Abstract

This study investigates how two captioning types can assist EFL learners in the listening comprehension of English video. The participants, 90 first-year non-English majors of the same English proficiency from a University in China were randomly assigned into three groups and watched three short English videos in one of the three conditions. The control group (n=30) watched the video clips without captions; the second group (n=30) watched fully captioned video clips; the third group (n=30) watched keyword captioned video clips. After viewing each video clip, all the participants took a listening comprehension test, including 4 multiple choice questions and true-or-false questions.

The results of the listening tests revealed that using captioned videos had a significant effect on the listening comprehension test of EFL learners. Additionally, there were no significant differences between the group with keyword captions and the group with full captions, but both were obviously better than the group with no captions. These findings suggest that teachers should use both keyword captions and full captions appropriately when teaching listening to EFL learners.

Keyword: caption, full caption, keyword caption, listening comprehension