lower their extraneous cognitive load were created. The learners who learned the most were the ones who were adequately predisposed towards FL stimuli to improve their FL performance. Furthermore, video viewing induced lower levels of FL classroom anxiety compared with normal apprehension in FL class as well as the feeling of being able to claim responsibility for their own FL learning. These findings echo the outcomes of the studies that reinforced the positive effects of anxiety-free learning environment with a low affective filter of FL learners and equally low extraneous cognitive load. Moreover, the study confirmed the importance of the learners' high involvement in a FL stimulus that enables FL input to be internalized in form of FL intake. Moreover, the enhanced performance was achieved without any conscious knowledge of the underlying system, which may be seen as evidence of implicit FL learning.
Keywords
media; video viewing; subtitling; cognitive load; foreign language
Hrčak ID:
105681
URI
Publication date:
27.6.2013.
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