Vocabulary Learning by Iranian Adult L۲ Learners via Extensive Viewing of Subtitled and Captioned TV Series

Television can be considered a rich, helpful, and valuable source to expose L۲ learners to huge amounts of comprehensible input so that they can improve their L۲ knowledge and, in particular, their L۲ vocabulary knowledge. This study aimed to discover how effective sustainable and extensive TV viewing can be in L۲ vocabulary learning, considering the language of the on-screen text (L۱ or L۲) and instruction type (preteaching L۲ items or not). Eighty L۲ learners (۵۸ female and ۲۲ male), who had an intermediate English proficiency and were divided into four groups, participated in the intervention over an academic term in a language institute. Participants viewed ۱۴ episodes of a TV series under four experimental conditions: (۱) captions and preteaching, (۲) captions without preteaching, (۳) subtitles and preteaching, and (۴) subtitles without preteaching. A pre/posttest design to examine the gains regarding both L۲ vocabulary meaning and form was adopted. Results suggested that extensive exposure to TV series positively affected the participants’ L۲ vocabulary learning, both in terms of meaning and form. Participants exposed to L۲ captions outperformed those who had received L۱ subtitles, concerning both L۲ vocabulary meaning and form. Finally, the analyses showed that, overall, the groups that had undergone preteaching performed better, regardless of the language of the on-screen texts.

کلیدواژه ها:

L۲ vocabulary learning ، Extensive TV viewing ، Captions ، Subtitles ، instruction